A watch comes with a company, and you will deal with that company for years. This page compares nine brands on how they treat you as an owner: how long they support a watch, what happens to your data, what ownership costs are, and whether anyone helps when something goes wrong. It leaves out battery life, GPS accuracy, and other product qualities, which I score in each review. The method is explained in how I test.
Brand pros and cons at a glance
| Brand | Best thing about the company | Biggest drawback |
|---|---|---|
| Garmin | An extensive ecosystem. Works with more third-party services than any other brand, and owns TrainingPeaks, Firstbeat and MYLAPS. | No written promise on how long it will support a watch you already own, and some new features require a Connect+ subscription. |
| Suunto | 2-year warranty everywhere, a battery replacement service and no subscription. | No tap-and-go payments or streaming music. |
| Apple | Phone, chat and store support, no routine subscription and a battery service. | iPhone only, and the one-app-at-a-time limit reduces what third-party sports apps can do on the Watch. |
| Amazfit | Low prices, no subscription and a 2-year warranty in the UK and EU. | Parent company Zepp lost $40m in 2025, and it publishes almost no science. |
| Polar | The only written 5-year support commitment, plus a published battery price list. | Its auditor flagged financial risk in the 2025 accounts, and its flagship Vantage V3 dates from October 2023. |
| Coros | The clearest repair deal: battery $59 to $89, screen $79 to $119, or a refurbished swap. | A private, China-run company with no public financials and little published science. |
| Samsung | 5 OS upgrades and 5 years of security patches on the Watch 9 and Ultra 2. | Android only; ECG and blood pressure need a Samsung phone, and endurance sport is secondary. |
| Google and Fitbit | The Pixel Watch gets each new Wear OS first, and a professional can replace its battery. | Only 3 years of OS updates, and Google forced Fitbit accounts onto Google accounts and has deleted unmigrated data since 15 July 2026. |
| Wahoo | Open ANT+ and Bluetooth support since 2012. | Shut down RGT 18 months after buying it. Wahoo no longer makes watches. |
What sets the brands apart
Warranty
Suunto, Polar and Coros offer 2 years worldwide by policy, and Amazfit does the same in the UK and EU. Garmin, Apple, Samsung and Google give 1 year in the US and rely on consumer law for the second year in the UK and EU.
Batteries and repair
The EU exempted wearables from its user-replaceable battery rule on 14 July 2026, so what matters is whether a professional can replace it. Coros, Polar, Suunto and Apple run battery services. Google’s Pixel Watch can be serviced professionally. Garmin has no battery service, and I found none for Amazfit.
TrainingPeaks and Garmin
Garmin bought TrainingPeaks on 22 July 2026, so rival brands that sync with TrainingPeaks now feed a platform owned by a competitor. Garmin gave a similar reassurance when it bought Firstbeat in 2020, and DC Rainmaker has reported that Firstbeat no longer licenses to new customers.
Outages
Every brand has outages, and your watch keeps recording through them. I only note one when it lasts days. The main example is Garmin’s ransomware attack in July 2020, which took its servers down for four to five days.
Change log
- 29 September 2026: first version, covering nine brands.
- 29 September 2026: fact-check corrections to the Polar, Google and Fitbit, and TrainingPeaks entries.
Last updated 29 September 2026.
