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SmartwatchRadar

Best Sports Watches

Watches built for training first: built-in GPS, long battery life and training metrics.

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176 smartwatches

What sets a sports watch apart

A sports watch is built around training rather than apps: built-in GPS, battery life measured in GPS hours, training metrics like VO2 max and recovery, and buttons that work with sweaty or gloved hands.

Start with the sport you do most. Runners should look at running watches, multisport athletes at triathlon watches, and hikers at watches with offline maps.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need multi-band GPS?

It helps most in cities with tall buildings, deep valleys and dense forest, where single-band GPS drifts. On open roads, single-band GPS is usually close enough.

How much GPS battery life is enough?

For training, 15 to 20 hours covers a week or more. For marathons it's easy. Ultra races and multi-day hikes call for 40 hours or a max-battery GPS mode.

Can a sports watch be my everyday smartwatch?

Mostly. Sports watches cover notifications, steps and sleep, and many add contactless payments. They usually skip app stores, so they are less flexible than an Apple Watch or Wear OS watch.