If you're looking for a budget smartwatch, there's never been more choice. And unlike in the past, cheap sub-$100/£100 smartwatches stack up as very useable options.
The likes of Amazfit, Honor and Xiaomi are making genuinely powerful smartwatches for low prices - and we're seeing plenty of competition emerging from the likes of Redmi, Poco and Realme.
While top smartwatches like the Apple Watch Series 9 and Google Pixel Watch 2 still command top prices for features like ECG and a wide array of third-party apps, there's an influx of less expensive devices going big on features and little on price.
If you want something slightly more established than the dregs sold on Amazon, check out our guide pulled from devices we've tried and tested.
- No money constraints? Check out the best smartwatches
- Find out the best smartwatches for Android users and iPhone users
- Svelte and stylish: All of the current best smartwatches for women
Amazfit Active
Wareable
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Amazfit Active key features
- 1.75" AMOLED display, bright & clear
- 14-day battery life (typical use)
- Tracks heart rate, sleep, GPS & activity
- Smart features: calls, music, Alexa
A new entrant into our best budget smartwatch round-up, the Amazfit Active is a true all-rounder that impressed us in our testing.
The $149/£129 price tag puts it at the upper end of what we'd class as a budget smartwatch – but you get so much for your money here.
It's not the best looking smartwatch ever, but it's sleek and lightweight.
The AMOLED screen is a big upgrade on the Bip 5 (below), and Amazfit packs in new health and fitness features such as Daily Readiness and its AI coaching.
We put it through its paces and found GPS accuracy to be more than passable, and as long as you wear it nice and tight, heart rate accuracy was on par with big-name rivals, too.
The health features are a little lacking, but sleep tracking is detailed and well presented, and the Amazfit app offers a good experience with plenty of analysis.
The only real downside is the general feel of the OS, which is certainly very basic.
In short, the Amazfit Active is a superb budget fitness smartwatch, which offers way more than its price tag should allow.
Amazfit Bip 5
Wareable
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Amazfit Bip 5 key features
- 10-day battery
- 24/7 heart rate tracking
- Over 120 sports modes + GPS
- Alexa on the wrist
The latest Bip – the Amazfit Bip 5 – brings a host of improvements that make it a seriously good budget smartwatch pick. The screen has been enhanced, with a 320x380 TFT display. It’s not AMOLED quality (which falls short of the CMF Watch Pro and Honor Watch 4) but it just about does a good enough job to hide its budget status.
The Bip 5 offers GPS, which produced decent accuracy results in our testing, with a heart rate sensor with SpO2. While heart rate while exercising wasn’t excellent, it produced some good sleep and basic health data – all well analyzed within the mature Zepp Health app.
Battery life is also excellent, and 10 days is easily achievable with the advanced breathing and health tracking turned on. And the Bip 5 even has Alexa support built in.
The main downside is the build. It’s chunky and plasticky, and it’s not a pleasing watch to wear. The aim is to drive people towards the more premium Amazfit GTS 4 Mini – but if you can look past design, there’s a lot to like here.
Honor Watch 4
Wareable
£129.99 | Honor Store
Honor Watch 4 key features
- 1.75" AMOLED display
- 14-day battery life
- GPS
- 100+ workout modes
The Honor Watch 4 seriously impressed us in the budget smartwatch category and ended up with our Best Affordable Smartwatch 2023 award.
It brings an excellent mix of sleek looks, impressive fitness smarts, and a slick experience.
Unlike many budget smartwatches, you get a quality 1.75-inch, 450 x 390 resolution AMOLED display.
It’s a well-constructed smartwatch with a nicely weighted aluminum case that's matched up with a silicone strap.
And it goes further than just looks. It's fair to say Honor offers a lot on the fitness and sports tracking front.
The Honor Watch 4 includes navigation features that can point you back home when you’re tracking outside. It also enjoys built-in GPS that stood up to our accuracy testing.
Overall, it’s a good all-rounder, with a sleek design that doesn’t feel cheap. The Honor Watch 4 is a top pick if you're shopping on a budget.
Read our full Honor Watch 4 review.
CMF Watch Pro
Wareable
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CMF Watch Pro key features
- 1.96" AMOLED display
- Bluetooth calling with AI noise reduction
- GPS and 110+ sports modes
- Up to 13-day battery life
Smartwatches don’t come much cheaper than the CMF Watch Pro – which comes as a sub-brand for tech upstart Nothing. The build and design are excellent, with a 47mm case and aluminum alloy construction that’s lightyears ahead of rivals at this price.
That big case houses a lovely 1.96-inch, 410 x 502-pixel resolution AMOLED touchscreen, and again, it's rare to see a screen of this quality and size on a smartwatch that costs less than $100/£100.
However, it’s important to note that this smartwatch only has an IP68 rating, so it’s not fully water resistant for swimming.
There’s also GPS, which produced decent accuracy over long runs – if not quite up to the best in the business.
The only let-downs here are some bugs in the software and heart rate accuracy was also poor in testing – but if those aren’t your focus, this is a great wearable at a top price.
Read our full CMF Watch Pro review.
Huawei Watch Fit 2
Wareable
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Huawei Watch Fit 2 key features
- Compatible with iPhone and Android
- GPS
- 1.74-inch, AMOLED display
- A week of heavy-use battery life
The Huawei Watch Fit 2 is a fantastic hybrid fitness/tracker and smartwatch, with a focus on exercise tracking, and a super low price.
Every edition features 46mm-sized cases that measure 10.8mm thick, and include a 1.74-inch, 336 x 480 resolution AMOLED touchscreen display with a single physical button on the side of the case. It's a gorgeous screen, which is put to good use with the 100+ workout profiles, and reading notifications and messages.
In terms of metrics, the Watch Fit 2 brings tracking steps, sleep, heart rate, stress, blood oxygen levels, and menstrual cycles. Huawei also includes its Health Living clover, reminders to remind you to drink water, smile, and keep your step counts up among other things.
Huawei has improved outdoor tracking and has added dual-band, five-system GPS, so you can track outdoor workouts. Its app isn't the best for analyzing workout data, but it will sync to Strava, so you can have your data live there.
Heart rate accuracy during exercise was generally fine for steady-paced workouts, but it was no surprise to find it struggled to keep up with sudden spikes and drops in heart rate during high-intensity use.
In more heavy usage, you are looking at a week of use between charges and we'd say that's based on regularly using the GPS, having the screen nice and bright.
Read our full Huawei Watch Fit 2 review.
Oppo Watch Free
Wareable
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Oppo Watch Free's key features
- Compatible with iPhone and Android
- 46mm case size
- 1.64-inch, AMOLED display
- A week of heavy-use battery life
The Watch Free is Oppo’s riposte to the likes of the Huawei Watch Fit 2, a smartwatch-fitness tracker hybrid with a focus on fitness.
It features a full AMOLED display, which is a big upgrade on the likes of the Bip 3 Pro – and improves visibility and usability. It’s adept for reading notifications and workout data.
Battery life of 14 days catches the eye, but with heavy use, advanced sleep-tracking, and SpO2 turned on, we found it was more like 4/5 days.
When it comes to tracking your fitness and health, there's a focus on elements such as sleep, heart rate, and continuous blood oxygen tracking.
There are 100 sports tracking modes, with some decent analysis – and importantly, solid HR accuracy on steady workouts. But there’s no GPS here, so if you want to go for a run and have it tracked accurately, you will need to take your smartphone along for the ride.
The Oppo app platform is well-presented with lots of watch faces to choose from but lacks third-party integrations, and there are no third-party apps.
Poco Watch
€79 ($84/£66) | Poco, Power Plant Online
Wareable
Poco Watch's key features
- Compatible with iPhone and Android
- 1.6-inch AMOLED, 320 x 260 resolution
- 39mm case size
- GPS
- 14 days of' typical use' battery life
A clone of the Mi Watch Lite and Redmi Watch 2, the Poco Watch brings an AMOLED display with a 1.6-inch, 320 x 260 pixel-per-inch resolution to the party. And it even has an optional always-on display, which is very rare at this price point.
It’s compatible with Android and iOS smartphones, too, as well as bringing 100 fitness modes and GPS to the party, meaning it can track the likes of outdoor runs or cycles more accurately.
There’s a heart rate monitor that unsurprisingly produced some iffy results in our testing, but, for those looking for basic tracking of workouts, we found solid distance tracking when the GPS was used.
There’s also some decent health tracking, with slightly over-generous sleep tracking, but reasonable accuracy for a device at this price.
Poco touts that the 225mAh capacity battery can last up to 14 days in 'typical usage mode'. From our real-world testing, we'd say it's about seven days – half of Poco's estimate. But that's still a decent return, and those who don’t work out much will get more.
Overall, the Poco Watch is an impressive performer offering excellent value for money. It comes recommended.
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.