What materials do smartwatches use?

Most sports activity trackers are designed rugged, so that they will withstand knocks and shocks. They're usually waterproof enough for diving too. More basic models will have a plastic case and strap, but spend more and you'll get a metal bezel or casing, might get a tougher glass face and may be able to purchase a metal strap too. If your primary goal is sports tracking beware of flashy features though. We've tested high end smartwatches that are heavy and uncomfortable to wear, with sharp metal edges that dig into your wrist when holding the bars.

What features do smartwatches offer for cycling?

GPS tracking will be vital. More basic smartwatches may piggyback from a smartphone for the duration of your rides but now even Fitbit has built-in GPS in many of its fitness trackers. Many multisport watches also come with barometers and altimeters. This is useful for accurate elevation profiles in recorded data. Keep in mind though, more sensors mean a greater drain on battery life. They will need a bigger battery, leading to larger watches. Even if you only use it for cycling, clearly a smartwatch needs to be water resistant. As a starting point we'd recommend an IP67 rating (IP is a rating of the watch's ingress protection – the higher the number, the better the protection).

Do I need a touchscreen?

Some smartwatches have a touchscreen interface, although most work with an array of buttons. Touchscreens can be very intuitive and easy to use off the bike, but when you're riding they can be awkward to operate, so having buttons as well is useful as a fallback. The decision between touchscreen and buttons is more personal preference than anything else. Buttons can have a more tactile feel and guarantee impressions, whereas the quality of touchscreens, and their performance in wet weather, can vary from brand to brand. On the other hand, touchscreen displays are often more aesthetically pleasing with less bezel and sometimes with smaller screens. Usually a touchscreen smartwatch will offer buttons too. It may only allow you to use the buttons to control functions during exercise to prevent you from inadvertently stopping recording as you ride.

What battery life can I expect?

The best smartwatches include sophisticated battery management functionality, that lets you eke out plenty of battery life between charges. You can expect around a week of battery life from the best smartwatches, if you're just using them in smartwatch mode. That will drop significantly once you start to use the GPS chip to track your activities, but even so they should rival the best cycling computers . If you're going long, a good cycling smartwatch should include the option to dial down battery-intensive functionality to add days to its runtime. That might include lowering the sensitivity or sample rate for GPS tracking or turning off some connectivity functions or in-built sensors, or just powering up less of the screen. Garmin has added to battery life by including the option to choose solar charging in some of its smartwatches. We didn't find it added much to battery life in the Fenix 6, but battery life has been significantly extended in its replacement Fenix 7. The Garmin Enduro , also solar charged, is claimed to run for up to a year between charges in its lowest power mode and 95 days with low power GPS tracking. When it does come time to recharge your smartwatch, most use a USB cable, although it might be one with a connector that's specific to your smartwatch.

What navigation features do smartwatches provide?

You can expect route planning and navigation in a smartwatch designed for sports. As a minimum look for a breadcrumb trail of a pre-planned route, but the more sophisticated will include a basemap too. If you follow a pre-planned route, the best smartwatches will give you turn-by-turn instructions, just like a cycling computer. You may get in-ride rerouting, although you may need to carry your smartphone with you for this. You may get many of the other features of the best cycling computers like back-to-start routing, hill climb profiles and weather alerts.

What connectivity features should I look for?

Before you buy, check the compatibility of your power meter or cadence sensors with a cycling smartwatch. Some watches don't pair with external sensors, particularly if they're aimed at general fitness as well as cycling. The best smartwatches for cycling include BLE connectivity to let you link up to these devices. Often you'll get ANT+ connectivity too on devices specifically designed for cycling and multisport tracking. Optical heart rate sensors work by lighting up your capillaries with an LED. As your blood pumps through, the density changes and the light reflects back differently. The watch then translates this into a beats per minute reading. Although many smartwatches have wrist-based heart rate monitoring built in, you may get a more accurate measurement if you wear a separate heart rate monitor strap, as movement and sweat at the wrist can affect how well the optical sensor works. If you already have an HRM, check that the smartwatch will work with it, although most modern HRMs will broadcast both BLE and ANT+ signals.

What health tracking features should I look for in a smartwatch for cycling?

Nearly all smartwatches track the same metrics as basic fitness trackers do. That usually includes step count, calorie burn and sleeping habits. That's usually integrated into an overview of your fitness and often tips and advice on how to improve. Most of the latest smartwatches for cycling will record heart rate continually while you wear them, giving you a day-to-day record of your resting heart rate. You can use this to see the trend in your fitness level, if you're becoming fatigued, overtrained , ill – and if you're about to hit peak fitness. You may get a prompt from the smartwatch to rest up or do specific drills to help you hit your goals. Some smartwatches include blood oxygen monitoring. It's useful for tracking adaptation to altitude , but is quite power hungry and only works when you're not moving, so may only operate when you're asleep. Another function that some smartwatches offer is electrocardiogram traces. You have to initiate these yourself; it's another function that may give you limited useful data. Most smartwatches will include Bluetooth and/or WiFi connectivity and use this to link to a smartphone app and/or a computer app to upload activities wirelessly. The app will provide more health and exercise analysis and history and you'll get connectivity to Strava and training apps like TrainingPeaks.

What are the drawbacks of using a smartwatch for cycling?

Screen size is obviously limited in a smartwatch compared to the best cycling computers . Some models with larger screens can get a bit chunky, so look out for a size that will feel comfortable to wear, particularly if you're planning to wear your smartwatch day and night for sleep tracking. Just like with a cycling computer you can usually change what data is displayed on your screen, although you may have to limit how many fields are shown to fewer than with a cycling GPS. The small screen is more limiting with graphic content like routes and maps, where it may be difficult to zoom out or track around enough to see the bigger picture. On the other hand, you can often set the smartwatch to vibrate to alert you to turns when navigating or to incoming messages from your smartphone. Attached to your wrist, you may find it's harder to keep an eye on the metrics displayed on a smartwatch than on a cycling computer, which has its screen facing you. Some brands offer bar mounts to let you attach your watch to your bike for better visibility.

What triathlon-specific features do smartwatches provide?

If your exercise targets include triathlons, many smartwatches will include the ability to transition between activities. The Wahoo Elemnt Rival majors on this, with seamless transitions, but other brands like Garmin include this functionality as well. Both these brands include functionality for mirroring, so that your cycling computer can display data collected during your swim and you get a holistic view of your performance.

Best smartwatches for cycling

(Image credit: Future)

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Buyer's guide to the best smartwatches for cycling

By Rupert Radley

last updated 5 July 2023

The best smartwatches for cycling are becoming ever more sophisticated. Even the mid-range ones are starting to outperform some of the best cycling computers: not only do they have the same level of functionality and post-ride data analysis but because they’re on your wrist they can be smarter, tracking what’s going on with your body when you’re off the bike as well as on it.

Because they’re on your wrist they’ll track pretty much any sport you do, whether that’s running, swimming, hiking, rowing, skiing or even golfing! You don't need a bike mount (although that's an option with some) and don't need to worry about removing it from your bike when you stop. It's not going to get as mud-splattered as a computer if you go off-road either.

Just like bike computers, GPS smartwatches will pair with peripheral sensors such as the best power meters and heart rate monitors, and they now almost all have built-in wrist-based optical heart rate monitors. Depending on the model there's navigation too and top spec sports oriented smartwatches will supply all the metrics that a cycling computer does.

Our pick of the best smartwatches for cycling

You can trust Cycling Weekly. Our team of experts put in hard miles testing cycling tech and will always share honest, unbiased advice to help you choose. Find out more about how we test.

Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar which is one of the best smartwatches for cycling

1. Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar

Best cycling smartwatch for GPS and mapping

Specifications

Screen size: 1.3" / 33mm

Screen type: Colour

Control: Touchscreen and buttons

Weight: 53g

On board GPS?: Yes

On board HRM?: Yes

Connectivity: Bluetooth, ANT+, Wi-Fi

Reasons to buy

Automatically searches for GPS signals when you select an outdoor activity

Excellent battery life

Clear mapping

Quick navigation to screen you need

Reasons to avoid

Need to wear constantly for accurate diagnostics

Didn’t always automatically connect with phone

Garmin’s top-tier Forerunner 955 Solar is packed with features, making it more than just an activity tracker or GPS unit - though it does both of these things well, too.

This watch measures a huge amount of data, providing feedback on your recovery, training readiness, stress levels and more. It does this thanks to two light diodes situated on the back of the watch, which track your heart rate and your heart rate variability. From here it can measure your performance ability, and then track your progression and recovery accordingly.

As for the mapping, we found that the 33.5mm circumference display made it easy to use and follow. By zooming in the maps clearly showed bridleways as well as splits in the route, certainly making it good enough to navigate by. Even when we tried to get lost, the zoom and scrolling features made it easy to get back on track.

As for battery life, during our four-month test it was nothing short of exceptional, lasting for over seven days per charge, even through the winter. The solar feature is likely to have a ranging appeal based on where you live and how much sunshine you see - the 955 is available without this function.

Wahoo Elemnt Rival which is one of the best smartwatches for cycling