I put three of the most effective smartwatches to the last word out of doors take a look at – here is the one I’d purchase for summer time adventures

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Whether you’re a casual rambler or a serious alpinist, a smart watch is now becoming an almost essential piece of kit for any adventure.

These high-tech gadgets combine all the usual benefits you’d expect from a smart watch with vital features like GPS navigation and emergency messaging that could be a literal lifesaver.

But with so many watches on the market and options at almost every single price range, it can be hard to know which is right for you. 

I put three of the best smartwatches out there –  the Suunto Vertical 2, the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro, and the Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro – to the ultimate side-by-side test, to see if you really need to splash out on a top-of-the-range piece of kit. 

The best watch for your next adventure: Side-by-side review

Our Verdict

The exact watch that is right for you will depend a lot on the kinds of activity you have planned, but, for me, the Suunto Vertical 2 comes out on top. 

The Garmin Fenix 8 Pro is a strikingly complete piece of equipment and could very easily replace your phone on some serious adventures out in the wilds.

If I had a big trip with multiple days off grid lined up, the Garmin’s fantastic navigation and inReach messaging services would also be something I wouldn’t want to go without.

However, the Suunto is the watch I find myself reaching for on a daily basis while the Garmin waits for the next major adventure. 

For day trips, climbing trips, and through hikes lasting a few days, the Suunto stands out as easy to use, comfortable, and generally a joy to use. 

The Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro, meanwhile, is a perfectly good watch that punches well above its price range.

I was genuinely impressed with how well this cheap and cheerful alternative compared to the pricier alternatives.

However, for me, it just falls short on the extra navigation and extra safety features I’d want to see in a hiking watch.  

How we test

To put these watches through their paces, I have been wearing each for a few weeks at a time, getting familiar with the functions and trialling them in different activities.

For the ultimate test, all three watches were taken out for a week of hiking and climbing, worn in truly awful weather conditions, bashed against rocks, and generally mistreated. 

To see how they fit people with different-sized wrists, I also lent the watches to male and female outdoor enthusiasts to get their opinions. 

As well as evaluating performance, I also look at how easy they are to use, how comfortable they are to wear, and whether they offer good value for money. 

Why trust us?

Our expert team has been testing products and writing reviews for many years, covering a wide range of lifestyle products.  This includes everything from coffee machines to mobile phones.

Wiliam’s reviews are honest, unbiased, and based on a passion for the outdoors and years spent hiking and climbing around Britain. He takes into consideration all different budgets, interests, and concerns, so you always have the information you need to make an informed decision.

The Finnish watchmaker Suunto has a track record of making great hiking and trekking watches, and the very capable Suunto 5 Peak has been my go-to for many trips in the past.

Even still, the Vertical 2 is a big step up from Suunto’s earlier models.

At £529, the Suunto Vertical 2 is right in the middle of the pack for price, but delivers the performance of a far more premium product.

The Vertical 2 looks and feels great on the wrist, with a really comfortable silicone strap that has loads of options to get an exact fit.

The most obvious feature is the big, bright 1.5-inch AMOLED screen with an impressive 2,000 nits of brightness.

That makes the Vertical 2 really easy to read even in bright, direct sunlight or even in slightly murky water if you’re a fan of open water swimming.

Navigating through menus and settings is so simple and intuitive that I never struggled to find anything, even while cycling or wearing gloves.

In fact, the whole device feels set up to be as user-friendly as it possibly can be – a refreshing change compared to the fiddly menus on the Fenix 8 Pro.

That extends to the brilliant Suunto app, which is so easy to use and makes your health data and training information incredibly simple to access. 

Battery life was the standout feature for me, with the watch easily lasting several weeks without needing a charge, with an hour or two a day in training mode.

Suunto claims that the Vertical 2 has 65 hours of battery when in training mode, with the extra drain mainly coming from GPS tracking.

I had absolutely no problem tracking several hours of hiking and climbing for a week with the battery still sitting at about 45 per cent at the end of the trip.

The Vertical 2 has all the usual health tracking tools you’d expect, plus some excellent features that make it a great option for hiking and trekking. 

My only minor gripe is that GPS maps don’t come pre-loaded as standard, and you’ll need to download the areas you need ahead of time.

The navigation display also isn’t quite as detailed as the maps on the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro and is best used for quickly checking your route on the move.

However, the GPS is still super accurate, and the navigation is more than suitable for most hiking trips. 

Straight out of the box, the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro is an undeniably serious piece of kit – and it had better live up to that impression.

This is very much a premium product, and everything from the fat titanium bezel, gorgeous 1.4-inch AMOLED display, and £1,029.99 price tag makes that very clear.

The extraordinarily sturdy construction certainly inspired me to be a little more reckless with this watch, and it stood up remarkably well to most of the abuse I threw at it.

However, the screen and bezel were left with a few cosmetic scratches after I jammed my hand in a crack – something to bear in mind if you plan on doing lots of rock climbing.

This damage was a shame since I was absolutely blown away by how good the screen looked, with the bright, crisp details making navigation a lot easier.

Unlike the Vertical 2, the Fenix 8 Pro comes pre-loaded with offline maps provided by TopoActive.

These brilliant maps have everything you would find on an OS Map, and Garmin’s display makes every single contour line and footpath pop.

That makes a lot of sense for the Fenix 8 Pro, which is aimed much more at people planning multi-day trips or activities where they would need to leave the phone at home.

But the real selling point is the fact that this is Garmin’s first watch with an option to subscribe to inReach services.

This lets you send texts, voice messages, and even phone calls via LTE phone networks or satellite when you wouldn’t otherwise have a signal.

An SOS message with your location can be sent to emergency services just by holding down a button for a few seconds – a feature that could save your life in some circumstances.

You can also send out location updates to your friends and family so they can follow along and check that you are safe.

In my opinion, if you’re planning on going out in the wilderness, the Fenix 8 Pro’s hefty price tag is justified by this feature alone.

In the past, I’ve found myself unexpectedly going a few days without phone signal while hiking, and just being able to let my family know I’m alive and well would be a huge relief.

However, while this is a fantastic watch, I don’t think it’s the best option for most people.

Honestly, my big issue with it was that I’m not a good enough athlete or serious enough adventurer to really get the most out of it and justify the significant price.

The Fenix 8 Pro is amazingly feature-rich, with options for optimising almost every sport imaginable.

The downside is that it’s unnecessarily complicated for most people who just want to go on a day hike, do a bit of trail running, or go for a wild swim.

Likewise, these more demanding features like high-accuracy navigation tank the battery extremely fast.

Being careful with your settings and setting the watch up properly can lessen this issue, and Garmin says it should have eight to 15 days of battery life in smartwatch mode.

However, this was the only watch I had to charge on my week-long trip, and a few hours of tracking a climb took days off the projected battery life.

Coming in at just £249.99, the Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro is by far the cheapest watch I tested – coming in at just a quarter of the price of the Garmin.

From the outset, I was sceptical that this cheap and cheerful alternative would be able to hold its own.

While I’m still not convinced it’s going to replace your Garmin, the Huawei has well and truly surpassed my expectations after a few weeks of testing.

Obviously, it isn’t a hiking watch in the same sense as the Vertical 2 or Fenix 8 Pro, and so it’s not going to deliver the same sorts of sport-specific features you would expect.

That means there’s no offline navigation, route planning features, dual-band GPS system, or satellite messaging.

If you’re a serious mountaineer or trail runner, that might be a deal breaker, but a lot of people honestly won’t miss those features.

What you do get is a great HD screen with the highest brightness of any watch I tested, a super-slim, lightweight design, and a bunch of nice health and fitness features.

But that doesn’t mean the Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro is useless out in the mountains.

Far from it, I was genuinely shocked at how well this plucky little watch performed.

Maps are available to download for offline use through the Petal Maps app, and I was able to use the watch’s navigation system almost everywhere in the Snowdonia National Park.

The GPS, altimeter and compass aren’t so accurate that I’d be comfortable navigating off them alone, but they’re perfectly fine for following established hiking or bike trails. 

Likewise, the Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro even boasts some highly specific climbing features like an altitude adaptation mode.

The only thing that really holds this back from being truly great is the shambolic Huawei Health App.

The app’s layout is confusing and messy, which makes tracking your workouts just a little bit more frustrating.

But besides this minor gripe, for £250, this is a genuinely fantastic sports watch that would make a good option for anyone just getting into hiking or hill walking.

FAQs

What are inReach services?

inReach is Garmin’s satellite communications network that allows for two-way messaging almost anywhere on Earth.

Even when your phone doesn’t have a signal, a device with access to inReach will still be able to send a message or send out an alert.

In a disaster, you can use this to share your location with emergency services – a must-have for solo adventures or serious wilderness exploration. 

How much should I spend on a watch? 

This will depend on what you need the watch for and what kinds of features you intend to use. 

If you are only looking for something to track your heart rate and log your walks there’s no reason to spend more than £400 – which would buy you a new Apple Watch Series 11.

But if you need a device that can help you navigate or contact emergency services, then your budget could be from £500 to over £1,000 depending on your needs.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the Garmin inReach Mini 2 satellite phone is already nearly £300. So, if you’re getting a watch with inReach features, that is adding a lot of value.

Which watches can I use for navigation? 

While it is never advisable to rely solely on a watch for your navigation needs, both the Suunto Vertical 2 and Garmin Fenix 8 Pro have great navigation options.

The Garmin Fenix 8 Pro comes with detailed maps from TopoActive pre-installed, and has the option to upgrade to Outdoor Maps+ for even more detailed topographical maps.

The Vertical 2 does not have maps pre-installed, but they can be downloaded for free by syncing your watch with the Suunto app.

You can also download maps for offline use on the Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro through the Petal Maps app. 

Are these watches compatible with both Apple and Android? 

Yes, all of the watches are compatible with both Apple and Android devices and were tested with both.

There were no differences in the quality of service, so you are fine to choose any watch you like without worrying about compatibility.