All smartwatches are water resistant these days – but some offer excellent swim tracking features.
After extensive testing from the Wareable team, we’ve ranked the best waterproof smartwatch as the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for its diving features, auto-depth tracking, and excellent built-in Workout smarts. But it’s chunky price tag doesn’t necessarily make it the right choice for everyone.
We’ve been swimming with every smartwatch in our testing process to find out which smart watches can tell your breaststroke from your front crawl.
What is SWOLF? Swimming watch metrics explained
Smartwatch water resistance ratings explained:
If you’re looking for a smartwatch for swimming, you need a device with 5ATM and IPX8 ratings (or higher).
Having at least both these marks will mean your watch has both ingress protection for continuous immersion in water, as well as the ability to deal with a good level of water pressure.
It might sound baffling, but a 3ATM watch is technically water-resistant up to 30 meters, but it won’t provide suitable protection for swimming.
You can read our guide to wearable waterproof ratings for more detailed information.
Apple Watch Ultra 2
Probably the ultimate waterproof smartwatch, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is rated 100ATM, and it’s good for diving (it’s EN13319 certified) putting it a few lengths ahead of its competitors.
When submerged in water, the Apple Watch Ultra automatically turns into a dive computer, showing you live depth in a clear and easy-to-read display. It’s good for dives up to 40m, and can also survive the water pressure of jet-skiing and surfing.
It also integrates with the Oceanic+ app, which offers specialist diving metrics and features.
Divers are also well catered for with the Ocean strap, which is the best of the standard issue bands, in our opinion.
When it comes to swimming, the Apple Watch Ultra shares the excellent tracking performance of the standard Series 9 and Apple Watch SE models. (See below).
Of course, it’s a completely different beast to wear. The 49mm case means that it’s chunky on the wrist, and a lot of people (especially women) will find that more uncomfortable to wear.
But the screen and added day(s) of battery life more than makeup for that, and the Apple Watch Ultra oozes outdoor vibes when you’re getting on with the mundanities of everyday life.
Waterproof rating: 10 ATM (100m) | Pool and open water: Yes | Dive: EN13319
Wareable verdict: Apple Watch Ultra 2 review
Apple Watch Series 9 / SE
If you don’t fancy the size or price tag of the Ultra, the standard Series 9 and Watch SE are fantastic pool/water companions. And in terms of pool skills, there’s nothing to pick between them.
There are multiple swimming modes in the Workout app, which will serve up a host of metrics, including distance covered, lengths, and average pace, and it can distinguish stroke style, as well.
During the swim, the touchscreen is inactive, but the always-on display does mean you can raise your arm to check in on real-time progress.
In terms of accuracy, the Apple Watch is up there with the dedicated sports watches, and the experience overall of taking it swimming is strong.
Core data (distance, lap counts, average pace) were all in line with our control testing, and it’s a comfortable watch to wear in the water. Data lives in the Apple Activity app, but you also have the benefit of third-party Apple Watch swimming apps for that extra hit of analysis.
Waterproof rating: 5ATM (50m) | Pool and open water: Yes
Wareable verdict: Apple Watch Series 9 review
Garmin Forerunner 965 / 265 / 165
Check price: Buy Garmin Forerunner 165
Check price: Buy Garmin Forerunner 265
Check price: Buy Garmin Forerunner 965
We’ve lumped these Forerunner devices together here due to their similarities when it comes to swimming tracking, with both essentially affording you top-level insights in a lightweight design.
All are adept at tracking pool, open water, triathlon, and Swimrun workouts, with a number of different versions on offer to help you find the right fit and screen size for your wrist.
As you would expect, the performance and accuracy are very similar to what’s offered on other Garmin watches – and that’s no bad thing. Metrics like distance, pace, stroke count, and SWOLF scores are all presented neatly, with the option to customize data fields also present.
As with the Epix (Gen 2), you can also set up auto-resting, pace alerts, and Garmin’s Drill Log feature from the old Swim 2, which is really handy for pool workouts.
There is one key difference: The Forerunner 165 doesn’t have pool-based workouts or a pace alerts feature when in the pool. The Forerunner 265 and 965 do.
Battery life varies between these two sports watches, we should note. The 965 is capable of reaching a couple of weeks with standard use as a smartwatch, while the 265 (13 days) and 165 (11 days) are shorter.
As we say, though, either of these is a great companion in the water. The experience is feature-rich, and accurate and also offers plenty of other smarts and tracking insights when you’re done in the water.
Waterproof rating: 5 ATM (50m) | Pool and open water: Yes
Wareable verdict: Garmin Forerunner 965 review | Garmin Forerunner 265 review
Huawei Watch Fit 3
Like the GT series, the Watch Fit 3 is capable of tracking both open water and pool swimming offering metrics including laps, calories, distance, speed, SWOLF, swim stroke rate, and frequency.
When you head outdoors, you can expect to see distance, average SWOLF, swimming time, swimming strokes, and swim stroke rate. And we’ve found Huawei wearables to be a decent companions in the pool, with accurate data on lengths and strokes.
The Huawei Health app is a good place to review swimming data and you can have data synced to Strava, which is a big plus for swimmers.
It does run on Huawei’s HarmonyOS operating system, which means you do get access to Huawei’s AppGallery store, though it lacks any big-name apps or swim-centric apps for that matter.
It’s also a good budget smartwatch that works well with iOS and Android alike. And at £139, it’s one of the cheapest devices on this list. It’s not as slick in places, and you don’t get access to apps and services like Apple/Google watches. But it gets a lot right.
Waterproof rating: 5 ATM (50m) | Pool and open water: Yes
Wareable verdict: Huawei Watch Fit 3 review
Huawei Watch 4 Pro
While significantly more expensive than the Fit 3, the Huawei Watch 4 Pro also offers diving smarts thanks to its EN 13319 rating. It’s good for free dives up to 30m.
We’ve used Huawei wearables extensively in the pool, and have found tracking of laps, calories, distance, speed, SWOLF, swim stroke rate, and frequency to be reliable – so on that front, the Huawei Watch 4 comes recommended.
The dive app will produce plenty of data. It will measure the speed, depth, and duration of dives, as well as depth curve, heart rate, breath holding duration, and data on diaphragm contraction.
And it features a a titanium and ceramic build, and an excellent AMOLED screen. Battery life is a cut above rivals, with a week away from the charger – however, all those premium materials mean it costs more than an Apple Watch – but less than an Apple Watch Ultra.
Waterproof rating: 10 ATM (100m) | Pool and open water: Yes | Dive: EN13319
Read our Huawei Watch 4 Pro Space Edition review.
Garmin Venu 3
For swimmers, buying Garmin is a strong choice – and the Venu 3 is the company’s most advanced smartwatch, so you’re getting an excellent all-rounder here.
The Venu 3 is two things. First up, it’s a sporty smartwatch with a host of (fairly basic) sports profiles. For a Garmin, produces quite low-level data for running, and cycling – it produces an excellent array of swimming metrics.
Garmin watches have led the way here, and you’ll get the detection of strokes (backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle), accurate length tracking, and also the all-important SWOLF metric.
The Venu 3 will also record heart rate underwater using the optical sensor.
It’s also a strong wellness watch, with in-depth metrics such as the new sleep coach (as mentioned above) but also Morning Report and HRV Status, Body Battery, stress tracking, and metrics such as respiration rate and heart rate.
It comes in two available sizes (45mm and 41mm) with options for varied colors and features like the Sleep Coach and an automatic nap detection mechanism, which personalizes sleep requirements based on numerous metrics.
Battery life is 10 to 14 days depending on the model size.
Waterproof rating: 5 ATM (50m) | Pool and open water: Yes
Amazfit Active
Amazfit offers a decent swimming experience across its range of smartwatches – but it’s the Amazfit Active we’ve highlighted here. That’s because this newer Amazfit brings much of what’s good about its recent smartwatches with a budget price tag, that makes it easy to recommend.
Pool swimming is automatically detected – and the AMOLED display is well-suited to checking your metrics while in the pool.
On the watch, you get the distance covered, swim duration, and calories burned, for open water and pool swims. It will also track average pace, speed, and average strokes per minute.
What’s more, the Amazfit app plays nicely with Strava, which is a great place to record and review swimming data.
Away from the pool, the Amazfit Active is a solid workout companion for runners, and the new Readiness feature will suit those who work out regularly and want to keep tabs on fatigue.
It lacks third-party apps, payments, and native streaming music support, but at this price,
Waterproof rating: 5 ATM (50m) | Pool and open water: Yes
Read our full Amazfit Active review
Samsung Galaxy Watch 6
The Galaxy Watch 6 is Samsung’s latest smartwatch. It runs on Google’s Wear OS 4, giving you access to Google features like the Play Store and the ability to download Google apps.
In terms of its sports tracking prowess, it still feels very Samsung from that point of view and that means you can expect similar swim tracking in the pool and open water from it. It’s also waterproof up to 50 meters depth.
It’s a smartwatch that will let you view metrics like distance, strokes, lap time, and SWOLF (to measure swimming efficiency) from the Super AMOLED display.
With Wear OS now on board, you have access to third-party apps to track swims outside of Samsung’s own Health companion app.
Unlike previous smartwatches, the Watch 6 only works with Android phones. It does offer good accuracy on the whole in the water and is one that’s comfortable too. You’re also getting one of the best smartwatch experiences outside of Apple’s whether it’s notification support or music features and now it has significantly better app support.
Waterproof rating: 5 ATM (50m) | Pool and open water: Yes
Wareable verdict: Samsung Galaxy Watch 6
