How we test smartwatches
                     How we test smartwatches
September 13, 2022 by admin
From battery life to notifications and fitness tracking accuracy, we test 
it all so you can pick the perfect smartwatch for you.
It isn’t easy for a smartwatch to earn our Best Buy recommendation – 
we only recommend models that offer genuine benefits above and 
beyond simply using your smartphone alone.
If a smartwatch is difficult to use, uncomfortable to wear, lacks 
important features and needs constant charging, you may well find you
never wear it.
Smartwatches from all the big brands, including Apple, Fitbit, Garmin, 
Huawei and Samsung go through a raft of tests both in and out of our 
lab. The very best smartwatches will have brilliantly clear and reactive 
screens and plenty of useful smart features – and be able to track your 
activity accurately, too.
Table of Contents
  To find out which models aced our tough tests, head over to our round- 
up of the best
o  Smartwatches all receive text messages, call notifications and 
calendar alerts, and most receive email and social media notifications, too.
To find out which models aced our 
tough tests, head over to our 
round-up of the best
Smartwatches all receive text messages, 
call notifications and calendar alerts, and 
most receive email and social media 
notifications, too.
But we’ve found differences in the level of detail you can see and how 
easy these notifications are to view. Some simply tell you that you’ve 
received a notification, so you’ll have to dig around for your phone to 
find out exactly what’s happening, whereas others make it easy to 
reply and even allow you to make calls directly from the watch.
And many give you the option to filter which notifications get pushed 
from your phone to the smartwatch, whereas it’s all or nothing with 
others.
Many offer music control, so you can listen via Bluetooth headphones 
while out and about, or use your watch to control music playing from 
your smartphone. In other cases, you can store music directly on the 
watch or stream music from services such as Spotify.
Some smartwatches have great accompanying apps that are easy to 
navigate and offer useful, detailed information. Others are clunky, hard
to find your way around or slow to update.
Our expert testers compare the smart features of each smartwatch, as 
well as any annoying niggles. We also test how reliably each 
smartwatch receives notifications from your smartphone by checking if
all alerts are received.
All of this will help you to decide whether it’s worth forking out 
hundreds for a smartwatch, or whether you’re better off just using your
phone.
Settings and customisation
Everyone’s different, and smartwatches need to be able to adapt to 
give you the features you need the most. Maybe aesthetics are 
important to you, or you want plenty of choices of watch face to suit 
the occasion.
Or maybe you want the option to be able to download third-party apps 
for more advanced fitness tracking, or for adding extra features and 
functions.
We delve into the settings of each watch, and their accompanying 
smartphone apps, to find out which are the most versatile and most 
capable of being tailored to do exactly what you need them to.
Battery life
If your smartwatch takes hours to charge up, you’ll probably find 
yourself often leaving home without it. And if it doesn’t last long 
enough on each charge, you’ll fall out of love with your watch quite 
quickly.
In our lab we check how long it takes for the smartwatch battery to 
charge from dead to 100%. The best charge in less than an hour, while
the worst take more than three hours.
We also check how much battery life you’ll get from a 30 minute 
charging session – useful if you only realise it’s dead when you wake 
up in the morning, for example, and want to give it a quick burst 
before heading off to work.
And of course we also test how long the fully charged battery will last 
by putting each device through a series of tests – we replicate typical 
daytime and nightime scenarios both in and out of our lab, including 
sending two phone calls and 35 messages to the phone linked to the 
watch.
Screen quality and scratch resistance
The best smartwatches are designed to be worn day in, day out. But 
that means these pricey devices could be put through all sorts of 
situations – whether that’s hopping on and off public transport, wearing
it during a difficult workout session, doing a bit of DIY or for hiking over
tough terrain.
So your device needs to be comfortable, well-built and suitable for both
indoors and outdoors use.
Our reviews can tell you if the watch seems solid and durable, based 
on the materials it’s made from. Some look strong and sturdy – or 
glamorous and premium – in the PR photos, but appear much more 
cheap and flimsy up close.
We can also tell you whether the screen is clear, bright and high-
resolution and easily readable in dark and low light, and how easy it is 
to wake up so you can quickly tell the time.
Scratch resistance gets a workout too with a dedicated scratch-test 
tool, which applies a set force to the watch. These are pricey devices, 
so you don’t want to end up with unsightly marks on the screen.
Fitness-tracking accuracy
Many smartwatches include a variety of sensors to capture your fitness
data. Some – which are also called fitness watches or sports watches – 
are specifically targeted at exercise enthusiasts, and come packed 
with fitness tracking capabilities. Even those that are more about 
fashion and staying connected will generally track things like your 
steps, number of floors climbed, heart rate and, increasingly, aspects 
of your sleep.
Seeing your activity – or how inactive you’ve really been – right there 
on your wrist can be a great motivator to exercise more. But only if you
can rely on the readings your smartwatch provides, which is why we 
check the accuracy of the fitness functions of each device.
Our reviews can give you information such as:
how accurately a smartwatch tracks the number of steps you’ve taken
whether a smartwatch tracks your distance travelled using GPS (which 
often makes it more accurate) or using your step count
if it has heart-rate tracking, and whether it can track your heart rate 
accurately
To measure steps, for example, our testers go on a 10 minute walk and
a 10 minute run, and take part in a range of household activities, 
including sitting reading a magazine, packing and unpacking a 
dishwasher, sweeping the floor, going up and down stairs and carrying 
shopping bags. We compare the smartwatch data to a trusted 
reference step counter.
For measuring distance, we walk and run routes with known distances 
and check if the smartwatch can accurately tell us how far we’ve 
travelled. Our walking and running routes include woodland areas, 
giving GPS watches more of a challenge.
To measure heart rate, we test a smartwatch during low and high 
intensity running, and while resting. If the watch struggles – gives no 
heart-rate data or really abnormal heart-rate data, say – we take a 
second reading. We compare results to chest belts, as reference 
devices, which use an electrical measurement method that is known to
be more reliable – so we know we can trust their data.
Blood oxygen (aka pulse oximetry or SpO2) monitoring
An increasing number of wearables can monitor your blood oxygen 
saturation: the amount of oxygen being carried around your system by
your blood cells, expressed as a percentage.
Some smartwatches and fitness trackers are able to do this on-
demand, some work overnight, taking readings while you sleep, and 
some can do both.
If a wearable can take an on-demand blood oxygen measurement, we 
test how accurate the measurements are, compared to those taken by 
a medical pulse oximeter that we use as a reference device.
We test this on 10 healthy people (five men and five women) whose 
blood oxygen levels are within the normal range.
We don’t factor this into our test score, as it’s not a feature that most 
people need. However, we can tell you whether it falls within the 
threshold of accuracy tolerated by the FDA (US Food and Drug 
Administration). There’s no UK or EU standard for pulse oximetry 
features on wearable devices at the moment, unlike medical grade 
pulse oximeters.
As our blood oxygen testers come from a range of ethnicities, we can 
also tell you if we find differences in accuracy on different skin tones. 
Due to the technology involved, some wearables work on very pale 
white skin but give inaccurate results, or don’t work at all, on darker 
skin, for example.
Even if a wearable can take accurate pulse oximetry measurements, 
it’s important to remember that our testers are healthy people and 
that these watches and trackers aren’t intended to be medical devices.
Therefore, you shouldn’t rely on a wearable to detect signs of a 
medical condition. Medical pulse oximeters are being used for remote 
monitoring of patients with Covid-19, but pulse oximetry features on 
wearables are intended for what manufacturers call ‘recreational’ use 
only. In other words, they’re more like toys for people who are 
generally healthy and want to learn more about their bodies. Follow 
the latest NHS guidance to stay safe from Covid-19, and seek medical 
help if you become concerned about your health.
On-demand pulse oximetry data is probably most useful to hardcore 
athletes and alpinists, who might be at risk of over-exertion. If your 
blood oxygen levels dip while you’re working out or climbing, it might 
be a sign that you should take a rest.
If you notice any unusual measurements in your overnight pulse 
oximetry measurements, it could be a sign of sleep apnoea, a sleep 
disorder in which your breathing stops and starts. Again, don’t take 
this as a diagnosis: raise it with your GP.
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