Best smartwatch deals for January 2023

If you’re shopping for a new smartwatch, there are a wide selection of feature-rich choices all year. But how about the best smartwatch deals? Smartwatches are among the most exciting gadgets out there right now, and prices can change often. We’ve tracked down the best smartwatch deals. If you’re looking to save big on the latest technology, read on while we take you through them. We take a look at why you might want to buy each smartwatch and sum up what makes them so great. Two new smartwatches from Apple, the Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra will add price pressure to all brands, including earlier Apple Watch models. The Apple Watch Series 8, starts at $399, and the new flagship Apple Watch Ultra, is priced from $799.

Today’s Best Smartwatch Deals

Garmin Forerunner 45 — $126, was $200

Garmin Forerunner 45 on a white background and displaying workout details.

The Garmin Forerunner 45 is the ideal companion for the avid runner, hiker, or other outdoor-loving people. It provides you with extensive tracking tools to mean that you can easily see how you’re improving and what you need to do to ensure you do even better on future adventures. A large digital display means that information is always easy to read at a glance even when you’re on the move. The watch is able to monitor daily steps, distance, calories burned, along with your all-day stress levels and even how well you’re sleeping. Including 24/7 heart rate monitoring is a fantastic way to see how your body is performing with built-in GPS able to also monitor how far you’ve traveled, how fast, and even where you’ve run.

The Garmin Forerunner 45 offers a bright, always-on color screen along with a reliable five-button interface so you can easily get things done with it. One sweet feature is the ability to mark your laps with just one quick press. The watch includes profiles for running, cycling, indoor track events, treadmill, elliptical, cardio, yoga, and much more. Other features include incident detection and assistance so the watch is able to send your real-time location to emergency contacts if you run into a problem. It also has live tracking so your family and friends can check on your progress.

For training purposes, Garmin Coach helps you out. It lets you choose your expert coach along with your goal, whether that’s a 5K, 10K, or half-marathon, before providing you with a great adaptive training plan along with step-by-step guidance. Besides helping you achieve your goals, you also get smart notifications for incoming texts and calls, along with controls for the music you play on your phone. For the active user, the Garmin Forerunner 45 is a consistently reliable tool.

Fitbit Versa 3 — $200, was $230

Fitbit Versa 3 call and text notifications.

The Fitbit Versa 3 is the fitness tracker you can wear and forget about thanks to it being so simple to use, as well as incredibly comfortable. Tying into the Fitbit ecosystem means that the Fitbit Versa 3 is incredibly convenient. If you’ve ever owned a Fitbit before, it’s like that, but better. The Fitbit Versa 3 is able to monitor all your activities all day long. That includes 24/7 heart rate monitoring, all the steps you take, your calorie burn, along with real-time pace and distance tracking. It will even track your sleep, monitoring deep and REM sleep patterns, as well as giving you tips on how to sleep better. Each morning, you’ll be given a sleep score so you can see how you’re doing.

Thanks to how well Fitbit’s software works, you’ll also always know when is the right time to work out. You’re provided with personalized heart rate zones based on your age and resting heart rate, so the Fitbit Versa 3 is able to detect when you’re fine to push yourself. Known as Active Zone Minutes, the idea is to exert yourself for about 150 minutes each week. The Fitbit Versa 3 is able to monitor over 20 different types of exercise with automatic recognition of them. It will also track if you’ve been swimming and for how long, with a swim proof design meaning you really don’t have to think twice about wearing it.

Other options include guided breathing sessions and other mindfulness features to help you calm yourself and feel soothed throughout the day. Alongside all those fitness features, the Fitbit Versa 3 also offers up notifications for all your calls, texts, and other apps, along with Alexa assistant support, and the ability to download and play songs from Pandora and Deezer. You can even control Spotify directly from your watch.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 — $170, was $250

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 shown on a wrist.

One of the best Android smartwatches, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is easily the ideal Wear OS smartwatch for many people, especially those with smaller wrists. It offers a supremely comfortable fit and size, which means it fits just as well in the office as it does the gym. iPhone owners won’t be able to use it but everyone else will have plenty of reasons to seriously consider it. With a rounded display that is sleek and lightweight, its 1.2-inch screen looks fantastic in any lighting situation. It has a digital bezel for working your way through menus with an aluminum body that feels great to your fingertips.

Underneath that stylish appearance are a bunch of great features. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 offers up body composition analysis so you can always see how best to crush your targets thanks to extensive body readings. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 goes further than most watches by offering you your BMI, Basal Metabolic Rate, weight, muscle and fat mass, and body fat, before combining it all to see how you’re doing. Alongside that, you get real-time ECG monitoring so you get accurate readings on how your heart is performing. VO2 Max readings assess your cardio levels each step or jog.

Elsewhere, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 even works throughout the night. It provides you with advanced sleep and continuous SPO2 ratings so it can manage your overall sleep quality, pinpointing where you need to improve. Whether it’s automatically monitoring your workouts or spotting sleep issues, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 has your back all the time. Consistently practical while looking great, it’s a truly great smartwatch indeed, and you’re going to love how it works as an extension to your phone.

Note that Samsung recently introduced the Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Watch 5 Pro at the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event, which means even better deals likely on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4. The Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Watch 5 Pro smartwatches will be available on August 26 starting at $280 and $450, respectively.

Apple Watch SE (40mm, GPS) — $194, was $309

The Apple Watch SE, on the wrist. The app selection screen is showing.
Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

The Apple Watch SE is the best Apple Watch for most people. While it lacks some of the key features of the Apple Watch Series 7, it still packs in plenty to love. At its simplest, that means it’s a breeze for you to take calls, reply to texts, or check important notifications from your wrist and without needing to pull out your phone. Ultimately though, it’s so much more than that. It’s whatever you want it to be right down to the fact you can swap out different straps and watch faces so it looks at home in the office or when you’re hiking up a long trail on a Saturday.

The Apple Watch SE is able to track all your daily activity from a quick walk around the local neighborhood to monitoring when you go swimming or go for a long run. It now tracks tai chi and Pilates workouts, too. At all times, you can see your trends developing, such as the steps you take, how much faster you’re walking, and even how often you stand up throughout the day. The Apple Watch SE goes even deeper than that as it looks at your heart rate. It’s able to tell you if your heart rate is unusually high or low, as well as detects irregular heart rhythm and shoots you a notification if there’s an issue.

It looks great, too, with a 1.78-inch Retina screen under Ion-X strengthened glass, and a digital crown to the side for moving through menus. There’s no Always-On screen feature but you won’t miss it too much. A reasonable battery life of two days is the reward for no always-on display and that’s certainly helpful. An easy to use watch, you’ll soon wonder what life was like before you had the Apple Watch SE encouraging you every step of the way.

Apple Watch Series 7 (41mm, GPS) — $340, was $399

Apple Watch Series 7 from the side on someone's wrist.
Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

The Apple Watch Series 7 is the ultimate smartwatch. Easily the best smartwatch out right now, it looks gorgeous, it’s super speedy to use, and it has a bunch of fantastic and genuinely useful features. Whether you’re looking to track everything about your health or simply want a stylish timepiece in the office, this is the smartwatch for you.

The first thing you’ll notice is the Apple Watch Series 7’s amazing display. It has an always-on Retina display with nearly 20% more screen area than its predecessor — the Series 6 — which means everything is much clearer and easier to see and use. It’s also Apple’s most crack-resistant front crystal yet so it’s highly durable thanks to its IP6X dust resistance and swim-proof nature. If you’re liable to knock your watch from time to time, you won’t have to worry so much here.

The Apple Watch Series 7 is powerful and starts off with the usual range of features. You can use it to receive notifications instead of needing to look at your phone. Also, you can track all your workouts, including monitoring the steps you take, the calories you burn, and other core details. However, the Apple Watch Series 7 keeps on giving. It also measures your blood oxygen levels via a sensor that is able to see what’s going on. It’s a useful extra tool in keeping you safe and healthy. In addition, the Apple Watch Series 7 can take an ECG at any time, so you’ll always know how well your heart is performing. Any time your heart hits an unusually high or low rate, you’ll also receive a notification with separate notifications if your heart is suddenly irregular. It’s a great way of keeping on top of your health in a hands-off but effective manner.

Best Garmin Watch Deals

There’s always a lot of interest in the best Garmin watch deals, because it’s one of the top brands for wearable devices that are designed for athletes and outdoor enthusiasts. It’s not always easy to find smartwatch deals though, especially those involving some of the best smartwatches made by Garmin. There are also a lot of models, styles, and colors for Garmin smartwatches, which will make your search even more complicated. To help you out, we’ve rounded up some of the best discounts for Garmin watches right here — all you have to do is to choose the one that matches your needs and budget.

Garmin Forerunner 35 — $99, was $132

The Garmin Forerunner 35 smartwatch in black.

The Garmin Forerunner 35 is a basic smartwatch that’s designed as a fitness tracker to help runners achieve their health and productivity goals. The monochrome LCD with a resolution of 128 x 128, which is fitted on a rectangular face measuring 1.5 inches by 1.6 inches, is easy to read. Inside the water-resistant case is an accelerometer that can count your steps, a GPS unit for precise measurements on distance and speed, and an optical heart rate monitor to track performance and your calories burned. There are four buttons on the Garmin Forerunner 35, which are used to activate the backlight, start and stop activities, move back on the menu, and scroll through the options. The smartwatch is capable of lasting for up to nine days without requiring a recharge, and you may not even notice it on your wrist at all because it’s very lightweight and comfortable to wear.

Garmin Forerunner 45 — $114, was $174

The Garmin Forerunner 45 smartwatch in black, showing fitness metrics on the screen.

If you want a better-looking display compared to the Garmin Forerunner 35, the Garmin Forerunner 45 is the next option. The fitness tracker features a circular and colorful watch face with four buttons that are similar in functions to those of the Garmin Forerunner 35, and it’s capable of lasting up to 14 hours when you activate GPS mode and up to seven days while in smartwatch mode. When GPS mode is on, the Garmin Forerunner 45 can track your pace and distance while you run, though there are other built-in apps for activities such as cycling, treadmill, yoga, and more. It’s still a smartwatch though, as it can show incoming notifications for text messages and phone calls from your paired smartphone, as well as control the music that you’re playing there. The wearable device also comes with a safety feature that will send your real-time location to emergency contacts when it detects that you’re involved in an accident.

Garmin Venu Sq — $120, was $200

The design of the Garmin Venu Sq makes it look like an Apple Watch, but that isn’t a bad thing because it means it can match any outfit that you wear after a workout. The 1.3 inch display with a 240 x 240 resolution has ambient brightness adjustment that makes it easily viewable in sunlight but dim to keep your eyes comfortable at night, as well as an always-on mode. It’s a comprehensive fitness tracker that will be able to monitor your energy levels, respiration, hydration, sleep, estimate heart rate, and more. It also comes with 20 pre-loaded apps for tracking your activities, including walking, running, cycling, swimming. You’ll be able to receive notifications on the smartwatch from your paired smartphone, and you can also set it up to work with Garmin Pay for contactless payments that will let you breeze through checkout lines and transportation systems.

Garmin Instinct — $170, was $299

Garmin Instinct
Kelly Hodgkins / Digital Trends

Your outdoor adventures won’t be complete without the Garmin Instinct, a rugged and reliable smartwatch that’s built to meet U.S. military standards for thermal, shock, and water resistance. It features a fiber-reinforced polymer case for strength and durability, and a a scratch-resistant screen that can be read even under direct sunlight. The smartwatch excels at tracking and navigation, with support for GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo satellite systems, which enable a backtracking feature that will help you return to where you started in case you lose your sense of direction. The Garmin Instinct is also capable of monitoring your estimated heart rate, stress levels, and activities, while staying connected to your paired smartphone by showing all your notifications. The wearable device can last up to 16 hours in GPS mode and up to 14 days in smartwatch mode on a single charge.

Garmin Vivomove 3S — $200, was $250

The Garmin Vivomove 3S smartwatch on a white background.

The Garmin Vivomove 3S is certainly different from most of the brand’s offerings, as it combines a classic analog face with a smart display that you can activate by swiping on the device’s screen. The health and wellness features of the Garmin Vivomove 3S are still complete, with the capability to monitor your energy level, stress, and heart rate, among many others, but since it doesn’t have onboard GPS, the smartwatch can utilize the GPS of your paired smartphone to accurately track your walking and running activities. With smartwatch mode activated, the wearable device can last up to five days without requiring you to plug it in, but if you place it in watch mode where the clock hands will tell you the time, you’ll get an additional week of usage before needing to recharge it.

Best Samsung Galaxy Watch Deals

Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 — $196, was $280

Woman holding a frisbee while holding the Samsung Galaxy watch4 classic fitness.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is a very stylish-looking watch. We’ll get this out of the way — it only works with Android phones so iPhone owners will need to look elsewhere. If you own an Android device though, you’re going to love the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4. Incredibly comfortable to wear and with two-day battery life, you’ll soon get used to how reliable it is. Unlike its predecessor, it uses a digital bezel but that means you don’t have to worry about fingerprints smudging the screen. The 40mm model offers a 1.2-inch screen while the 44mm increases that to 1.4-inches. Either way, it’s lightweight and fits on your wrist nicely. An AMOLED panel means the display looks gorgeous and is able to deal with direct sunlight as well as regular weather.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 combines Wear OS and Samsung’s Tizen OS meaning you get the best of both worlds here. Google Play Store support is convenient and you can always speak to Bixby to get stuff done without having to touch anything. Apps like Spotify and YouTube Music support offline listening with plenty of other apps available too.

The sweet spot for Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is its fitness features. It has a Body Composition tool that measures everything from Body Mass Index to Metabolic Rate, weight, muscle, fat mass, and body fat so you get great insight into your health. Alongside that is more traditional but just as useful tools like sleep tracking, stress tracking, and workout tracking, so you get a well-rounded view of how you’re doing. It’s a great way of ensuring you can always see any changes in your body long before they become a problem. Even better, it’s all cocooned in a stylish-looking device.

Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 — $240, was $300

Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 showing a fitness timer.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 is a pretty great watch for those that focus on their fitness levels and ambitions. It’s a sleek device that comes in aluminum with a silicone strap. That means it’s light enough to wear anywhere comfortably and it has an appearance that works just as well in the office as it does at the gym. Its rounded appearance is a nice touch for those that want a regular-looking watch that does so much more than that.

The watch offers a 1.4-inch screen with a 360 x 360 resolution. The screen looks good regardless of the lighting around you. Even in bright light, its blacks are deep and its colors pop. Text always looks sharp even when viewing the slightly dimmed always-on display. The watch uses Tizen OS along with a digital rotating bezel. That bezel is a great addition allowing you to scroll through lists and navigate screens without an issue. You never have to worry about leaving fingerprint marks which is always good.

A neat-to-use operating system wouldn’t be much use if the functionality was limited but the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 offers a lot. Besides enabling you to keep up with all your most important notifications, it offers extensive fitness tracking. It measures your stress levels via heart rate data, offers reminders to go stretch or go for a walk, plus it monitors if your heart rate is suddenly unusual in some way. There are also seven automatically tracked exercises covering all the main essentials like walking and running. With up to two days of battery life, you’ll soon get used to the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 always being there as a reliable companion. It’s ideally suited for fitness enthusiasts looking to track their workouts more comprehensively while still looking good.

When are the best smartwatch deals?

We don’t blame you if you can’t resist and need to buy a new smartwatch right now. Generally, smartwatch deals occur throughout the year so you’re still likely to get a good price right now. However, there are some specific times of the year when you may see the best smartwatch deals.

The best discounts will probably be in November. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are hugely popular times for all things technology-related to be discounted. We almost always see smartwatch deals like no others during the late November event. Yup, of course, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and that’s a really long way away. Still, if you can hold out until then, it’s fairly likely we’ll see the best smartwatch deals going on around the holidays. You’ll need to bear in mind that your finances may be tighter given you’re likely to be spending more for the holidays, plus you miss out on a summer of workout tracking, but if you can put up with all that, it could be worth the wait.

Ultimately though, the best smartwatch deals are the ones you pick up at the best time for you. That may well be now which is why we won’t blame you for hitting the buy button immediately on a precious new acquisition.

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