Apple Watch

Core fitness and health tracking (heart rate, workouts, sleep, ECG on Series 11/Ultra 3) doesn't require a subscription — Apple Fitness+ ($9.99/mo or $79.99/yr standalone) is a separate paid add-on only needed for guided workout content, not for using the watch's tracking features. It's bundled only in the priciest Apple One Premier tier ($37.95/mo), not the Individual or Family tiers.

The Apple Watch SE is rated around 18 hours of typical use; the current Series 11 is rated up to 24 hours (18 hours normal use plus 6 hours of sleep tracking). Either way, daily charging is required and sleep tracking competes with your charging window, unlike Garmin or Whoop which can go multiple days.

Series 11 and Ultra 3 include an FDA-cleared ECG app and blood oxygen sensing (in the US, blood oxygen is calculated via the paired iPhone's Health app rather than shown on-watch, following Apple's resolved patent dispute with Masimo) — but neither feature exists on the SE, so health-monitoring depth depends heavily on which model you buy.

It's a full touchscreen smartwatch with its own app store, cellular/LTE options on some models, contactless payments via Apple Pay, and deep integration with iPhone notifications — far beyond what fitness-only bands or the Oura ring offer.

Apple Watch requires an iPhone to set up and use at all — it has no Android compatibility, so choosing it locks you into the iPhone ecosystem for as long as you wear it.