The budget smartwatch segment is in a weird spot right now. 

Wait, not weird—in a clear decline rather. ‘Cause after brands flooded the market with cheap, unreliable smartwatches a few years ago with seemingly no differentiation among one another, either, you could say this was only inevitable. But what’s interesting is that as the budget segment continues to dwindle, the midrange and the premium watchmakers aren’t feeling any of this heat. Which clearly tells one thing:

• The affordable smartwatch market has clearly reached its saturation point—and people simply aren’t interested in cheap smartwatches anymore. 

That includes me. I can’t even remember the last budget smartwatch I was truly impressed by, other than the excellent Redmi Watch Move. 

So for this market to bounce back, the watchmakers need to bring out incredible features to make consumers stop considering expensive smartwatches in the first place. Which is exactly what Nothing has tried to do with its new CMF Watch 3 Pro, by the way. 

CMF Watch 3 Pro review: Specifications

• Case: 47mm, Metal body + liquid silicon strap (22mm universal)
• Color options: Light grey, Dark grey, Light green, Orange
• Dimensions and weight: 47 x 47 x 14.4 - 15.2 mm, 51 - 52.4 gm
• Durability: IP68 rating
• Display: 1.43-inches AMOLED panel, No display protection glass
• Processor: Unspecified
• Memory: Unspecified
• Software and UI: Custom Real-time Operating System (RTOS)
• Sensors: Accelerometer, Ambient light, Gyroscope, Heart rate and SpO2 blood oxygen saturation sensor, GPS (L1 + L5), Glonass, Galileo, QZSS, Beidou
• Companion app: Nothing X (Android | iOS)
• Battery: 350 mAh (Up to 13 days under typical use)

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CMF Watch 3 Pro review:

Design and build

• 47mm case (metal build), 22mm universal strap
• IP68 dust/water resistant
• No interchangeable bezels like the CMF Watch Pro 2

And just look at its design.

I guess there’s only so many shapes you could mold a smartwatch into (unless we’re talking the wild west that was the “Y2K” and “Frutiger Aero” era timepieces), but despite its familiar circular dial, the CMF Watch 3 Pro manages to stand out. Particularly with its color-matched bezel and strap. And whether you prefer a playful or a sporty look, this Nothing watch can do it both.

Actually, it used to be that I could swap between different styles of bezels on its predecessor: the CMF Watch Pro 2. 

A great idea, but I can tell you it was poorly executed ‘cause neither the interchangeable bezels were that easy to buy, nor did they stick to the watch perfectly. So I was really curious to see how Nothing was gonna address those issues with its next-gen smartwatch.

“You can't lose if you don't play.”

Well… clearly Nothing went for the smartest solution since the Watch 3 Pro’s bezel is no longer customizable. “You can’t lose if you don’t play”, right? That means if you like rounded bezels, you’re gonna have to get the “Light Grey” variant of the watch… or any of the other three options if a flat-angle bezel is what you have in mind. 

There’s no room for customization anymore after you buy it!

But no matter which look you end up going for, I seriously doubt you’ll have a comfort-related issue with the Watch 3 Pro. Its silicon strap is so comfortable to wear, it’s also pretty lightweight at around 50 grams only, whereas its metal frame exudes a hint of “premiumness” as well. And since Nothing has also secured an IP68 rating for this guy, I can be totally worry-free wearing it out in the rain or something. Just remember to take it off when you’re out swimming or in other similar situations, and you should be good. 

Display

• 1.43-inches AMOLED panel
• 60Hz refresh rate, 670 nits peak brightness
• No display protection glass

Okay.

The CMF Watch 3 Pro is once again unapologetically original when it comes to the display. With its user interface mostly painted out of bright orange and different shades of black and white, versus a typical color display you find on every other budget smartwatch. 

Of course, this is still an OLED panel with a smooth 60Hz refresh rate (with some occasional frame drops here and there) and up to 670 nits of peak brightness for nice outdoor visibility. And the Watch 3 Pro does in fact offer a splash of color in some UI elements like a few watchfaces, app icons in the notification center, and when it’s loading album art in the music widget. 

And that’s it. Call it an “acquired taste” or whatever, but I didn’t love this… “ultra minimalist” UI before, and I don’t love it now. 

That said, I do love its auto-brightness feature. And if you want something truly unique, Nothing lets you set a video as a watch face too. Yep, videos. Not just photos. I don’t think I need to warn you what kind of toll it would have on battery life, but if you want “cool”, the Watch 3 Pro has got plenty of it. 

Including a few more features that I was almost ready to disregard as “gimmicks” at first. 

Like its “Essential News” thing that reads me news based on different topics right on the watch itself. I can also directly talk to ChatGPT from my watch if I’ve paired it with a Nothing phone + the Watch 3 Pro can even double as a voice recorder! And after I’m done uploading it to the Nothing app, it will automatically transcribe my audio notes as well. Which pretty much worked flawlessly for my English language notes, while completely fumbling those in Nepali!

Health and fitness tracking

• 131 workout modes
• Heart rate, stress, SpO2, sleep tracking
• Dual-band GPS + custom running coach 

That brings me to the health and fitness tracking side of things.

I was honestly pretty nervous for CMF in this round ‘cause I clearly remember being disappointed with the Watch Pro 2’s health monitoring last year. Its sleep tracking—in particular—was atrocious, so was the half-baked “CMF Watch” app, and neither was I impressed with its location tracking.

I’m not sure if Nothing engineers watched my review and took my criticisms to heart or whatever, but they have somehow worked on everything I complained about.

The sleep tracking is absolutely spot-on on the Watch 3 Pro. Even as I was calmly enjoying my movie night, I was impressed with how the CMF watch was actually smart enough not to start logging my sleep. Something the Watch Pro 2 absolutely struggled with before!

The “CMF Watch” app is no more, either, which has been absorbed into the excellent “Nothing X” app itself. 

And not only does it present all my health data in such a clean, easy-to-read layout, I love all the insights it provides, too. Especially the personalized workout summaries. 

There’s still some more work to do in terms of analyzing my health trends and giving me a broader picture of how I’m doing, but this is fantastic!

Dual-band GPS!

The Watch 3 Pro even has dual-band GPS now. Which, I think, makes it the cheapest smartwatch with multi-band navigation. 

So, in case you didn’t know, most budget smartwatches that have GPS support only use the L1 signal. And while that’s perfectly workable when you’re in an open, outdoor space, you might’ve noticed how immediately unreliable it gets when there are a lot of physical infrastructures like buildings and trees around. But by mixing a more powerful L5 signal as well, these dual-band GPS smartwatches improve the accuracy of location tracking by quite a bit!

That’s the theory, at least.

In real life use—however—I can’t say I’m happy with the Watch 3 Pro’s location tracking. It’s still struggling to pinpoint me in somewhat challenging urban terrains, so maybe Nothing can sort it out with a couple of firmware updates. Whereas I hope this thing also learns the ability to import GPX files for tracking my workout routes in the future. Since that would put the best use of its dual-band navigation. 

Other than this, the CMF Watch 3 Pro has over 100 sports modes to choose from. 

• There’s the “activity ring” feature to motivate you to keep moving.
• Nothing’s “custom running coach” should be particularly useful if you’re preparing to run a marathon or improve your running form.
• And it can automatically detect when you’ve started working out as well. 

The basic stuff like heart rate, SpO2 tracking, and step counting are also plenty reliable on this CMF watch. Even in challenging conditions, like when I was in the middle of a workout. So… all this is to say that in terms of health and fitness tracking, CMF has made a lot of progress this year with the Watch 3 Pro. A lot!

Battery

• 350 mAh (Up to 13 days in typical use)
• 0 - 100% in 95 minutes

And in the middle of all this, CMF has also managed to slightly improve the battery life this time. Just slightly. The Watch 3 Pro is rated to last up to 13 days under “typical use” or 3 days less under “heavy use”. Compared to the 11/9 days that CMF promised for the Watch Pro 2. 

I knew I was never get nearly two weeks of battery life, but I was honestly not expecting it to die on me by the seventh day either. You know me—always on display stays always off, while I enable every single health tracking feature there is when testing any smartwatch. So I guess that puts my usage pattern a step above what Nothing deems “heavy”?

CMF Watch 3 Pro review: Conclusion

Alright.

I think I’ve been pretty obvious about how I feel about the CMF Watch 3 Pro throughout this review, right? I love it, mostly. And this is a big deal ‘cause I wasn’t too thrilled with the last smartwatch Nothing made. 

But the Watch 3 Pro is a fantastic upgrade over its predecessor since it fixes most of the stuff that needed fixing while adding stuff that was missing. It definitely has a few problems of its own, like its “overly minimalist” user interface, underoptimized dual-band GPS, and the fact that Nothing abandoned the interchangeable bezel idea so quickly.

However, if you’ve got around NPR 13,999 to spend on a new smartwatch and you’re tired of the unreliability of cheap wearables, the CMF Watch 3 Pro is easily the best option out there. It’s a different equation entirely if you can extend your budget by NPR 10,000 (in which case I’d suggest going for the Huawei Watch Fit 4), but for the price, this thing is hard to beat. And it might just be what it takes for the budget smartwatch market to get back on its feet once again!

• Our video review of the CMF Watch 3 Pro is coming soon

CMF Watch 3 Pro review: Pros and cons