I’ve never owned an Apple Watch, and after spending months with the CMF by Nothing Watch 3 Pro, I don’t feel like I’m missing out. This budget-friendly smartwatch does everything I want from tech on my wrist: it tracks my runs and sleep, monitors my heart rate, sends notifications and it has a battery that lasts over 10 days (!) — not to mention, it looks damn good while doing it all. Basically, this watch taught me that functional personal tech doesn’t have to be pricey, which is exactly why it earned a spot on this year’s HuffPost Shopping Awards for the Tech category.
Compared to other smartwatches on the market, my CMF by Nothing Watch 3 Pro feels laser-focused on perfecting the basics.
This smartwatch nails the essentials in just the right way. The Watch 3 Pro’s design is smart, clean and minimalist, with several digital watch faces to match your style and easy-to-navigate menus. The interface is intuitive, too — it doesn’t require a manual or watching a tutorial to figure it out. The companion Nothing X app keeps things simple and distraction-free, letting you customize the watch’s menu and add or remove modules and workouts whenever you want.
Personally, it’s been a reliable tool for tracking my laps around D.C.’s National Mall to treadmill 5Ks at the gym. Step tracking is simple and displays right on the watch’s home page in big, bold numbers. Whether I’m out for a run or just moving through the day, it does a good job logging activity without making it feel like I need to constantly manage the watch. It even vibrates each mile and shows my running zone mid-workout, so I can check my stats with a quick flick of the wrist.
