The best smartwatches for women you can buy in 2021

It isn’t easy to keep up with daily or even weekly exercise goals, let alone the rest of life’s demands. For many women, wearing a smartwatch helps. For everything from staying on top of tasks to tracking workouts, we’ve compiled the best smartwatches for women you can buy right now.

Buying the right smartwatch

Purchasing a new smartwatch is about finding the right device for your needs. Look, feel, comfort, and functionality are all top priorities, but don’t forget to look for timely software updates and a large app library.

If you’re hoping for an extension of your smartphone, a smartwatch with solid notification support and a large display is vital. Enter the Apple Watch Series 7.  For women looking to streamline their to-do list, this device has the best app support and tons of smart features. If you’re a non-Apple user, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is the best Wear OS smartwatch on the market.

For runners and cyclists, GPS is especially important. Some devices feature built-in GPS and track dozens of sports and activities as well. In fact, there are a host of fitness tracking and health monitoring tools to consider, including auto-detection, heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, and more. But how about fitting all these features on your wrist? Many of the devices below come in multiple size options. For women looking for something more petite, the Fitbit Charge 5 packs tons of fitness features into minimal real estate. Likewise, the Xiaomi Mi Band 6 offers a similar aesthetic but at a budget price.

Find the device with the right tools and sensors for your lifestyle from our list below.

The best smartwatches for women

• The Apple Watch Series 7 is the best smartwatch for women. You’ll need an iPhone to use it, so if you’re an Android user, unfortunately, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
• The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is the best alternative to the Apple Watch and the best Samsung smartwatch for women. It can pair with most Android phones, though the best results are had with a Samsung phone.
• The Fitbit Sense is the best Fitbit smartwatch for women. It packs a wealth of sensors, a customizable design, and excellent tracking software.
• The Fitbit Versa 3 is the best alternative to the Fitbit Sense. The two are very similar, but the Versa 3 drops a few sensors in favor of a lower price tag.
• The Garmin Venu 2 is the best Garmin smartwatch for women. It’s one of the best multisport tracking watches available right now.
• The Fitbit Charge 5 is the best fitness tracker for women. It offers a full fitness tracking feature set and compact design.
• The Xiaomi Mi Band 6 is the best affordable fitness tracker for women. It’s incredibly cheap and punches well above what its weight (and price tag) would suggest.

The Apple Watch Series 7 is the best smartwatch for women. It’s available in five different colors and has a bigger and brighter Retina display than its predecessors. The device features extra room for text and other items, unmatched software and app support, and all the basic fitness tracking features you could need. In short, it looks beautiful on your wrist and packs a lot of neat functionality.

With an Apple Watch Series 7, you can track your daily activities and overall fitness in the corresponding app on your iPhone. It’s also stacked with tools and compatibility so you can personalize your devices to your needs. Monitor your heart rate, track your sleep, log move goals, and measure your blood oxygen with an SpO2 sensor and Apple’s Blood Oxygen app. Specifically for women, the Apple Watch offers Cycle Tracking, a helpful and informative app for tracking your menstrual cycle.

Beyond health and fitness, the Apple Watch Series 7 completely integrates with your iPhone, so you can receive and make calls and texts directly from your wrist. You can also store music, manage your smart home devices, access Siri, use Apple Pay, and much more.

All that being said, it’s worth keeping an eye out for the Apple Watch Series 6 from third-party retailers like Amazon, as the user experience is pretty similar but may save you some cash.

For the best you can buy that isn’t made by Apple, the Galaxy Watch 4 is our top pick. The device runs on Google’s new Wear OS platform with Samsung’s One UI Watch overlay, and the overall user experience is a significant improvement for the line. Users can access a host of fitness and health tracking features, plus more Google apps than ever before on a Samsung smartwatch. Add YouTube Music with offline listening support, Google Maps, and even Google Pay, and it’s a device that’s virtually unrivaled for non-Apple users.

The display also looks great and, with over 50,000 watch faces to choose from, is highly customizable. Compared to the equally solid Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, the Galaxy Watch 4 is smaller, lighter, and uses a virtual rotating panel instead of a physical rotating bezel.

For fitness tracking, it’s a seriously great wearable with a notably accurate heart sensor, a breadth of activity tracking features, and improved algorithms. Users can access Women’s Health to log periods and track menstrual health in the Samsung Health app. The Galaxy Watch 4 also offers body composition analysis with a new BIA sensor, blood pressure monitoring, and ECG measurements, although you’ll need a Samsung phone to see this data.

Check out our full review to learn more about the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4.

The Fitbit Sense is the best smartwatch for women from the Fitbit stable. It’s a high-end, premium design that will look great on your wrist and comes with a lot of cool functions. The device features an EDA Scan app that can detect electrodermal activity or show your body’s response to stress, as well as a built-in skin temperature sensor that will log your temperature regularly. You’ll also get notifications if your heart rate gets too high or too low.

The built-in GPS is reliable, and you can use it when you’re out and about without needing your phone. The battery lasts for about six days, and with fast charging, it can power back up to a full day’s charge in about 12 minutes. Plus, the device comes with a free six-month trial of Fitbit Premium for new Premium users that provides personalized health and fitness guidance.

You can also use Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant on your Fitbit Sense as well. These voice assistants allow you to check the weather, set fitness reminders, control your smart home appliances, and more.

Check out our full review to learn more about the Fitbit Sense.

The Fitbit Versa 3 is a great option if you don’t love the Fitbit Sense’s price tag. You can still utilize built-in GPS, track your workouts in the Fitbit app, and track your heart rate on this device. You’ll also still be able to use Alexa and Google Assistant to do all the same things you can do on the Fitbit Sense. Even the battery life is fairly similar between the two devices.

However, if you opt for the Versa 3, you’ll lose out on the EDA sensor for stress tracking, the skin temperature sensor, and alerts for low and high heart rates. These are useful tools but not necessarily deal-breakers. If your main goal is to improve and track your fitness, the Versa 3 is a fantastic option at a more manageable price.

Check out our full review to learn more about the Fitbit Versa 3.

Of all the Garmin watches, the Garmin Venu 2 is the best choice for women. In terms of health-tracking and software, it features a lot of upgrades compared to the original Venu, making for a more comprehensive wearable. Track your sleep, store music, use Garmin Pay, and access over 75 easy-to-follow workouts for yoga, Pilates, and more, directly on the bright, OLED watch screen. The Garmin Venu 2 also allows users to track their period, pregnancy, and other female health stats in the Garmin Connect app.

Overall, this is an excellent pick for fitness-focused women looking for a smartwatch to aid their exercise goals. Along with many of the valuable health sensors and fitness features we expect from Garmin, the Venu 2 can also take a Health Snapshot, or two-minute recording of your essential health stats like heart rate, blood oxygen levels, respiration rate, and stress. You can view these results in Garmin Connect and even export them as a PDF. This added feature is in addition to popular Garmin tools like Body Battery and Fitness Age, all of which help users target and achieve wellness goals.

Check out our full review to learn more about the Garmin Venu 2.

The Fitbit Charge 5 is a sleek option for women looking for something slimmer. It’s the first of the Charge line to feature a bright, full-color AMOLED display, and the overall look is impressive. The device comes in three colorways and packs a number of expected fitness and health tracking sensors, as well as an electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor (like that of the Fitbit Sense).

Sleep and activity tracking remain strengths for Fitbit in this device which is also compatible with Fitbit’s female health tracking suite. In addition to stress, it tracks your steps, sleep, and activity, and has onboard GPS for any distance-based training. A heart rate sensor and Fitbit’s Active Zone Minutes even help you optimize your workouts. The tracker also has an SpO2 sensor, automatic run detection, and an auto-pause mode that will sense when you stop or take a break while working out. It is water-resistant up to 50 meters and comes with proprietary interchangeable straps.

Primarily a fitness tracker, the Fitbit Charge 5 only offers the basics in terms of smartwatch features. It can receive smartphone notifications. However, you won’t be able to respond to any messages on the device itself. It supports Fitbit Pay but has no music features, support for digital assistants, or any third-party apps.

Check out our full review to learn more about the Fitbit Charge 5.

Xiaomi’s fitness trackers are popular because they’re good and cheap. Really good and really cheap. The Xiaomi Mi Band 6 is generally very basic but better than its price point would suggest in terms of fitness features and accuracy. It’ll track most of the same activity metrics as other devices, including steps, distance, and calories, and even has a two-week battery life if you use it minimally. For women, the Xiaomi Mi Band 6 also offers female health tracking, allowing users to log cycles and track ovulation. On the other hand, its heart rate sensor isn’t anything to write home about.

While the Xiaomi Mi Band 6 design remains relatively unchanged from previous generations, the device does boast a much larger AMOLED display, giving it a more modern feel. It also packs an SpO2 sensor, keeping up with the popular feature on other devices. This device is a great option for women interested in entering the smartwatch arena but not interesting in shelling out a bunch of cash.

Check out our full review to learn more about the Xiaomi Mi Band 6.

Honorable mentions

That’s it for our list of the best smartwatches for women, but it’s only a fraction of what’s out there. We also want to give an honorable mention to the following smartwatches:

• Michael Kors Darci Gen 5E (Amazon): If you’re looking for something with a little more style, the Darci is a fashionable smartwatch from the Michael Kors stable. It runs Wear OS, packs a technology platform made by Fossil, and is perfect for smaller wrists.
• Garmin Venu Sq (Amazon): Fancy a Garmin with a square face? The Venu Sq is a cheaper, compact multisport watch that brings onboard GPS, an SpO2 sensor, and an attractive design to the table.