CMF Watch 3 Pro

Design and Screen

• Eye-catching design
• 1.43-inch display
• Always-on display can be a bit dim

The biggest selling point (other than the price) is the Watch 3 Pro’s eye-catching design. After having spent most of this year testing high-end wearables like the Garmin Venu X1 and the Huawei Watch GT 6 Pro, none of them can hold a candle to what CMF has achieved here.

There are four unique colourways available and all of them (with the exception of the Dark Grey pick) are really unlike anything you’ll find elsewhere. The Light Green option in particular feels very distinct, and definitely on brand as the same colourway can be found on the CMF Headphones Pro, but it’s the Orange pick (which I’ve had in for review) which has stolen my affection.

The way in which this version seamlessly moves from orange to black, whether it be in the buckle on the watch strap or the small etchings around the display, it’s clear that the look of the device was anything but an afterthought. I’ve used watches four or five times the price which look almost dull by comparison, so kudos to CMF (and by extension, Nothing) for taking the time here to make something memorable.

It is a shame however that in spite of its prowess in this area, CMF has removed one of the defining design features from the CMF Watch Pro 2, and that’s modularity. Beforehand it was possible to swap out bezels on the fly so you could better match your outfits and mood but it’s completely missing from the Watch 3 Pro, which feels counterintuitive if CMF ever had plans to build an ecosystem of accessories around its wearable line-up.

After all, in the time since Apple brought MagSafe to its iPhones, I’ve seen some incredible innovation with everything from tripod stands to wallets and even SSDs that can use these magnets to build a seamless (and wireless) connection. It would have been great to see what kind of innovation might have developed from a modular system here, so hopefully CMF does decide to bring it back in a successor.

Thankfully, there is a wonderful display on offer which lessens the blow, and it’s even slightly bigger than before, moving from 1.32-inches to 1.43-inches. It’s a bit brighter too with a peak of 670 nits, and when viewing watch faces or menus both indoors or outdoors, I never had any issues with seeing what was in front of me. It’s responsive too, with touchscreen controls working well in everyday use.

The only area where the screen stumbles is with the always-on display. With this mode toggled, watch faces will enter a slightly dimmer, low-power state, which can be a bit tricky to read outdoors in direct sunlight. The full watch face will appear if you raise your wris,t but for those moments when you’re in a rush and just need a quick glance at the time, it can be a bit frustrating.

Performance and Software

• Solid performance with everyday tasks
• CMF’s UI is unique and carefully constructed
• No third-party app access

As is the case with all budget devices, there’s an assumed level of compromise at play in order to reach a more affordable price tag, but to my surprise it’s far less egregious on the CMF Watch 3 Pro compared to other cheap wearables I’ve tested.

In everyday use, there’s a nice amount of speed and responsiveness, and I never felt any moments of slowdown as I jumped from one application to another. It all does a great job of raising the bar for what can be expected at the lower end of the scale. Also working in the Watch 3 Pro’s favour is the fact that CMF’s user interface is just as well designed as its hardware.

Most of the UI adheres to a monochrome colour palette, but this helps to keep things looking clean and it only elevates the use of more vibrant colours as they attract your attention. It’s the closest experience I’ve seen to that of the Pebble Time from way back when, which had an effortless simplicity that’s hard to come by nowadays. It’s a double-edged sword however, as that simplicity, now recreated on the Watch 3 Pro, is at odds with what a smartwatch is considered to be in 2025.

If you want the staples of a modern smartwatch such as NFC payments, third-party apps and a degree of independence from your smartphone, then you’ll have to keep on walking. It’s not a bare bones experience by any means as you do get access to your calendar, voice assistant of choice and even your camera app, but as someone who is used to using their smartwatch over their smartphone for a lot of smaller tasks throughout the day, such as paying for parking or following directions on foot, it’s not exactly ideal.

Of course, I say all of this with the understanding that for some people, the idea of a scaled back smartwatch might sound quite appealing, and in which case the CMF Watch 3 Pro could be a preferable buy over the competition.

There are a few modern touches such as the Essential News app, which uses AI to read out the day’s headlines. It’s an interesting concept but the voice-over can sound a bit stilted at times, and I’m always worried about AI hallucinations which might make their way into the copy without me realising in the moment. In the meantime, I’d rather stick with the Apple News app.

Tracking and Features

• Dual-band GPS tracking
• The watch can’t be used for swimming
• Sleep tracking doesn’t go far enough

Although the CMF Watch 3 Pro does leave a fair amount to be desired on smart features, the watch partially makes up for it when it comes to fitness tracking, and if you’re shopping at this end of the market for an affordable yet confident device for keeping tabs on your workout, this is one to consider.

On pure workout tracking alone, the Watch 3 Pro can monitor everything from Karate to skateboarding, so however it is that you prefer to amp up your heart rate, you’re more than likely covered. Even if you’re starting from scratch, there’s a running coach included, wherein you can select the distance you would like to run and in what time, and also how often you would like to train to meet that goal.

There’s even dual-band GPS support here, so you can latch on to a more secure connection whenever you do decide to head out for a run. When doing that myself, it only took an average of six seconds before a connection was established, so you won’t be waiting long before you can hit the track.

For each workout that’s tracked, you can see key info such as how intense it was on your cardiovascular system and a recommendation for how long you should rest before taking on another set of exercises. It’s all helpful stuff but there’s one big issue at play, particularly for someone like myself who likes to mix it up with a trip to the local swimming pool every so often: the CMF Watch 3 Pro is not fully waterproof.

Although it can withstand a few splashes of water whilst you’re washing up the dishes, this watch isn’t designed for sustained submersion which is a big miss for a wearable with ambitions as a fitness tracker. If you are an avid swimmer then by default, you’ll want to look for an alternative like the Fitbit Charge 6.

Similarly, the heart rate sensor could also use a bit of work to improve its accuracy. It’s not a dire situation by any means, as I usually found the peak recorded beats per minute to be only 2BPM out of sync with the chest-worn Garmin HRM 600, which isn’t bad for a watch of this price. Instead, it’s the average BPM that varied quite a bit, so I would only look at the higher end of what’s collected for an idea of your exertion for a particular workout.

When it comes to sleep tracking, I found the Watch 3 Pro to be fairly in line with the Whoop Strap 4.0 when it came to surface-level stats such as the overall grading of a night’s sleep and its duration. Unfortunately, the data that’s presented is largely a collection of stats and numbers without any breakdown of what it all means. For a more accessible experience, Huawei’s watches do a far better job of offering written advice off the back of processed sleep data, something which CMF should certainly look to adopt in the future.

Battery life

• Up to 13-days on a single charge
• Expect around 4/5 days with heavy use
• Roughly one hour 28 minutes to fully charge

One thing that the CMF Watch 3 Pro has pilfered from the best fitness trackers to give it an edge over most smartwatches is a longer than average battery life. Given that I’d be lucky if I could get the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 to last for more than a day, and Apple has only just bumped things to a two-day stint with the Apple Watch Series 11, the Watch 3 Pro’s claimed battery life of 13-days is a big win.

Obviously the legitimacy of that claim will vary depending on how you use the watch after it’s been charged, but even when the device adapted to my needs, which included toggling the always-on display, tracking several workouts and even the occasional GPS-enabled walk, I was able to get four days of use before needing to charge it up again. That use case won’t be the norm for everyone, and if you have the always-on display switched off then I don’t see any issue with getting much closer to that 13-day claim.

The charging process is far from the fastest I’ve encountered, as it’ll take roughly one hour and 28 minutes to completely top it up from a dead battery, but given how infrequently you’ll need to charge the watch to begin with, it’s not a major issue.

What is prone to criticism is the proprietary charging cable which uses quite a flimsy two-pin connection with the back of the watch, one that can be detached quite easily. I had to position the watch carefully on my desk to make sure that the cable didn’t detach the moment I walked away. If CMF could opt for a cradle design, similar to what the big brands use, then this would no longer be an issue, so I can only hope for such an upgrade down the line.