Smartwatches

Fossil is almost single-handedly keeping the Wear OS flag flying in the smartwatch market, and the Gen 5 wearables are the best Fossil smartwatches yet. We strapped one to our wrist to see what it has to offer.

A year after the fourth Apple Watch, Apple has launched the Apple Watch Series 5 alongside its new iPhones today, the most powerful edition yet.

Garmin just launched the fēnix 6 range for serious explorers and athletes, with a few notable improvements over what's gone before.

Amazon Alexa and an OLED screen are the big upgrades for the 2nd-generation Versa, a year and a half after the original appeared.

Just a few days after updating its flagship line of Wear OS smartwatches, Fossil has unveiled a new wearable from its more affordable Misfit line as well: the Vapor X. Its key selling points, besides that less expensive price, are improved battery life and a lightweight, stylish design.

Samsung continues to forge its own path with its smartwatches, away from the Apple Watch and Google's Wear OS. The latest Tizen-based wearable to appear from Samsung is the Galaxy Active2, a substantial step forward from the Galaxy Active Watch launched in February.

Battery life has been a perennial problem for smartwatches – glowing color screens and small battery compartments usually mean a recharge every night – but Fossil's new Gen 5 models give you a choice of four battery modes to pick from and an upgraded Snapdragon processor, as well as other upgrades.

Electrical engineer and product designer Samson March decided to build his own smartwatch. The result is stylish wrist candy with a 3D-printed wood-like outer case, color LCD display, Bluetooth connectivity and its own matching charging cradle.

If you're after a Google-powered smartwatch, and you need a wearable that can cope with everything the great outdoors can throw at it, the new Casio Pro Trek WSD-F30 could be the perfect fit. We've been spending some time with the watch, and here's our verdict.

Mobvoi has been positioning the TicWatch brand as the OnePlus of the smartwatch world: premium specs at a mid-range price. Its latest offerings, the TicWatch E2 and the TicWatch S2, continue this mission. We've had the E2 strapped to our wrist for the past week, and here's our verdict.

Back in 2016, Matrix brought us the PowerWatch, a smartwatch powered only by body heat. Since then the company has launched the PowerWatch X, and has now unveiled the PowerWatch 2 with a number of upgrades – including the additional of a solar panel.

While we've not seen any dramatic innovations in the world of smartwatches during 2018, we have seen some steady progress: more features, better battery life, slimmer designs. If you're in the market for a new smartwatch before 2018 ends, these are the models from the last year to put on your radar.