Best Garmin smartwatch in 2023

Garmin is well known in the smartwatch industry and they particularly excel in designing fitness and health-based watches. Garmin has fantastic running watches, watches for endurance athletes, and they even have more rugged watches to keep up with the most dangerous of sports.

If you are even remotely into health tracking or fitness and are looking for an excellent smartwatch then Garmin surely has a watch designed just for you. Their watches come in all shapes and sizes, a variety of colors, and ship with a wide variety of features. While they have many more watches than those listed here, this curated list includes only the best that Garmin offers.

Simply the best Garmin Smartwatches in 2023

The Forerunner 265 is the perfect smartwatch for newer runners who take their training seriously. If you want a smartwatch to help you up your game and crush your goals, then the Forerunner 265 was built to be your best friend. This watch comes with Race Predictor which will give you an estimate of your best time based on your training and PacePro to help you develop a pacing strategy.

It also gives you a training readiness score which combines your sleep quality, recovery, training load, and heart rate variability (HRV) data to let you know exactly when you are ready to get the most out of your workouts.

The Forerunner 265 has a built-in dual-band GPS that can accurately track all of your runs. If you add CrossFit activities to your regimen, then there are over 30 additional activities you can choose from including triathlons, cycling, and swimming. The watch pairs with both Android and iOS devices, but you may just leave your phone at home with the ability to download music from Spotify, Amazon Music, and Deezer. This watch gives you up to two weeks of battery life or 24 hours of active GPS tracking.

The Epix Pro (Gen 2) smartwatch features a beautiful and bright 1.4-inch AMOLED display as well as physical buttons for easy navigation. This watch has multi-band GPS and built-in mapping capabilities to help guide you on just about any course. Garmin has even preloaded this watch with over 2,000 ski resort maps worldwide. It offers Garmin's usual top-of-the-line activity tools for runners, cyclists, swimmers, and a host of other activities.

Garmin built a tough smartwatch with the Garmin Epix Pro thanks to its fiber-reinforced polymer case and steel bezels. This smartwatch meets U.S. military standards for shock, thermal, and water resistance. It may not have solar charging capabilities, but with up to 31 days in smartwatch mode or 58 hours in GPS mode, it probably won't matter too much. The built-in LED flashlight is both convenient and perfect for those late night training sessions.

Getting into fitness can be a daunting task, even more so if you are winging it. Luckily, the Garmin Forerunner 55 is available to help guide you on your fitness journey. This smartwatch gives you daily suggested workouts, has PacerPro to help you stick to a planned pace, and free training plans from expert coaches with Garmin Coach. The Forerunner 55 has a wrist-based heart rate monitor and built-in GPS to accurately track all of your fitness activities.

To give you a clear picture of your overall health, you also get Fitness Age, Body Battery Energy Monitoring, and Respiration Tracking. Battery life isn't a concern with up to two weeks of battery life. It may not have the full feature set of many of the watches on this list, but if you are new to fitness, overloading yourself with features can be a bit overwhelming.

If you are looking for more of a health tracker with smartwatch features and less of a running watch, then the Garmin Venu Sq 2 Music Edition is a solid option. This watch has a large AMOLED display for easy readability and has an always-on display for quick glances.

The Venu Sq 2 comes with a host of health tracking options such as Body Battery Energy, Sleep Monitoring, Health Snapshot, Stess Tracking, Women's Health Tracking, and a host of other health metrics. This watch has a built-in heart rate monitor and can track your blood oxygen saturation levels with its Pulse Ox Sensor.

It can track 25 different fitness activities for cardio, yoga, HIIT, Pilates, and more. It has a built-in GPS to accurately track our outdoor sessions. This watch is particularly great for music lovers as you can download your favorite tunes from Spotify, Amazon Music, and Deezer. Battery life is also quite good with up to 11 days of battery life. This watch may not be designed for the fitness fanatic, but it gives you a wide range of health-tracking options.

If you need the ultimate smartwatch and don't ever want to worry about battery life, then the Garmin Fenix 7 Pro may just be the watch to get. Thanks to its solar charging capabilities, three hours in direct sunlight can get you up to 22 days of battery life in smartwatch mode and up to 73 hours in GPS mode. With battery life like this, it should have no trouble tackling days of being off the grid, or even your next ultra marathon.

In addition to the superb battery life, Garmin designed this watch to be rugged, making it perfect for all types of exercise. You can preload map data to keep you on a predetermined route, multi-band GPS, a hill score to see how well you can tackle running uphill, and an endurance score giving you insight into prolonged training efforts. It even has a built-in LED flashlight, letting you see or be seen when training in the dark.

The Forerunner 965 has a bright and beautiful 1.4-inch AMOLED display that is surrounded by a titanium bezel. That gorgeous display allows you to easily see the built-in maps to keep you on your route, and you can be confident that it will accurately track that route with its multi-band GPS. You also get up to 23 days of battery life in smartwatch mode and up to 31 hours in GPS mode.

You also get just about every fitness-focused functionality with the Forerunner 965. This watch has training readiness, and daily suggested workouts based on the course that you put into the Garmin Connect app, it will then adjust that plan after every run based on performance and recovery needs.

Triathletes will love the ability to switch between sports with the press of a button and the training status to let you know when you are taking it too easy or pushing yourself too hard. This watch also lets you download your favorite music from Spotify, Amazon Music, and Deezer.

Thanks to its built-in solar charging, the Instinct 2S Solar smartwatch offers unlimited battery life in smartwatch mode as long as you are in the sun for three hours a day. Imagine backpacking across the country, hiking a mountain, or anything else that you find yourself doing and knowing that your watch is not going to need a charge. If you need GPS, solar charging can get you up to 48 hours of battery life.

This watch is available in 45 and 40mm sizes and ships with a 1.27 monochrome display. The Instinct 2S Solar can track sports like running, biking, swimming, and strength training. It can give your VO2 Max, track your sleep, and comes with a 3-axis compass. If battery life is your primary concern, then the Instinct 2S Solar is the longest-lasting on this list.

Garmin went out of its way to design a watch for people with smaller wrists with its 34mm frame. This watch features women's health tracking including your menstrual cycle and pregnancy. It can also track your hydration, blood oxygen levels, your sleep, and your stress levels. It has a wrist-based heart rate monitor but sadly lacks onboard GPS.

When paired with a phone, the calendar view allows you to easily check what tasks you have coming up that day. It can also receive emails, texts, and other alerts right to your phone. The Garmin Lily has up to five days of battery life, while not great compared to other offerings from Garmin, is great compared to watches like the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6.

The best Garmin smartwatch for your needs

Garmin offers a wide variety of watches that come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, but the Forerunner 265 offers the best blend of performance, style, and price. With dual-band GPS, a ton of sports it can track, Race Predictor, and PacePro, this smartwatch will have you achieving personal bests in no time. It can even download music directly to the device letting you ditch your smartphone during your workout.

If you have a bit more cash to spend and want the best that money can get, then the Epix Pro (2nd Gen) steps it up a notch with its built-in mapping capabilities, fiber-reinforced case, and steel bezels. The Epix Pro also offers amazing battery life.

If you are on more of a budget but still want similar features as the previously mentioned devices, then the Forerunner 55 will check a lot of boxes. It will help anyone getting started on their fitness journey with its built-in health features, and it will look stylish doing it.

No matter your preference, Garmin surely has a watch for you. All that matters in the end is that you are getting a great watch, at a great price, with all the features you are looking for.