5 Wearable Gadgets With Unusually Long Battery Life

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Wearables are an excellent extension of your main device. A stand-in, if you will, for your phone, allowing you to see notifications at a glance, track health stats and activity and much more. Smartwatches and smart rings are solid examples of this. But at their core, they’re still electronics like anything else running on a battery. I don’t know about you, but I’m of the mind that I don’t usually want more devices that I have to charge on a daily basis, wearables especially. A huge qualifier for something like a smartwatch is the battery life on a single charge. The longer it can last, the longer you can wear the device and stay away from cords, charging stands or adapters.

But the more features and hardware are tacked onto a device, the shorter the battery life is, generally. That’s not always the case, necessarily, and if something is optimized to be more efficient with power, real usage may work out better. Yet again, generally speaking, a wearable with more features like GPS tracking, mobile connectivity, Wi-Fi, and so on will have less battery life. Onboard GPS is actually the smartwatch feature most likely to kill battery life. That can make it challenging to find a device that meets a stipulation you have set for battery capacity. With that in mind, we’ve put together a quick list of gadgets with unusually long battery life. Devices that truly allow you to spread your wings and fly far from the coop — in this case, the coop being the charger.

Garmin’s activity-based smartwatches are a top option if you want to push battery life beyond almost anything else out there. There’s a big reason why that’s possible, however, and it has to do with solar power. The Enduro series is all great mentions here, as is the Garmin Instinct 3 (Solar), but the Enduro 3 is the stand-out. It truly offers “best-in-class” battery life thanks to built-in solar, which achieves about 320 hours total (over 13 days) with GPS mode on and solar charging active. If you turn GPS off and have adequate solar charging conditions, battery life can be nearly unlimited.

The Enduro 3, as the name suggests, is really for long-endurance activities like hundred-mile hikes, exploring the wilds, and expansive mountain treks. We’re talking about the kind of extreme or remote conditions where you would absolutely need a device with reliable battery life. In terms of features, it tracks a range of health stats, includes pre-programmed activity modes, shows alerts from connected devices, and offers outdoor, topographic, and trail maps, precise GPS tracking, and a bevy of sensors. While expensive, at $900 full price, it would work great even just as your standard smartwatch.

On Amazon, it has over 250 reviews with 4.7 out of 5 stars. Users recommend buying the Enduro 3 over an Apple Watch, saying it’s ideal for active users and that it’s both an “absolute unit” of a watch and a “game-changing upgrade” over less capable models. Tom’s Guide, GQ, and Runner’s World all gave the Enduro 3 top scores.

If you’re ranking every major smart ring brand from worst to best, you’ll come across brands like Renpho, Oura, Circular, Leep, Ultrahuman, and even Samsung. But when it comes to battery life, RingConn generally takes the cake. The RingConn Gen 3 offers up to 14 days of battery life per charge for around $349 full price. The stylish ring comes in several colors and styles and works with iOS and Android. Perhaps the most enticing feature is that RingConn’s previous devices are among the best smart rings that don’t require a subscription to use their functionality long-term. The Gen 3 follows that trend.

With it, you get health tracking with vascular health insights — the first ring to purportedly offer such a thing — haptic vibration alerts, advanced body insights and a companion mobile app. Though it’s fairly new, nearly 30 people have left reviews on Amazon, and it has a 4.8-star rating. Lifehacker gave it a great score in its review, and a Tom’s Guide editor seemed pleased after a hands-on experience. Users who own it say it’s excellent, comfortable, and accurate, all things you’d want a modern smart ring to offer. More importantly, they say it’s well worth the money and feature-rich compared to others.

If you don’t want screens or any bells or whistles on the device itself, but are fond of health tracking and body insights, allow us to introduce you to the Whoop series, particularly the Whoop 5.0. It offers 14 days or more of battery life with fast charging for quick power in a pinch. The core experience comes from the personalized AI coaching, advanced health tracking and continuous insights all presented through Whoop’s app. The coaching and insights are tied to a subscription, but with the Whoop 5.0 band you get 12 months of membership. 24/7 activity and sleep tracking are also built in, so you basically don’t take the band off unless you’re charging it.

For $239 full price, not including various bundles with the charger and accessories, it’s not a high upfront cost. It has over 3,200 reviews on Amazon with 4.3 out of 5 stars. PCMag, CNET, and Men’s Health all gave it positive scores. Users who own the device say it’s one of the best fitness gadgets available and seem to love the tracking and insights it provides. And if you’re curious how the screenless fitness bands stack up, in a Fitbit Air versus Whoop head-to-head, the Whoop offers better battery life and more robust fitness and health insights, but it has a higher-cost subscription. 

If you do want a smartwatch with a vibrant AMOLED touchscreen display, lots of excellent smart features, and reliable onboard tracking, the Amazfit T-Rex 3 fits the bill. It can last up to 27 days under select conditions and over a week with GPS active. There are a few models to choose from, including Pro and a rugged option engineered for the outdoors. Rugged is $280 full price, while T-Rex 3 Pro is $400 full price. The biggest differences are Pro’s slightly larger onboard storage capacity, its dual-band GPS capabilities, and altered appearance.

In either case, you get everything you might expect from a flagship smartwatch. Onboard and precise health and activity tracking, GPS and location tracking, on-device maps, rugged designs with water-resistance ratings, pre-programmed sport and activity modes, AI support, and voice controls. They also work with Android and iOS.

T-Rex 3 rugged has over 2,300 reviews on Amazon with a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Tom’s Guide and ZDnet enjoyed their time with the rugged models, while a TechRadar editor loved the T-Rex 3 Pro. Smartwatch owners have shared that it’s durable and bright, does everything it’s meant to well, and is both feature-packed and high-quality.

If you don’t want a bright touchscreen display that can eat up battery life, but instead want more of a hybrid smartwatch that blends traditional mechanical designs with smart features, the Withings ScanWatch 2 should be on your radar. It’s an analog watch through and through, with a small notification display and built-in smart functionality, like health tracking or an ECG scanner. It monitors health and activity, sleep cycles, and body stats. All information is shared and presented either on the small display or via the mobile app. You can also take advantage of Withings Intelligence, an AI-driven personalized insights tool to help improve your overall health and more. It’s around $370 full price, depending on the colorway and size you choose.

Because it doesn’t have a major display, even with the health-tracking tech, it can last from 30 to 35 days on a single charge. A month of uninterrupted use is pretty good, I’d say. On the official Withings site, it has a 4.4-star rating out of 5, with over 250 reviews. On Amazon, it has over 1,200 reviews and a 4.1-star rating. PCMag, Wired, and TechRadar all gave it decent reviews, as well.

Users who own the watch say they love it, it’s very attractive and doesn’t look like your average athletic watch, and share that it’s suitable for triathletes and beyond.