Comparing popular smartwatches right now

Smartwatches can measure everything from your heart rate to your step count to the distance you've covered in a run. But which ones are most accurate, and which ones are worth using? So I want to bring in Vanessa Hand Orellana. She is CNET'slead wearable tech reporter. What a title, first and foremost. That's a very cool job title. So let's start with the rate monitoring and how accurate these smartwatches are. And thanks to you, you brought in a number of them that you have tested. Yes. Correct. Thank you for having me. OK, so let's talk about that, yes. And so I focused my testing on five of the most popular smartwatches in the market right now. We have the Pixel Watch. This is Google's one, Galaxy Watch. This is Samsung. This is a sport watch, Garmin watch. And this one's the Apple Watch. And this one is our budget pick, which is $80, the Amazfit Bip 6

Budget pick here. And for this test in particular, I actually took them on 30 miles of running, so a lot of running over the course of six weeks. And there was three things that I was testing for. One was heart rate, which was the most important one. The other one was distance, and the other one was steps. And I was really looking to find the most accurate one in the bunch because a lot of these, we're doing fitness tracking. We're kind of relying on them for all the stats. So I just wanted to make sure that they're being truthful about what they tell us. Yes. OK, do you have a top favorite? I definitely have a standout. Are you allowed to say? I am allowed to say. OK, good. So for the heart rate specifically, that's where we noticed the biggest difference in accuracy. And I tested them. This is a heart-rate strap. This is kind of the gold standard that we use at CNET, and you strap it over here. It's right above your chest. And this is what I used to test them all against, and the Apple Watch was actually the closest one to the chest strap. It was like only 1% difference in terms of just tracking your heart rate, meaning it's very, very accurate. Now, that being said, I was kind of surprised because I thought the sports watch was going to do better for heart rate, but it came in second. And all of them, these are our top smartwatches, so all of them were pretty, pretty close. But if you're looking for that really high-intensity fitness tracking, the Apple Watch was the closest one. Absolutely. OK, we did give a gift to my father, who is in his late 80s, to track his heart monitoring, kind of as a health gift. These can also track some serious health conditions, and you have some personal experience with that, right? Absolutely, and I did the exact same thing that you did. I have a personal story about this. I was testing the electrocardiogram on the Apple Watch, and I had gone to the hospital. This was for a story for CNET. I wasn't actually at the hospital. And I was testing it against a hospital-grade electrocardiogram. And all of a sudden, the machine and the Apple Watch started telling me that I had this weird extra heartbeat. And, of course, I'm freaking out here. What's wrong with my heart? And after kind of finding out that it was benign and that it went away on its own, it turns out that it just kind of put things in perspective for me of how much they're tracking and how important accuracy and how serious these wearable devices are in terms of tracking our health and kind of monitoring our loved ones, to your point. 100%. And even on the flip side to the young ones, you and I were talking, we both have three kids. Mine are older than yours, and so I like to track where they are. Now, for your little ones, you have decided not to have a watch on them just yet because they're fidgeters, right? Yes. I mean, they're in elementary school. I can just see them like tinkering with their smartwatches. So what I have considered, however, is just the GPS part of it. Yeah, that's a good one. So that's what I recommend for parents with younger kids. But definitely if you don't want to give them a smartwatch, this is a great gateway into having that control over where they are without giving them a full-fledged smartphone and the access to social media, for example. So with tweens and stuff, I definitely recommend wearables versus a full-on iPhone. And then let's just go back to the health issues and health concept. Everyone wants to track their steps. I've done this many today. I've got to go. I've got to go do some more steps. Do you have a favorite? You know what? We've come to the point where all of these were really, really accurate. OK, they do the job. Yeah. I tested them 5,000 steps each, and they were within 10 steps of each other, so I kind of feel weird declaring a winner. You don't have to spend $550 on the sports watch to get accurate step count. You can spend the $80. Yeah, you were saying this was the budget one, so that's good. Exactly. So you recommend them all for different reasons, obviously, but if you have a price point or your specific needs, then each one kind of has its own selling point. And your phone is kind of going to dictate-- if you don't have an iPhone, you can't use the Apple Watch. And so in that case, you would move on to the sports watch or the budget pick, which are all good picks. And are these waterproof? All of them are waterproof, so you can kind of take them to-- if you want to track your swimming as well, those will all work for swimming and any kind of sport you can imagine. Wonderful I need to get with the program then, you know? And now there's smart rings and now smart jewelry. Oh, this is true. So you have a full range of options, not just smartwatches. Oh, that's it will track your sleeping then, too, right? Absolutely. Yeah, and that's where battery comes in, and that's a whole different story. But yeah, a lot of these are now lasting more than just the day. So you're meant to sleep with them as well. Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Of course. Thank you so much for having me. All right, Vanessa, we'll have you back with more smartwatch information. Absolutely. Looking forward to it. Thank you.