The range and sophistication of the best outdoor watches are genuinely amazing. These rugged wearables manage to pack a huge number of potent sensors and tools for modern life into a tiny package. They're also more precise than a simple smartphone and typically offer far better battery life.
Not looking for something tech-crammed? This ranking also includes outstanding outdoor watches from the other end of the scale: simple, stylish, time-telling, rugged and robust models that are all but indestructible.
While screen real estate is limited, adventure watch manufacturers have taken many tips from smartwatches, and indeed many outdoor watches do double duty as smartwatches, as well as hiking GPS units, running watches, training aids and music players, to name but a few functions. Read on for our ranking of the best outdoor watches right now – whatever you're into.
The best outdoor watch to buy right now
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Initially, we were confused why Garmin wanted to keep the Enduro franchise alive, especially after launching the Garmin Epix Gen 2. Why would you create competition for your own wearables?
After testing the watch, we think we know the answer (kind of). The Enduro 2 is the ultimate outdoor watch – its battery life and features make it more competent than the top-of-the-line Fenix, the Fenix 7X (listed below). However, unlike the Fenix line, the Garmin Enduro 2 isn't a casual smartwatch; it doesn't come in a million sizes and colours to cater for a variety of potential users. It caters for people who want to run a lot outdoors and need a reliable wearable to track progress, plan routes, and monitor recovery.
Right now, the Garmin Enduro 2 is the best choice for endurance athletes at any level to track their training. Granted, if you're a beginner runner wanting to track your local park run sessions, buying this watch is absolute overkill. If you take training – especially off-road workouts – seriously and want a wearable that can keep up with you, your best option is the Garmin Enduro 2.
Read our full Garmin Enduro 2 review.
The Huawei Watch Ultimate is a premium outdoor smartwatch with all the health and fitness features under the sun. It makes you look classy without compromising on the outdoor prowess of the wearable, which is a fine line to walk. Some materials and features included feel over the top, but those who like quality wearables and outdoor watches will appreciate this wearable.
Like the Apple Watch Ultra (listed below), the Huawei Watch Ultimate has a dedicated physical button to summon its Expedition mode. It is fun to use, even if you aren't planning on re-conquering the Arctics. The watch can also be used for commercial diving, which we're sure everyone will appreciate (considering the number of commercial divers out there).
The Huawei Watch Ultimate has a large, bright AMOLED display and a surprisingly long battery life, which is why we listed it so high in this outdoor watch roundup. It's a shame you can't buy it in the US, but if you live in a country where it's available, we recommend checking it out.
Read our full Huawei Watch Ultimate review.
There is a Garmin Fenix 7 watch for everyone. You can choose from a range of different options, including the small Fenix 7S, the standard Fenix 7 and the huge Fenix 7X. You can also choose between non-solar, Solar and Sapphire Solar Editions. Our top pick is the Fenix 7X Solar, which is the most feature-rich of the lot and offers long battery life and a physical flashlight exclusive to the largest Fenix 7 model.
You can track everything from blood oxygen to heart rate to respiration, stamina, sleep and stress levels with the Garmin Fenix 7. The watch also has several safety and health tracking features, including automatic incident detection and manually triggered assistance alerts. These send a message with your real-time location to emergency contacts.
As expected from the Fenix series, the Garmin Fenix 7 is one rugged smartwatch – Garmin added protective button guards and metal-reinforced lugs for extra toughness. We recommend the solar option, as you benefit from a big potential boost in battery life – Garmin has improved the solar harvesting capability up to 200% in smartwatch mode compared to the Fenix 6 Solar.
Read our full Garmin Fenix 7 review.
The Apple Watch Ultra features a rugged titanium case and the largest AMOLED display of all Apple Watches. The Ultra is a strange watch; on the one hand, it provides an excellent user experience and offers decent performance features (see also: Apple Watch Precision Start). However, the battery life is still a letdown, with the watch only lasting for a maximum of 36 hours on one charge.
That said, we used the Apple Watch Ultra to run a marathon, and we took the Apple Watch Ultra up a volcano, scuba diving and skiing, and it performed well under these circumstances. It's a quality wearable with a pretty display and plenty of health and safety features – if you're a fan of Apple products and need a rugged wearable, this is your best option.
Read our full Apple Watch Ultra review.
The Suunto Vertical is one of the most exciting launches from the Finnish manufacturer in the last few years. The mapping features are excellent, as are the battery life and the general build quality of the watch. The added solar charging option is also a step in the right direction for Suunto.
We would've appreciated a faster CPU and smoother touch interactions. Plus, these days, having a matrix screen is nothing to write home about. A non-AMOLED display certainly helps battery life, though, but based on our experience, it certainly doesn't improve visibility in bright lighting conditions.
Overall, the Suunto Vertical isn't the worst option for outdoor navigation, but there are plenty of alternatives available, which might make it harder to justify the asking price of the watch. We recommend waiting a bit to see if the cost of the watch drops slightly, which might make it more appealing in the ever-so-saturated rugged outdoor watch market.
Read our full Suunto Vertical review.
While it's not exactly cheap, the Polar Grit X delivers plenty of bang for your mid-range buck. Part of a new focus on adventure watches from Polar, this outdoor watch offers a wide range of tracking, training and recovery tools, including a number specifically designed for use on trails and mountains – Hill Splitter, FuelWise and WeatherWatch, for example. It's robustly built, easy to navigate and boasts up to 40 hours of battery life in full activity mode.
Read our full Polar Grit X review.
Until recently, our pick for the best budget outdoor watch was the Amazfit T-Rex Pro, and while you'll still find it at the bottom of this round-up, it's been thoroughly superseded by the latest version: step forward, the Amazfit T-Rex 2. It's a significant upgrade to the T-Rex Pro, with a larger and brighter AMOLED display, longer battery life and a much better GPS chip, and if you're after a cheap alternative to the Garmin Fenix, this is about as good as it gets right now.
It's rugged and surprisingly lightweight – put that down to the polycarbonate case – with a new BioTrackerTM 3.0 PPG biometric sensor that supports 24-hour health management functions, as well as over 150 sports modes (most of which you'll never use). The GPS accuracy is fine, if not super-accurate, while the heart rate accuracy is a little hit-and-miss, but on the whole, you get a lot of functionality and plenty of bang for your buck. We can't help but feel that the chunky design is there for the sake of it, but if you can live with that and if you're on a budget, this is definitely an outdoor watch worth considering.
Read our full Amazfit T-Rex 2 review.
Of course, you don't need to go for a smartwatch when heading into the great outdoors, and our current pick from the analogue market is the Elliot Brown Bloxworth Heritage Diver watch (or, for women, the Bloxworth Hali). Sure, there's no GPS, but you're also getting years of battery life, with no need to ever hunt down a charge point.
This outdoor watch is ultra-robust, with a toughened, anti-reflective sapphire crystal face framed by a ceramic bezel. There's a movement shock protection system that'll withstand a bashing from a 3kg stainless steel pendulum mallet, and it's waterproof to 200m, too. Details are geared towards use in the great outdoors – the coin-edged bezel is deep enough to grip with a gloved hand, for example, and if you decide to opt for the bracelet strap version, there's a ratchet buckle that lets you fit it perfectly over your wetsuit.
Head to our guide to the best dive watches for some more tech-free options.
If you're a water lover, the best outdoor watch for you is the Garmin Quatix 6X Solar. This watch takes the land-based tools and tech found in our top-ranking 6X range and adds a whole bunch more geared towards more watery pursuits. There are plenty of features aimed at boat owners, SUP riders, windsurfers, kayakers and more.
Additions include wrist-based autopilot control, dedicated marine mapping and bespoke sailing tools. You'll also get Garmin's solar-boosted battery, which means this watch will run and run... and run. While it's absolutely excellent for marine sports, it's probably unnecessarily complex for land lovers.
In April 2022, Garmin released a new version of this watch. The upgraded version adds a touchscreen AMOLED face and some more sea-specific tools, although the former does impact battery life somewhat. Check out our full Garmin Quatix 7 Sapphire review for the full low-down on that one.
Read our full Garmin Quatix 6X Solar review
The Garmin Tactix Delta is not your everyday wearable. In fact, it's a purpose-built military watch. But that doesn't mean it should be discounted as an everyday outdoors watch, especially for those of us whose hobbies rest at the more extreme end of the spectrum. Feature-wise, the Tactix Delta does everything the rest of the best outdoor watches do, from delivering turn-by-turn navigation to guiding you around the golf course or ski slopes, to storing music, to tracking any and all fitness stats.
But it also packs some rarer, more unexpected features too – there's a night vision capability, stealth mode, sky diving metrics and a kill switch. It does come with a fairly hefty price tag, but those looking to save a bit might want to consider the Garmin Fenix 6X Sapphire instead (appearances aside – this is practically the same watch).
Read our full Garmin Tactix Delta review.
How to buy the best best outdoor watch for you
There’s a huge range of outdoor watches on the market, so before you dive in, you’ll want to be clear from the outset just how much technology you really need. Too much and you’ll be out of battery within a couple of days, too little, and your training program will suffer.
For big expedition use, smartwatches and intensive GPS trackers are just too power-hungry, and you’ll want something solar-powered or just very simple to keep working in all conditions. If you’re set on a tracking model, be clear whether you’ll just be tracking your progress for training, or using it as a navigational aid, as the two don’t always go hand in hand.
Models that use GPS and other sensors (such as a barometer) often have better accuracy, but this may chew the battery faster. On the bright side, the newest models tend to have a series of settings, so you can balance accuracy with battery life. Overall – a few incredible all-rounders aside – the best outdoor watch for you will depend on what you want to be doing. Choose wisely, and get out there!
