Best running watches of 2024 | Tested and reviewed

A cult classic, the Garmin Forerunner 245 is ideal if you just want to track your run and analyse your stats without making your wallet wince, this is one of the best mid-range smartwatches out there. As with all Garmin watches, it’s ridiculously easy to use, has multi-sport options, in-built coaching and fully customisable data screens.

Better still, if you’re only using the basic functions, it lasts seven days before it needs juice, or 24 hours in GPS mode. The Music version, which you can grab for £50 more during Prime Day (was £90), syncs to apps like Spotify to store and play your running tunes straight from your wrist. Neat.

The Garmin Venu 2 Plus health and fitness GPS smartwatch allows you to take calls and text as you run. It’s compatible with Siri, Google Assistant or Samsung Bixby, and users can use their smartphone’s voice assistant to send texts, ask questions, control compatible smart home devices and more.

Plus, it offers all-day health monitoring including heart rate (with alerts for high or low readings), advanced sleep with sleep score and insights, breathwork activities, fitness age, respiration, all-day stress, hydration, plus menstrual cycle and pregnancy tracking.

Body Battery energy monitoring shows how ‘charged’ your body is as well as the draining effects of stress and exercise. Health Snapshot logs a two-minute window of key stats and generates a report you can share with a health care provider – great for capturing data anytime you’re feeling off your baseline.

When it first came out, the Vertix claimed to have a longer battery life any other watch on the market. With between 60 and 150 hours on full charge, depending on mode, or 45 days of regular use, it won’t be letting you down while you’re half-way down Everest. Indeed, we found it discharged by only 1% after a five-mile run.

It has an array of features, such as advanced training analysis, navigation, route downloading, compass, changeable screen faces and phone notifications. We particularly loved the usability. The interface is intuitive and just three button presses are all you need to get into a run, one of which is the super-useful rotating bezel which makes it easy to use even when wearing thick gloves.

So often the heart rate monitor of choice, trail runners might even be a bit surprised to learn that the Grit X is definitely a mean competitor when it comes to offering all the extra bits we need, like mapping, speed, elevation and the zillion things GPS watches supply these days.

It’s difficult to pinpoint any one function, such is the huge array on offer. Obviously, given the watch’s heritage, the Precision Prime mode which tracks your heart rate directly from the wrist is pretty cool, but then so is FitSpark, which provides ready-made daily workouts that match your recovery, readiness and training history.

Don’t forget to put it into Nightly Recharge when it comes to bedtime, not to charge it but rather to measure your recovery as you slumber and tell you how well you recover from the demands of your day.Then, it’ll supply you with personalised daily tips on exercise, sleep and regulating your energy levels on those particularly rough days.
We were particularly drawn to the Hill Splitter feature which automatically detects uphill and downhill segments and delivers detailed ascent/descent performance reporting after each session.

Using these insights, we can understand the intensity of our training, learn how to pace our efforts at different stages, compare sessions, and execute structured workouts.

More? How about Polar’s ability to track the power you generate on a run? Or there’s a great turn-by-turn navigation feature using Komoot’s mapping to make sure you never get lost. It even tells you what the weather will be.

Pretty obviously for such an advanced bit of kit, the Fenix 6 Pro is hot when it comes to GPS accuracy. In fact, it turns out none other than Eliud Kipchoge, he of sub-two-hour marathon fame, swears by the watch’s speed at finding satellites.

The Fenix 6 Pro has an amazing addition to its arsenal, known as PacePro. This creates a course-elevation-optimised race plan, which, after you’ve downloaded a GPX file of a course you’re about to run, lets you plot in your desired pace, allowing for hills. Tell it that you plan to run any ascent easily and it’ll calculate where you should be and at what speed you should be moving to achieve your goal.

The Fenix 6 Pro has an overwhelming amount of things to chose from including music, mapping and WiFi support, plus steps or stairs climbed, if you’re into that kind of thing. What happens if you’re out on a long run and need to stop for an unplanned drink and a sandwich? How will you pay? You could carry cash, or you could just wave your wrist at the cashier. The contactless payment feature on the Fenix 6 Pro is extremely useful.

Tom Evans, he of CCC victory fame, also told me that the mapping is exceptionally handy if you travel a lot. He might be in a new town, unsure where to run, so he simply clicks into the Trendline Popularity Routing function and can easily see what trails are trending in his particular location.

Chamonix, for instance, is a fabulous town to trail run from but if you don’t know where you’re going it can take a while to get familiar with the best routes. You don’t even need to look at your watch while you’re moving. It will beep or vibrate when you need to turn. Not only is it like running like a local, it’s actually like being with one. Don’t want roads on your map? Take them out with a click to get trail-only routing. Amazing.

The safety feature is also pretty interesting; the watch will send a message to a phone number of your choice to say you might need assistance. That works by impact or by key command. Again, not something you’ve thought of perhaps, but a useful addition for anyone out on the trails solo.

As I said before, Kipchoge uses his Garmin to record everything from his eight-minute easy miles to the hard efforts he puts in as he edges ever closer to breaking two hours for 26.2 miles. As a result of all that training, he gets masses of data – from cadence to stress levels to how his body is responding to recovery. This watch even measures your blood oxygen saturation levels which aren’t as high as they would be at sea level when you’re struggling to assimilate all this information in a mountain hut halfway up Mt Blanc.

If you want, this watch will even track sleep patterns and how you use oxygen as you slumber. As we are all becoming more aware, how you rest is as important as how you train. A shortage of data will not be an issue with the Garmin Fenix 6 Pro.

In recent years, GPS watches have changed out of all recognition. There’s almost nothing they can’t seem to do these days, be that track your exact location, record your pace, suggest training zones you should occupy, or even record sleep patterns.

Their only really bugbear is their battery life – frustratingly short in many instances. Well, allow us to introduce you to the Suunto 5, a watch with an impressive 40 hours of battery life when using GPS (14 days in simple ‘time’ mode) – along with the range of extras you come to expect from a training aid of this calibre.

Indeed, the intelligent battery mode recognises your training patterns, and sends reminders to charge well before the next session – thus eliminating one more excuse from your book of reasons not to run! We love watches like this as they can accurately describe themselves as your coach.

With not much programming skill required, the Suunto 5 will track your fitness level and guide you based on your progress and goals, tell you when to allow for recovery time when you push too hard, and track stress and sleep so you can be sure you are well recovered and ready for your next sporting effort.

If you like, Suunto’s online app also allows you to easily share your running experiences with a like-minded group. Heatmaps show where, and by what route, people are training, inspiring new challenges and exploration.

Once synced, you can explore new tracks and routes on the watch. Plus, some of the world’s favourite sports apps, like Strava and Training Peaks, are integrated with the Suunto app so users can get more out of their sessions.
Suunto claim seven days of battery life with 24/7 tracking and mobile notifications, or 40 hours in training mode.

Running watches stand or fall on the strength of their data collection and presentation. No such doubt in the case of the new Huawei Watch GT Runner smartwatch; it’s packing more fascinating data than a celebrity iCloud leak...
Where to start with this veritable coach and mini-computer on your wrist? Perhaps the fact that it syncs with the Huawei AI Running Coach app on your phone, to deliver a customised, detailed training plan based on a multitude of metrics and which adapts automatically to your run data.

You get training load data, real-time voice guidance and more. For trail runners who look for more than performance data, this high-tech wearable weighs just 38.5g, is loaded with positioning software that supports the five major navigation satellite systems, has a full-screen compass, route sharing and navigation functions, and even a barometer so you can gauge if the weather’s on the turn.

Like music while you run? You can control your tunes from the watch, whether you’re listening to them on your mobile phone or the GT runner itself. Plus, Huawei claim you’ll get seven days of battery life in ‘heavy usage scenarios.’

Add to all this the ability to answer calls on the watch, download apps for pretty much anything, and see all the usual health monitoring data we now expect of our smartwatches, and you’ve a mighty useful running partner on your wrist.

The Suunto 9 is stuffed with useful sensors and built like a tank (and not much smaller, so not ideal for skinny wrists). A steel bezel lends a solid feel while protecting the screen. Three metal buttons have a pleasant ‘click’ and make for simple navigation during an activity when the touchscreen is deactivated.

If you’re serious about exploring mountains and run ultras in remote locations, the Suunto 9 is best-in-class. Firstly, planning routes on Suunto’s movescount.com is so intuitive and fun. Select ‘Use with my Suunto 9’ and the route syncs to the watch... every time, no issues. Following that route gives you a breadcrumb map screen and an elevation profile screen that are a doddle to follow.

Secondly, battery life. The Suunto 9 battery performance is in its own class. Two weeks’ standby is impressive; 25 hours of accurate GPS tracking is, too. Also, if you’re running low, the watch will suggest changing battery mode, mid-activity!

FusedTrack is a low-res GPS recording whereby the watch fills in the gaps with data from the accelerometer, resulting in a decent looking trace and a 120-hour battery life.

Smart watch functions? It just shows notifications from your smartphone. It’s not very customisable in terms of activity screens or watch faces. A lack of payment features and music storage is unlikely to deter its target market from purchasing, though there are now newer options out there which will have additional features.

A rugged outdoor smartwatch equipped with a 25-day battery life and a high-precision, built-in dual satellite positioning system. In short, it is packed with all sorts of goodies we trail runners love.

Look out in particular for the route back function and route deviation alert which help users explore their potential without worries (in other words, you can venture up that path you’ve always wondered about, safe in the knowledge you’ll be able to get home again).

Of course, there’s more than 100 workout modes, a workout data recording function and it also comes with intuitive health features to monitor users’ wellbeing.

The Suunto 7 boasts vivid, full-colour offline outdoor maps, plus wrist-based control of music playlists for convenience on the go. There are 70+ sport modes too. Battery life will support a full day of active smartwatch use and still have enough juice left for your daily workout, including accurate exercise measurement with wrist-based heartrate tracking, barometer for elevation readings, and training insights. It’s also compatible with Google Pay, Google Fit, Strava and claims to be water resistant to 50 metres.

There’s all manner of super watches out there, but this looks like one to think about. This new watch supports hikers, climbers, trail runners and adventurers to explore unfamiliar terrain through its route trajectory navigation, real-time navigation, and journey tracking functions. It also uses direct-return navigation to show the shortest straight line back to the start of a journey.

The built-in barometric altimeter and compass are perfect for those who want to conquer new heights and discover untrodden paths. With the new route import function, users can import preselected routes and follow them using the watch.

With dual-band positioning and support for five satellite navigation systems, it can more effectively reduce environmental interference, and achieve faster search speed and more precise positioning.

Light and waterproof, the 935 features wrist-based heart rate monitoring, barometric altimeter, GPS and GLONASS (enhanced satellite connectivity) to give accurate performance data and navigation.

The 24-hour battery life should cover most races. Garmin software allows detailed data analysis and watch customisation. There may be other popular options out there like the 945, but the 935 remains a pro-level multisport watch for those who love data.