CMF Watch 3 Pro review: Lean features, long battery life

Smartwatches have always been part of the pitch for Nothing budget friendly sub-brand CMF. However, it says something that the company has yet to move into the premium end of that category. For now, it seems content to steer clear and stay out of the premium lane occupied by heavyweights like the Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch or Pixel Watch.

Instead, Nothing has kept its eye on the cheaper end of the market. This approach has its pros and cons. On one hand, most of the other budget brands aren’t armed with the kind of striking and polished product design that CMF and Nothing are known for. On the other, there’s still a ceiling to what the hardware at this price point can do. 

The CMF Watch 3 Pro is a smart watch, but it’s not a smartwatch in the same sense that the Apple Watch is. Depending on your needs, though, that might not be a problem.

In Australia, the CMF Watch 3 Pro starts at $179. That makes it one of the cheapest smartwatches you can find these days. 

Even so, you might be able to save even more by shopping around. Check out the table below for a round-up of deals for the CMF Watch 3 Pro.

The CMF Watch 3 Pro is built around a 1.78-inch circular display and a metal body. All told, the hardware here weighs around 51.9g. That form factor ends up a little heavier than the average Apple wearable, but less than what the likes of the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is bringing to bear on your wrist. Still, thanks to a liquid silicone wrist strap, the Watch 3 Pro doesn’t feel too heavy to hold or handle.

It doesn’t hurt that the display on the CMF Watch 3 Pro is a decently sharp one. It’s an AMOLED with a 60Hz refresh rate and up to 650 nits of brightness. Those specs can’t keep pace with the likes of the latest Apple, Google and Samsung wearables. Even so, they’re pretty compelling relative to what this price point usually has to offer.

In terms of inputs, the CMF Watch 3 Pro features a single dial-shaped button. Pushing this button will bring up a list-style app drawer for the watch, which can be navigated via touch or twisting that same knob.

Even if it looks more minimalist, the interface offered by the CMF Watch 3 Pro is likely going to be familiar to those who have used a smartwatch before and fairly intuitive to everyone else. You swipe up for settings. You swipe down for notifications. Meanwhile, left and right will pull you through a rotation of preset tiles that can be configured via the Nothing X app. By default, this includes standard stuff like workout modes, music controls and a snapshot of your sleep score.

One of the main differences between this wearable and something like the Apple Watch is that you’re relying on more standard health tracking sensors. Under the hood, the CMF Watch 3 Pro boasts a heart rate and blood oxygen sensor. This simple setup enables a lot of the usual health-oriented stats but doesn't cater to those who want something more specific or high-end, such as ECG.

Likewise, the list of bells and whistles is a little shorter here than it might be with a more mainstream smartwatch. The CMF Watch 3 Pro does come with dual-GPS, but it doesn’t have any sort of cellular connectivity. It’s also lacking in satellite connectivity and doesn’t include any nice-to-haves like fall or crash detection. The one premium perk that this budget wearable does offer is IP68 resistance, which is handy to have but not as rare as it once was. 

Fortunately, what the CMF Watch 3 Pro lacks in innovation, it makes up for in battery life. Out of the box, the wearable is said to offer up to 13 days of usage on a single charge. In practice, I was thrilled to find that it more than delivered on that promise. Even with regular workouts, I’d only be getting through around 5-6% of a full charge each day. All told, I got closer to 15 days of use out of the wearable on a single charge.

Enabling the always-on display will cut that figure down to 4.5 days, but that’s still miles ahead of where a premium wearable will get you in terms of everyday battery life. Unsurprisingly, this longevity went a long way towards winning me over. 

I was also particularly impressed with the software experience attached to the CMF Watch 3 Pro. Regardless of whether you’re using the hardware here with an iOS or Android-based device, you’ll set it up via the Nothing X app. Then, within this app, Nothing has arrayed all of the relevant health stats into a single visually pleasing UI. 

If you’re looking for a more involved health tracking platform like Fitbit Premium or Apple Fitness, you’ll find nothing like that here. However, if you just want to set and forget when it comes to your health tracking, the lack of friction here makes for a striking first impression and a positive overall experience.

Although the CMF Watch 3 Pro doesn’t support additional apps via the Play Store like a Wear OS-based smartwatch might, Nothing has actually put a decent amount of time and effort into the functionality it offers out of the box. 

In addition to the 131 dedicated sports tracking modes, the CMF Watch 3 Pro offers stress tracking, news bulletins via Essential News, a stopwatch, alarm clocks, breath training, music control and customisable watch faces. That list of features included is shockingly long, though some of the above do require a Nothing-branded smartphone or an Android device running one of the company’s apps.