Consumer Reports: Apple Watch is the best current smartwatch
Apple Watch
Consumer Reports tested durability, health functionality, readability in bright and low light, ease of use, and ease of interaction. The top smartwatch scored a 71 our of 100 with the lowest score being 30. You will have to login as a subscriber to see all of the details.
Nine different smartwatches were tested with the following rankings. Consumer Reports tested 11 smartwatches, but I didn't count the 38mm and 42mm Apple Watches as different models in this list below:
- Apple Watch
- Apple Watch Sport and LG G Watch R (tied)
- Pebble Steel
- Moto 360
- Asus ZenWatch
- Samsung Gear S
- Martian Notifier
- Sony SmartWatch 3
The best Android Wear smartwatch is the LG G Watch R, which is indeed an excellent choice. The Pebble Time is not yet available so was not included in this testing regime.
The durability testing includes scratch-resistance testing and the Apple Watch stainless steel model performed the best. This model has a sapphire crystal face. The Apple Watch Sport I have uses an Ion-X glass face and it scored lower at Very Good rather than Excellent. This was the same rating as most all other smartwatches, except for the Apple Watch with sapphire glass.
I found it very concerning that the heavily advertised as water-resistant Sony SmartWatch 3 failed the Consumer Reports testing with two samples and ended up in last place. I've been running in the rain with my SmartWatch 3 and so far it has performed flawlessly. The removable charging door may be causing the water-resistance failures.
Thankfully, my much more expensive Apple Watch Sport passed the Consumer Reports water-resistance tests while the Pebble Steel performed best in this test.