Driving a hard bargain
Although the wonderful modularity of its predecessor has been removed, the CMF Watch 3 Pro sets a new bar for budget smartwatches. The fact that you can get one of the best-looking wearables around for less than $100/£100 is just too good a bargain to miss—and it’s incredible to see how the brand has kept its sense of style consistent across the UI and the library of available watch faces. The lack of proper waterproofing and a fairly basic set of smart features may turn some people away, but the watch is easy to recommend to those who might be strapped for cash.
A design unlike any other smartwatch
Great value for the asking price
Very accessible UI with a clean aesthetic
Limited smart features
It can’t be taken for a swim
Modular bezels have been ditched
An area once dominated by the fitness band form factor, the CMF Watch 3 Pro is another example of the certified shift at the entry level toward feature-packed trackers in smartwatch bodies.
Aside from a handful of budget-friendly smartwatches, the big brands—Apple, Samsung, and Google—tend not to occupy this space.
It’s why, instead, it’s been populated by the likes of Xiaomi and Huawei in the last half-decade. With its own line of affordable watches, Nothing subsidiary CMF has been trying to buck the common limitation of these devices, a lack of premium feel and style—and with fair success.
The last-gen CMF Watch Pro 2 is a smartwatch we loved wearing. It perfectly represented what Nothing has been about since its inception, breaking free from identikit, samey styles in favor of modularity, color, and fun.
Now, with the CMF Watch 3 Pro, the brand is looking to go one step further.
Advertisement
Design and display
At first glance, the Watch 3 Pro has carried over much of the design philosophy used in its predecessor, but that’s no bad thing.
There’s a standout orange variant (pictured) which ties in nicely with CMF’s preferred colour palette. Yet, there are also similarly fetching options in ‘Light’ and ‘Dark Grey’, as well as ‘Light Green’ which bears a striking resemblance to the CMF Headphone Pro.
(Image credit: Wareable)
Even though we’re quite partial to the orange model we have for review, each model of the CMF Watch 3 Pro is designed to be eye-catching.
We’ve seen many smartwatch makers focus on the latest features, often neglecting design, which is surprising since a watch is also a fashion statement. It’s a major plus that CMF hasn’t overlooked this, especially considering the Watch 3 Pro’s affordability compared to most smartwatches.
Advertisement
There’s just one size option. However, at just 51g, the Watch 3 Pro doesn’t feel cumbersome in use, and it’s nowhere near as bulky as some of the more outdoor-friendly watches you can find on the market. Still, if you do want a smaller smartwatch that still looks great, you might be better off with the Xiaomi Watch S4 (41mm).
Curious choices
There is one big downgrade over the CMF Watch Pro 2, however— there’s no modularity to speak of. And it’s a shame, because the ability to swap out bezels on the fly was one of the Watch Pro 2’s best features. We’re a bit baffled as to why CMF has taken it away this time around.
(Image credit: Wareable)
One aspect that it has carried over, frustratingly, is a complete lack of full-body waterproofing. While it does have an official IP69 rating for water and dust resistance, CMF doesn’t recommend taking the Watch 3 Pro to your local pool, which is a big letdown for anyone who regularly swims as part of their workout routine.
This isn’t even necessarily a downside of shopping at this end of the market, either, with (even more) budget-friendly trackers like the Xiaomi Smart Band 10 able to withstand water immersion.
Losing face
At the very least, CMF has attempted to improve the Watch 3 Pro by increasing the display size to 1.43 inches and boosting brightness from 620 to 670 nits.
Advertisement
Both of these changes make the display very lovely to look at in everyday use and enhance the eye-catching selection of watch faces available. The subtle touches of color scattered throughout CMF’s mostly monochrome UI add a nice visual touch.
(Image credit: Wareable)
The only area of the screen that needs improvement is the always-on display mode. When watch faces enter a low-power mode that can be viewed at a glance, we never had an issue viewing them indoors, but the same cannot be said when taking the watch outdoors.
When viewed in direct sunlight, as shown above, the time is almost completely lost. We always had to wake the watch to get a proper look at the time. And while it’s not the worst setback, we would like to see it fixed in a follow-up.
Smart features
(Image credit: Wareable)
When it comes to smart features for a £99/$99 smartwatch, it’s best to have realistic expectations from the jump. No, the CMF Watch 3 Pro isn’t designed to go head-to-head with even Apple’s entry-level watch, the Apple Watch SE 3.
Advertisement
There’s no support for third-party apps—so you can’t dive into the likes of Strava or Google Maps—and, even though there might have been some capacity to include it, there’s no NFC, either.
Instead, you get a watch that focuses on the basics. And if you ever used the classic Pebble watches from back in the day, then you’ll know what we’re talking about.
This includes access to your calendar, a remote toggle for your phone’s camera app, and an activator for your voice assistant of choice. It gets the job done, and the experience is bolstered by CMF’s clean UI, with a monochrome palette that arguably makes things a bit easier to read, as you’re not distracted by an abundance of color.
Novel wins
One feature with a more modern touch is ‘Essential News’. This essentially uses AI to provide a voice-over of the day’s biggest headlines.
In theory, this seems like quite a decent idea for folks in a hurry, but with no way of seeing the stories that have been sourced, there’s always the worry that a bit of AI hallucination might make its way into a summary without your knowledge. It requires a bit more development before it can be deemed a killer app, but it has huge potential.
Meanwhile, the collection of watch faces on the Watch 3 Pro requires no notes. In what may be the biggest surprise for a wearable at this price, the watch faces have been meticulously designed with CMF’s eye for style, and the impact they make with just a handful of colors is impressive. The collection on offer is right up there with the best from Samsung and Apple.
Advertisement
Fitness and sports tracking
(Image credit: Wareable)
Because it lacks the smart features of pricier wearables, the expectation for the Watch 3 Pro was that it might emphasize fitness tracking to compensate—and that is true—but only to a certain extent. What you do get is a watch that ticks off some of the essential boxes in this area, but not enough to go toe to toe with the best fitness trackers on the market.
On the one hand, there is absolutely no shortage of workouts that can be tracked. When diving into the Nothing X app, wherein workouts can be added or removed from the watch, you’ve got everything from football to parkour. And if you have no existing fitness routine whatsoever, there’s a handy running coach that lets you set a target distance and time to complete, and puts you on a workout schedule to reach it.
As mentioned before, the only notable exception among available workouts is swimming. So if your workout of choice involves hitting up the local pool, then you’ll be better off with something like the Xiaomi Smart Band 10 or the Fitbit Charge 6.
Hanging with the big boys
The outdoor tracking experience is also greatly enhanced by the inclusion of dual-frequency GNSS tracking, which we found to be quick to establish a connection (roughly 6 seconds) and then reliable thereafter.
After initially being limited to high-priced (and then mid-range) sports watches and smartwatches, we can only praise CMF for bringing it to a device this cheap. And while its interpretation isn’t quite as in line with Garmin and Apple’s equivalent tech, the fact it’s here at all is a big plus—and, crucially, it’s now much more adept at handling built-up environments.
Advertisement
When it comes to heart rate tracking, the Watch 3 Pro remained fairly consistent in higher heart rate zones alongside a Garmin HRM-600 chest strap, with an average difference of only ~2BPM across those intervals. This is encouraging, as it’s often where lesser HRMs tend to bottom out. However, at least in this session, the data was quite skewed, which led to the average BPM recorded being underreported compared to the chest strap.
(Image credit: Wareable)
In the same testing scenario, the Watch 3 Pro was sometimes off by 5BPM compared to the HRM 600’s results. That’s not a dreadful performance—particularly if this is just due to latency, resulting in big jumps between HR readings—but it’s also not great.
So, like with other trackers at this range, it’s only really handy for gauging a general effort—not one to monitor religiously when training for an event (or just simply training via heart rate zones).
A note on the companion app
You can see all this data under the ‘Health’ tab of the aforementioned Nothing X app, so if you want to see a few more details after the fact, you can.
The app itself has a very clean look that some beginners may appreciate, but we found the colour palette here to be a bit drab. The minimalist look makes sense on the watch because the entire UI adheres to it, but, when you’re scrolling through iOS or Android and then give the Nothing X app a visit, it does look rather boring by comparison.
Advertisement
Health and sleep tracking
(Image credit: Wareable)
Just like fitness tracking, health monitoring is a fairly standard experience on the Watch 3 Pro. All the basics are covered, but without the fanfare that some competitors bring.
The sleep tracking, for instance, at the surface level, isn’t bad at all. When worn to bed alongside a Whoop 5.0, the Watch 3 Pro was mostly spot-on at calculating the duration of a night’s sleep (six hours, 11 minutes on Whoop, compared to six hours, four minutes on the Watch 3 Pro). On the same night, both wearables provided almost identical scores from the collected data, with the Whoop and the Watch 3 Pro showing 76% and 75%, respectively.
It was only when we looked at the stages of sleep tracking that the discrepancies were made apparent. However, as we always note in reviews, we don’t put much stock in sleep stage accuracy from any wearable—even the gold standard, polysomnography, isn’t bulletproof.
(Image credit: Wareable)
Still, it’s a shame that the Watch 3 Pro doesn’t do anything to break that data down into written, tangible advice—unlike devices from the likes of Huawei, for example, at this price point.
Advertisement
We’ve seen how a more thoughtful approach to sleep tracking can assist people in making meaningful improvements to their sleep quality. However, when the data consists solely of numbers and statistics, it offers limited insight, especially for newcomers who are just beginning to explore health tracking technology.
We should also note that the Watch 3 Pro can track your stress levels, and there is a breathing app baked into the watch that can help you to recenter. However, without a built-in temperature sensor, this isn’t the watch to go for if you want to track your ovulation cycle.
Battery life and charging
(Image credit: Wareable)
With the ability to run for up to 11-days at a time, the brand’s Watch Pro 2 established a solid baseline for its successor. And, given that it already runs rings around the 1-2 day battery life of pricier wearables like the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 and Apple Watch Series 11, we wouldn’t have been too surprised if things had stayed the same in this department. Thankfully, CMF has included battery life on its list of upgrades.
You can now go up to 13 days between charges on the CMF Watch 3 Pro, which is impressive. However, as before, achieving this longevity requires careful, conservative daily use of the watch.
Our intention was to see how the watch would hold up with the always-on display toggled and several workouts tracked. Under these conditions, the watch lasted roughly four to five days, which still isn’t bad. With that kind of longevity, you’ll never have to race home just to top up the watch, and there’s always a battery saver mode that prompts the user to toggle it once the watch reaches 20%.
Advertisement
Charging the watch took just shy of 90 minutes to fully charge from 0%, while a 30-minute top-up restored 47% of the battery, enough for at least two days of use.
The main issue is the proprietary charging cable included with the watch. Its magnetic connection is quite flimsy and can detach easily if you’re not careful, so it’s important to monitor it when recharging.
Summary: Should you buy the CMF Watch 3 Pro?
Although it’s far from a perfect device, the CMF Watch 3 Pro should be commended for pushing the boat out in the budget space. It offers consumers strapped for cash a stylish way to receive incoming notifications, keep tabs on their fitness, and more. Simply put, if you don’t have more than £100/$100 to spend, then you won’t find a better smartwatch.
The fact that the Watch 3 Pro is also one of the best-looking wearables we’ve tested in the last year or so doesn’t hurt, either. It would be nice to see some of the more premium brands out there take notes—not just on how to make smartwatch design exciting again, but also how to have an equally stylish set of watch faces to go along with it.
Still, the removal of its predecessor’s modularity is a big shame, and the fact that the Watch 3 Pro can’t be worn in a swimming pool will immediately write it off as a viable fitness tracker for a handful of people. If CMF can improve durability and dive a bit deeper with its tracking insights, the brand could have a big disruptor on its hands in a follow-up.
Advertisement