Apple
Smartwatches can be incredible tools for monitoring your heart health. They provide an easy way to monitor your heart rate, receive alerts about unusual heart activity, and even take EKGs.
If your doctor has told you to keep an eye on your heart health — or if you want to get more active, or are just interested in gaining new insights about your health — check out these great smartwatch options for heart health monitoring.
Top products in this article
Apple Watch 8 (41mm), $330 (down from $399)
Samsung Galaxy Watch 5, $220 and up (down from $280)
Garmin Venu 2 Plus, $450
Why a smartwatch with heart monitoring is important
It’s helpful to keep a close eye on your heart rate for a number of reasons. It can help you track how hard you’re working out, help you manage chronic conditions, and possibly even let you know when something’s wrong.
If you’re looking for a smartwatch for monitoring your heart health, it can be hard to know where to start. There are a bunch of new features that might sound a bit complicated if you’re new to heart monitoring. To help you out, we’ve put together this guide to help you understand what to look for and which smartwatch is right for you.
Best smartwatches for heart health monitoring
These smartwatches have the features you need to check your heart rate, take EKGs and more.
Apple Watch Series 8
Apple through Amazon
The Apple Watch Series 8 is a durable smartwatch that is swim, dust and shatter resistant and has advanced heart monitoring features. It has a number of health tracking features, including an optical heart sensor, an electrical heart sensor for ECG, a blood oxygen sensor, and a new body temperature sensor.
You can use yoga, meditation, and other exercise programs through Apple Fitness+. (Apple Fitness+ is a subscription service. It costs $9.99 per month; Apple Watch buyers get the first month free.) It also comes with a new crash detection feature, which detects where the wearer is in a serious car accident and notifies the emergency services.
Apple Watch 8 (41mm), $330 (down from $399)
The 45mm version of the Apple Watch Series 8 does everything the 41mm version does, except it’s bigger.
Apple Watch Series 8 (45mm), $429 (down from $478)
Samsung Galaxy Watch 5
Samsung
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 offers ECG functionality when used with a compatible Samsung Galaxy smartphone. You can take the EKG on your watch and then open the EKG report on your smartphone to dive into your data.
The Galaxy Watch 5 features an advanced bioactive sensor that collects more accurate data compared to the Galaxy Watch 4. This data can be managed and tracked in the Samsung Health app. It also offers an advanced training algorithm, heart rate monitoring and sleep tracking technology.
The Galaxy Watch 5 is available with a screen size of 40 mm and 44 mm. It is also available in five colors.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 5, $220 and up (down from $280)
Google Pixel Watch
Best Buy
The Google Pixel Watch has a round watch face with customizable watch faces and plenty of band options. It offers all-day battery life, with up to 24 hours on a single charge. The Watch includes the Google Home app to adjust your thermostat or connect to your smart home devices. Users can play music, track fitness activities and receive notifications from their connected phone.
The Google Pixel Watch is the first Android smartwatch with integrated Fitbit features. The watch’s health features include heart rate monitoring, exercise tracking, sleep tracking, and more. Google has announced that fall detection will be available in 2023. The watch comes with a free six-month subscription to Fitbit Premium and three months to YouTube Premium.
The watch is available in black, silver and gold.
Google Pixel Watch, $350
Garmin Vivoactive 4
Garmin store via Amazon
The Garmin Vivoactive 4 uses Garmin’s Pulse Ox technology to track your energy levels, breathing, menstrual cycle, stress, sleep, heart rate, hydration levels and more. It can stream downloaded music from Spotify and Amazon Music. In combination with your smartphone, the watch can receive notifications.
This Garmin smartwatch has more than 20 pre-installed GPS and indoor sports apps. Do you want a personal trainer on your wrist? This watch can show you animated workouts through your watch screen.
Available in different colours. The price below is for the black watch, as shown.
Garmin Vivoactive 4 (Black), $230 (down from $330)
Garmin Venu2 Plus
Amazon
The Garmin Venu 2 Plus offers advanced heart and health tracking. The smartwatch measures your heart rate several times per second and lets you know if it stays too high or too low when you rest. It also helps measure how hard you are working during activities, even swimming. Garmin also recently introduced an ECG app, which is available on the Venu 2 Plus
Garmin Venu 2 Plus, $450
Fitbit Charge 5
Amazon
The latest in Fitbit’s Charge line, this well-featured activity and health tracker packs cutting-edge technology into a sleek device and features a color touchscreen. The smartphone device helps you manage stress and monitor your heart health and sleep.
The Fitbit Charge 5 has a battery life of 7 days on a single charge.
Fitbit Charge 5, $140 (down from $150)
Fitbit Versa 3
Amazon
This premium Fitbit has built-in GPS that can be used to track the pace, distance and route of your runs, walks or bike rides. The tracker offers heart rate monitoring, stress data and sleep tracking. Support for Google Assistant and Alexa voice assistant is built in.
The Fitbit Versa 3 has a battery life of 6 days. Thanks to the fast charging function, you have a full day’s battery in just 12 minutes.
Fitbit Versa 3, $174 (down from $230)
Amazfit Bip 3
Amazon
What’s so great about the Amazfit Bip 3? It features a colorful 1.69-inch screen to display incoming calls and text messages. It’s also packed with sensors to monitor your heart rate, blood oxygen levels, sleep quality, and stress levels. You can even take it with you while swimming – the Amazfit Bip 3 is IP68 water resistant.
Make sure to apply the coupon before checkout to get the best price on this Android and iPhone compatible smartwatch.
Amazfit Bip 3, $55 after coupon (down from $60)
Top features to look for in a heart monitoring smartwatch
Here are some features to look for when evaluating heart monitoring smartwatch options. These features can be useful for athletes, people with chronic health conditions, or anyone who wants to track their heart stats. None of these features or measurements are a substitute for medical care or formal cardiology testing.
Heart rate monitoring
The most basic feature to look for is heart rate monitoring. Almost all smartwatches and activity trackers include heart rate monitoring, but some include more advanced monitoring options such as heart rate variability monitoring, stress tracking, or heart rate alerts. Heart rate alerts can be adjusted based on your own normal resting and active heart rate (what’s normal varies from person to person), to alert you if your heart is beating outside the normal range for an extended period of time.
Combined with activity tracking, heart rate monitoring can help you assess how hard you’re working during a workout and how many calories you’re burning. This is one of the more popular uses of smartwatch heart monitoring.
ECG capabilities
Many people don’t know that smartwatches can take ECGs, but the Apple Watch has had ECG functionality for several generations and both Samsung and Google also offer this function. ECG stands for electrocardiogram (also called ECG). It’s a test that measures the frequency and strength of the electrical signals generated by your heart as it beats and contracts. The purpose of this test is to check for abnormal heart activity, such as atrial fibrillation (a type of irregular heart rhythm).
Fall Detection
Fall detection is not technically a heart health feature. However, if you or the person you’re shopping for needs a heart-monitoring smartwatch because of a cardiac condition that can lead to falls or fainting, this could help. Fall detection turns your smartwatch into a trendy, more high-tech Life Alert device. If the watch detects a fall, you will be given the option to call 911 or a designated emergency contact or report that you are okay. If you don’t clear the notification within a certain amount of time, it automatically sends an alert to the emergency services or your emergency contact.
Pair phone
You want a smartwatch that pairs with your phone or offers a compatible mobile app to view data. It allows you to view reports on your heart rate, exercise activity, EKG readings, blood oxygen, stress levels and other recorded statistics. If you have an iPhone, you may prefer an Apple Watch 8 for easy pairing. Similarly, Samsung Galaxy smartphone users can get more out of a Samsung Galaxy Watch 5.
Restart yourself! The CBS Essentials Guide to a Healthier 2023
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There’s no better time than now to commit to a better, healthier you. Whether that means moving more, learning more about fitness and nutrition, or doing more to track your health, CBS Essentials has you covered with our new series, Reboot Yourself. We cover everything you need to know to live your best life in 2023, from the best water bottles to stay hydrated to the best smartwatches for monitoring heart health to the best earbuds and headphones for sports.
Be sure to check back with CBS Essentials throughout the New Year for the latest on our health and fitness series.