The Best Sports Watches for Every Athlete (2026)
October 2026: After testing sports watches on workouts and adventures throughout the summer, our testers named a Garmin as the best sports watch again, this time the new fenix 9 Pro that comes with solar charging and a full titanium build, plus inReach connectivity. We were also impressed with the new heart rate tracking and readiness software on the Apple Watch Ultra 4, which we named Best for Weekend Warriors. Amazfit still makes the best value for your money with the Cheetah 2 Ultra, the Suunto Run 2 delivers a lot in a small form factor, and we loved the accuracy of the Coros Pace 4 Pro. New this year is the Reckon, a hunting-focused watch from a Montana-based company called Bridger.
Today’s best sports watches are a lot like cars. There are so many high-quality models, choosing one really comes down to price range and feature preferences. For athletic watches, key features include battery life, screen brightness, size, activity tracking, satellite connectivity, durability, weight, analytics, mapping, and more. To help you sift through the options, we assembled a group of nitpicky watch nerds who scrutinized every detail of the best sports watches during more than 14,000 miles of testing. Whether you want running watches for road and trail or a multisport GPS smartwatch that also handles hiking, skiing, and swimming, the picks below cover every budget.
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