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Best smartwatches in India: Top smartwatch picks from ₹ 3,499

The great thing about smartwatches is that the best ones to put on your wrist are getting easier to get hold of wherever you are, and that includes India.

Apple, Samsung and Fitbit's finest are all available now plus options from the likes of Amazfit and Realme. That means you don't have to spend big either to get a good connected watch experience.

We've comprehensively reviewed and tested smartwatches of all price ranges, so picked out the ones that warrant your attention. Whether you're looking for your first smartwatch or not happy with the one you have right now, you should find something below that'll be a good fit.

Read on for our pick of the best smartwatches to buy in India.

Amazfit GTS 2 Mini

For those that don't want to spend big, the Amazfit GTS 2 Mini get our vote for one of the best budget smartwatches to buy.

The family of Amazfit watches is huge, but the Mini stands out for all the right reasons. It's got a good quality square AMOLED screen, built-in GPS along with access to 60 sports modes and a BioTracker 2.0 PPG sensor giving it the ability to monitor heart rate and blood oxygen measurements.

It's an option for Android phone and iPhone users offering simple notification support, music controls, missing out on the built-in music player, Amazon Alexa support and the ability to take calls over Bluetooth. What is there does work without any major issue and it uses an operating system that's easy to get to grips with.

It's a competent fitness tracker if a little generous with sleep monitoring and using features like monitoring heart rate and enabling more advanced sleep tracking features does have an impact on battery life too. We're talking 4-5 days with all features in use and the potential of getting the promised 14 days if you scale back those features.

It's no Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch, but what the GTS 2 Mini does is punch above its weight as far what it delivers for that affordable price.

Read our full Amazfit GTS 2 Mini review.

Amazfit Bip U Pro

The Bip U Pro comes in cheaper than the Amazfit GTS 2 Mini (above) and while there's some flaws, it still a great value budget smartwatch and fitness tracker in one to consider.

Available black, green and pink looks, you're getting a plastic watch case that wraps itself around a 1.43-inch HD color screen that lacks the colourful punch you get on the GTS 2 mini, but does the job on the visibility front.

Along with fitness tracking staples of counting steps and tracking sleep, there's 24/7 heart rate monitoring and the ability to take blood oxygen measurements. That heart rate monitor also fuels stress tracking and can be used for exercise too.

You can also use the PAI health scores, which are driven by how regularly you work your heart through exercise. There's 60 dedicated sports modes with activities like running, cricket and dance. Built-in GPS you'll be able to accurately track outdoor runs, rides and walks.

As a smartwatch, you're getting notification support, music controls and it even finds room to add in Amazon Alexa. So you can ask your queries and you'll get responses displayed as long as you're connected to your phone.

The Bip U Pro delivers on the promise of 9-days battery life as long as you don't go heavy on GPS usage and you're monitoring heart rate continuously with larger interval readings (like 5 minutes). If you like the idea of your first smartwatch with strong fitness tracking skills, the Bip U Pro certainly fits the bill.

Read our full Amazfit Bip U Pro review.

Realme Watch S

Realme, an offshoot of Oppo, has square and round watch options in its relatively small and new family of smartwatches. There's also actually a Watch S Pro, but we've tested the Watch S and think it ticks the key boxes as a cheap option. Especially if you're not a fan of the square look of the similarly priced Amazfit GTS 2 Mini.

The 47mm-sized smartwatch includes a good quality 1.3-inch, 360x360 AMOLED touchscreen partnered up with a 22m interchangeable band. You don't have an always-on display mode here and as a package it's not fit for swimming or showering with.

It only works with Android phones giving you smartwatch features like notifications, controlling music playback on your phone and a nice collection of watch faces to pick from.

There's an optical heart rate monitor and support for blood oxygen measurements with GPS support when paired to your phone. It covers the fitness tracking staples too including sleep monitoring and that's where it performs best. It's not the best when you turn to it for sports tracking.

Realme gives you big battery life promising up to 15 days and it's absolutely capable of that with its most power-hungry features in regular use.

The Amazfit GTS 2 Mini will get you a more feature-rich budget smartwatch experience, but there's still aspects we like about what Realme offers in its round watch compared to its first smartwatch effort.

Read our full Realme Watch S review.

Realme Watch

There's also a square Realme Watch, which comes in less than the round Watch S and offers a nice array of features and a smart design for the price.

The case is light at just 31g and it houses a 1.4-inch, 320 x 320 touchscreen colour display that isn't best in class or offers an always-on display mode, but does offer good visibility in outdoor light.

It's an Android-only option giving you notifications, music controls that works with services like Spotify, weather forecasts and the ability to change up watch faces. It's the basics, but the basics work well enough.

It can track steps, monitor heart rate 24/7 including during sleep and that does mean there's sleep monitoring here too. There's an SpO2 sensor here too to take on the spot blood oxygen measurements and those measurements can be viewed in the companion Realme app.

You're getting 14 sports modes with connected GPS support to let you piggyback off your phone's GPS to improve distance tracking. You also have the option of automatic exercise recognition, though it didn't quite work for us in our time.

The promised 7-9 days of battery life came in around 4 days in our testing when all of its features are put to regular use.

As a fitness-focused smartwatch, it does the basics well and give you a surprising amount of features for your money.

Read our full Realme Watch review.

Redmi Watch

Redmi, the sub-brand of Xiaomi offers this budget square smartwatch, which is essentially the same watch that goes by the name Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite in other territories.

Best smartwatches in India: Top smartwatch picks from ₹ 3,499

It comes in three different colors with all options brandishing a 1.4-inch, 320x320 TFT LCD display that's good quality for the price. There's also a soft touch TPU strap that is removable if you want to switch up the look.

As a smartwatch, you'll get notifications for apps and incoming calls, a vast collection of watch faces and the ability to control music playing on your companion Android phone or iPhone.

There's an optical heart rate monitor to continuously measure heart rate 24/7 and during exercise. Built-in GPS and Glonass support means you can more accurately track outdoor exercise with a total of 11 sports modes covered. That includes pool and open water swimming, hiking and indoor and outdoor cycling.

It has those fitness tracker staples here too, including sleep monitoring, tracking duration, and breaking down sleep stages. So you're getting a feature-richer tracker and sports watch experience for the money.

Battery life is 10 days in typical use with 10 hours of GPS battery life giving you a nice amount of outdoor tracking time before it's time to charge up.

It's a cheap smartwatch, but one that still offers plenty of features for not a huge amount of money.

You can read our full Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite review to find out what to expect.

Honor Watch ES

The Honor Watch ES is a smartwatch that gives you the look of a fitness tracker but still offers you a strong quality screen and features to make it a good affordable option.

You've got your pick of white and pink color looks with a 1.64-inch, 456x280 AMOLED touchscreen display offering punchy colours and a bright place to show off your fitness stats and the onboard smartwatch features.

There's 95 workout modes covered including automatic exercise recognition for core activities like running and walking. You can follow workouts directly from the watch with animations taking you through bite-size sessions to help you kick up a sweat.

Huawei's TruScreen 4.0 heart rate monitor will keep tabs on your heart all day and night and unlocks stress monitoring and more advanced sleep monitoring stats too. There's an SpO2 monitor to help track blood oxygen measurements and women's health tracking available in the companion Huawei Health app.

It'll dish out notifications when paired to Android phones and iPhones while Android users will also be able to access music controls to skip tracks and hit play/pause when music is playing on your phone.

Battery life is 10 days with fast charging support letting you get another week's worth of use from a 30 minute charge.

It's not your typical smartwatch look, but don't hold that against the Honor Watch ES. It's got some great fitness features and that sharp, colourful screen makes it a nice one to glance down and interact with too.

Apple Watch Series 6 and SE

Apple Watch Series 6

This might be a predictable one, but ultimately, if you own an iPhone and you want the smartwatch that offers the best, most integrated experience, it's the Apple Watch Series 6 that you want. If you want to save a bit of money and still get that great smartwatch on your wrist, then you can opt for the Apple Watch SE instead.

The Series 6 comes in two size options and we'd definitely opt for the larger option, even if you're the owner of slimmer wrists. You'll get Apple's crisp, high quality Retina display that can be used in an always-on mode.

You're getting the best Apple currently has to offer in sensors and smarts including an ECG sensor for serious heart health monitoring and access to the blood oxygen app to keep tabs on data that's designed for fitness and wellness purposes currently. These are the key things missing from the Series SE, if you wonder where you're mainly losing out.

There's snappy built-in GPS to track outdoor activities and the Series 6 has one of the best performing optical heart rate monitor sensors we've tested on a smartwatch too. It's a great fitness tracker and now Apple offers its own sleep tracking software that should only get better over time.

For those core smartwatch features, you have the great Apple Pay, slick notification support, cellular connectivity support, some of the best app support on smartwatch and a music player, which now offers offline playlist support for third party apps like Spotify.

Apple sticks to the same 18 hour battery life claim, with the ability to go a little further depending on what features are in use.

It's a smartwatch that just works and whether you go Series 6 or the SE, you'll be very happy with the Watch on your wrist. If you want to spend less and still get that great Watch experience, the Series 3 is still worth considering too. It features smaller size options and misses out on ECG, blood oxygen support and LTE support, but the core features that makes Apple's watches great are still there to make it one to consider.

Read our in-depth Apple Watch Series 6 review our Apple Watch Series SE review and Apple Watch Series 3 review.

Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2

If the look of the Apple Watch really doesn't do it for you and you want something that can largely match it for features, we'd suggest looking at the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2. You do of course have the option of the Galaxy Watch 3 for a larger watch option, but we think the Active 2 is the Samsung smartwatch you should go for.

Like Apple, Samsung offers two size options and again, the bigger 44mm Active 2 feels like the best size for most. The band is removable too and you can find plenty of good first and third party apps to pair up with it for a smarter or even sportier look.

Front and centre is a 1.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen display that's up there with the best smartwatch screens you can find. While it misses out on a physical rotating bezel we love on the bigger Watch 3, you do get a touch sensitive bezel instead to interact with Samsung's Tizen OS.

That OS, which will be ditched in favour of Google and Samsung's new Wear platform, will still be supported for a few years and is still a slick operator. While it's short on apps and its voice assistant isn't great, it does have rich communication features, an easy to use UI and plenty of great watch faces.

When it comes to tracking your health and fitness, it's a better fitness tracker than sports watch in our opinion, though it does have built-in GPS and a good enough optical heart rate monitor for workouts. It does include an ECG sensor like the pricier Apple Watch Series 6 and it also has the ability to monitor blood pressure. Once you've calibrated it with a traditional cuff monitor first.

You'll get a few more days of battery life too than Apple, so if you like the idea of 3-4 days away from the charger as opposed to 1-2, then the Active 2 is feature-rich smartwatch to consider instead.

Read our full Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 review.

Fitbit Versa 3

The Versa 3 and the more health-centric Sense sit at the top of the Fitbit smartwatch pile. That is, until it decides to launch a big new super smartwatch with Google and Fitbit software combined.

Right now though, we'd say the Versa 3 is a smartwatch to go for if you like the idea of having a great fitness tracking experience and more battery life than what you'll get on Apple and Samsung's watches.

The square look ditches physical buttons for a button built into the case and houses a great quality 1.58-inch AMOLED display that can be set to always-on mode.

It's an option that works with Android and iPhones giving you notifications with the ability to respond to messages when paired to an Android phone. There's Fitbit Pay for payment support and a built-in music player with offline support for services like Deezer. There isn't an LTE/cellular option but you do have Amazon's Alexa on board, which is well integrated into the Fitbit ecosystem.

Unsurprisingly, it shines for fitness tracking and offering reliable sleep monitoring features. There's an optical heart rate monitor best suited to continuously monitoring heart rate and the onboard SpO2 sensor brings estimated oxygen variation insights too. All of this data is well communicated on the watch and on the intuitive Fitbit companion app. You also have the additional option to sign up to Premium if you want access to richer health insights and more mindfulness features too.

There is built-in GPS to track outdoor runs and rides without needing your phone nearby, but it's one we think is better suited to casual runs than turning to it for marathon training.

A big pull with the Versa 3 is the battery life. It can go for up to 6 days or just 2 days with the screen in always-on mode. You also have quick charge support that will give you a day of power from just 12 minutes of charging time.

While you miss out on the ECG and temperature sensors you get on its Sense watch, the Versa 3 still offers a strong smartwatch experience without those health tracking extras.

Read our full Fitbit Versa 3 review.

TicWatch Pro 3

If you find something quite likeable about Google's Wear OS platform and having access to the Play Store and features like Google Pay appeal to you, then our pick of the top Wear OS smartwatch to pick up is the TicWatch Pro 3.

It's taken a while for Mobvoi to deliver a TicWatch Pro that we've really liked and with the addition of Qualcomm's Snapdragon Wear 4100 platform, it's been given the kind of performance boost it's dearly needed.

It still uses dual display technology offering a 1.4-inch 454x454 AMOLED screen with a FSTN monochrome one that is now capable of showing more of your information while preserving battery life that can more comfortably get to two days in full smartwatch mode.

It's Wear OS of course, so you're getting everything Google's operating system has to offer including notification support, payments, third party apps and Google's suite of apps. On top of that, Mobvoi also offers its own apps for health and fitness tracking including a place to check on blood oxygen, real-time heart rate and even to monitor noise exposure in environments.

There's sports tracking here too with the ability to track outdoor activities with GPS and also offers swim tracking too. It doesn't rival the sports tracking you'll get on an Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch and is more on par with what you can expect to experience on one of Fitbit's smartwatches. It's simply not built for hardcore training.

So if you have to go Wear, we think this is one of the best-looking and best performing ones you can pick up right now.

Read our full TicWatch Pro 3 review.

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