The best smartwatches for Android

After a long stretch of slim pickings, the last couple of years have been huge for Android smartwatches. Now there are more good options than ever.

But this is still a transitional era. While we're encouraged by the stronger third-party app options, the market is still fragmented. Wear OS5 is here for Samsung's Galaxy Watches and the Pixel Watch 3. However, the larger ecosystem is still catching up. Some features, like Google Assistant, are not yet available on certain Wear OS 3 smartwatches, and Wear OS 4 still isn't widely available. Even so, the Android wearable ecosystem is barreling ahead.

If you'd rather wait until Wear OS settles down a bit, there are platform-agnostic smartwatches and fitness watches you can buy in the meantime. Otherwise, you'll want to be aware of the chip and Wear OS version powering your watch. Mobvoi, for instance, took forever rolling out Wear OS 3 to its eligible Wear OS 2 watches. It just announced rollout for Wear OS 4. Speaking of Mobvoi, its TicWatch Pro 5 was the first to sport the new Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Plus in the US, and while it's a great watch, you may want to wait until there are more W5 Plus watches to choose from. That said, the base W5 chip is also pretty good. The Pixel Watch 3 and OnePlus Watch 2 both sport the W5 and have notably better performance and battery life.

So long as you keep the aforementioned caveats in mind, Android users have more smartwatch options than ever before. I've rounded up my top picks, but if none of these is the right fit, you can always check out our fitness tracker guide. 

Best smartwatch for Samsung phones

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic (43mm, Bluetooth)$280$40030% off$280$280$40030% offThe rotating bezel returns on the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. While the updates are iterative, you now get Wear OS 4, One UI 5 Watch, larger batteries, and a larger display thanks to the 15 percent thinner bezel.$280 at Amazon$280 at Best Buy$330 at Samsung

Sizes: 43mm, 47mm / Weight: 77g, 85g / Battery life: Up to 30 hours with AOD, 40 without AOD / Display type: Always-on OLED / GPS: Built-in GPS / Connectivity: LTE (optional), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi / Water resistance: Up to 50 meters, IP68 / Music storage: 16GB