How we’ll be testing smartwatches in 2026 on ZDNET

With advanced features like voice assistants, crash detection, call and text support, and long battery life, modern smartwatches are more than just an accessory. And thanks to powerful sensors and extensive app suites, they’ve also become one of the most popular health and fitness trackers.

How do we test and evaluate these smartwatches at ZDNET? How good is the watch supported by a smartphone companion? What functions and features are specific to each smartwatch? Here are the full details.

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In most instances, the smartwatches we evaluate here at ZDNET are purchased after they’ve been released to the public, so there’s no rush to try to publish a review based on a short period of time with the watch. The watches are required to be worn at least 24/7 to test battery life, health and wellness tracking, GPS positioning accuracy, heart rate sensor reliability, and various design features.

We have relationships with most smartwatch brands, so we can send questions about the watch when evaluating it and ask for clarification on hardware, software, and other aspects. We also test some third-party apps, but with thousands of apps available on most of these watches, your personal experiences will differ from our testing.

Smartwatch performance depends on a person’s body geometry, the fit of the band on the wrist, the specific smartphone the watch connects to, cellular reception quality (for connected models), and more. We provide readers with our perspective from testing watches with larger wrists and phones.

Price and battery life do factor into our recommendations, but are less important since most smartwatches only last a day or two between charging, unless you’re considering more fitness-focused smartwatches that have fewer third-party apps and battery life measured in days or weeks. Most modern smartwatches also range from $300 to $500, so there’s not a huge price element to consider.

Why is Smartwatch ZDNET recommended?

A smartwatch serves as a companion to a smartphone and rarely stands alone. Since we’ve excluded price and battery life above, the basis of whether or not a smartwatch is recommended is determined by five other factors. Your priorities for these five factors may differ from ours, but we started wearing smartwatches more than 20 years ago (Fossil wrist PDAs powered by Palm OS) and we have refined our testing and evaluation processes.

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The five factors we evaluate in order of importance are core functionality and performance, build quality and durability, health and wellness, applications and advanced features. Advanced features are aspects of a smartwatch that differentiate it from competitors and can be targeted at specific types of users.

How will we test smartwatches in 2026

Main functionality and performance

To justify occupying space on your wrist, a smartwatch must reliably deliver core functions. If a smartwatch creates any friction in the user experience, it is unlikely to gain adoption as a daily wearable. First and foremost, the watch should show you the time clearly at a glance. Smartwatches have evolved over the years with custom watch faces that match your outfit and/or your personality, so each watch can be different from others with the same model.

Some watches enable even more watch faces, with various complications or widgets showing you viewable information beyond the time and date. Watch faces with complications also usually support finger tap responses, where upon your activation a display full of advanced metrics and trends will appear. Third-party apps often add custom complication options, so there are many ways to customize and customize your watch face.

One way a smartwatch differentiates itself from a standard watch is that it acts as a remote for your phone and provides an accessible means to triage your key notifications so your phone can stay on the charger, in your pocket, or in your bag. Smartwatches allow you to quickly view notifications without completely removing you from your current activity. Voice-to-text has also improved significantly over the years, allowing you to quickly and easily respond to many notifications from your watch.

These core functions should also work reliably, with the time and notifications visible whenever the user needs to see them. If a smartwatch offers inconsistent performance, it’s probably going to be put up for sale or locked away in a drawer. We don’t need wearable devices that draw our attention unless they’re perfectly in sync with the connected phone.

We pair smartwatches with different phones, connect them to cellular service, measure consistency in receiving notifications, track the reliability of launching complications, and keep an eye out for inconsistent behavior as we evaluate each watch.

Build quality and durability

Every smartwatch today has a level of water resistance that helps you wear your watch in most conditions, although not all of them support being submerged in water for long periods of time. The watch face is covered with tough glass that is resilient to scratches. The bodies of most watches are made of polymer fiber, aluminum, titanium, or stainless steel, and have buttons to press and/or rotate to navigate the user interface.

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Default watch bands come with your original purchase, but most smartwatches support standard 20, 22, or 26 mm bands. Amazon has a nearly unlimited selection of watch bands, so you can find a reliable band that will keep the watch on your wrist even during strenuous activities.

We document any scratches that appear on the screen, wear the watches in the rain and during physical activities, and test different bands as part of our evaluation. You can see several options we like to use with our Apple Watch Ultra.

health and wellness

One of the biggest improvements in smartwatch technology over the past few years has been the integration of advanced health and wellness features previously found in dedicated health devices. Some of these dedicated sports watches went the other way and adopted smartphones by integrating notifications, third-party applications, messaging, and more, so we now see a convergence of these technologies in smartwatches.

Apple is moving aggressively to integrate advanced health and wellness into the Apple Watch and recently showcased several new features coming soon in watchOS 11 that will challenge its competitors. Health and wellness tracking makes perfect sense in a smartwatch as battery life improves and ecosystems are built that provide practical insights and guidance to help smartwatch users improve their health and wellness.

Google’s latest Fitbit Premium service with AI Coaching takes things to the next level, thanks to the intelligence provided by the Gemini and the most customizable training planning options ever seen on a smartwatch. Samsung has also embraced AI, and offers an engaging custom coaching experience with Samsung Health. With the advanced health and wellness experiences provided by both of these companies, Apple needs a major overhaul of the basic Apple Health experience.

Smartwatches are no longer just used by casual athletes, but professional athletes are using them to help improve their performance as detailed sleep tracking, recovery metrics and performance trends are accurately provided with smartwatches that also serve as the first mobile device they wake up in the morning.

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The health and wellness test is my favorite aspect of evaluating a smartwatch because it helps me motivate myself to run, bike, hike, row, walk, sleep, and participate in activities to test the accuracy of location tracking, heart rate monitoring, and more. I pay for the subscription and use it DC Rainmaker Analyst To compare the data I capture from different smartwatches.

Application

In the early days of smartwatches, third-party apps were quite limited. Today, Google, Samsung, Apple, Garmin and others have embraced developers by extending smartphone applications to the watch form factor. Apple sets the standard with the number of apps available, extensive app features, and interface optimized for smaller screens, but Google’s renewed focus on Wear OS has created serious competition for space on your wrist.

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Google’s applications have been revitalized with the focus of its partnership with Samsung on the Galaxy Watch platform, but there are still several shortcomings that become apparent when you compare the Google Wear smartwatch to the Apple Watch.

When we test smartwatches, we have a core set of 10-15 applications that work well on the smartwatch, and we test which watches these applications work with and how well those applications work. Currently, Google closely matches what Apple offers, but lacks in depth of functionality in many cases.

advanced features

This last factor is often the most interesting part of my review process because it’s where I find out what a smartwatch can do above and beyond the standard fare. We saw 2025 be the year of satellite support on smartwatches, with Google, Apple, and Garmin providing connectivity to objects in space with varying levels of communication support. All three of these satellites offer SOS support, so if you’re ever out of cellular range and need help, you can initiate emergency services.

Garmin has set the standard with its fantastic LED flashlight capability that I use every day. We’ve seen others (Suunto and Amazfit) launch sports watches with LED flashlights, and I expect we may soon see Apple, Samsung, and Google offer this key functionality.

Apple’s Watch Ultra 3 automatically launches a cool submerged water interface when you take your watch to a pool or lake to exercise. Some Samsung models have a rotating physical bezel, where you can rotate the dial around the bezel of the watch to quickly scroll through lists.

Other common advanced features include music controls, accident/incident detection and notification, navigation, hands-free voice assistance, and blood pressure monitoring (with Apple’s new hypertension detection feature, and on Samsung watches outside the US). There are still many other potential features and functions to come in future watches, so stay tuned as we continue to explore these advanced features and look into the future of hologram wearables.

I use reviewer guides and even open up the manuals to try to find these advanced features on various smartwatches. After spending time with watches, I also look at reviews from other people testing the watches to find advanced features. It’s also helpful to dive into the multiple levels of settings in watches to discover advanced features. Today’s smartwatches are marvels of engineering, and you could spend days and weeks diving into all the details, functions, and options found in them.