CMF Watch 3 Pro Review: Stylish Design Meets Surprisingly Good Fitness Tracking

The Indian smartwatch market is a unique one. Unlike the rest of the world, where only established players like Samsung and Apple dominate, here in India, we have about 10,000 brands, each competing on razor-thin margins to attract consumers to their smartwatches (or should I say, smartbands repackaged as watches). This makes standing out in the sea of Apple Watch clones all the more difficult. One company that’s never really had that problem is Nothing. Their design language is unique, fun, and stylish. The company’s sub-brand CMF also makes plenty of accessories, including smartwatches.

In 2024, CMF launched the Watch Pro 2, which won the hearts of both experts and users for being a competent yet feature-rich take, with some fun additions. It’s been two years since that announcement, and CMF has just come out with its successor, the Watch 3 Pro (yes, the naming has changed). CMF says the 3 Pro brings many upgrades, including a bigger display, improved GPS, and sleep tracking. But is that enough to justify the new, higher sticker price of ₹7,999 or $99? To find out, I got the CMF Watch 3 Pro a couple of weeks back and put it against my Galaxy Watch. Spoiler alert: It’s really good.

Design & Hardware

If you remember the last CMF Watch Pro 2, the 3 Pro would feel right at home, except that all the dimensions have been beefed up. There’s a new 1.43-inch circular AMOLED (up from 1.32 inches) and bezels that have been made slimmer. The panel’s rated for a peak brightness of about 620 nits, and I had no trouble reading notifications on a super-hot day and sending the curated quick replies. The 60Hz refresh rate is plenty to keep most animations fluid.

Returning to the design, you get four options. You can either go with my Light Green variant, which is a bit playful, or opt for the understated black look. Both these models have a color-matching ring, which I wish had a rotating dial, but we can’t ask for much at this price. If these two aren’t your vibe, there’s also orange, which feels a bit more rugged with etchings on the ring. At last, we have the light grey that houses a more curved, rounded ring that looks really good, at least to me.

But, you might wonder, why am I bothering with bezel options when CMF allows users to swap them as they wish? Sadly, the swappable bezel feature is gone. You cannot customize the watch, which was such an innovation to add personality. So, choose your design carefully. That complaint aside, I really do love the Watch 3 Pro’s design. You get a single rotating crown that’s used to navigate through the different menus and also serves as a button.

As far as comfort is concerned, there’s nothing to complain about here. The silicone strap is gentle enough not to irritate the skin and offers plenty of adjustments for different wrist sizes. Speaking of size, you might have already noticed that despite years of struggle in the gym, my wrists are thin. To me, the 47mm dial just looks too big, which is something I see many people, especially women, struggling with. Still, if you have big wrists, the CMF Watch 3 Pro would look perfect.

Features & Companion App

The CMF Watch 3 Pro runs on Nothing’s proprietary OS, and after spending years on WatchOS, it’s a breath of fresh air. Often, budget smartwatches feel laggy because no brand spares enough resources to optimize the UI. Well, that’s not the case with the Watch 3 Pro. Nothing has kept the software fairly clean, and everything just works. I didn’t experience any delays or jitters when switching between apps or toggling between workouts. The design language is unique and minimal, with plenty of black-and-white themes. I’d love to see a bit more color, since it’s an OLED display, but it works nonetheless.

While no third-party app support can be a bit of a bummer to some, Nothing has bundled quite a few features to curb that appetite. The newest addition is Essential News. It uses AI to gather today’s headlines and read them out to you. I tried it, and it works fairly well.

What is great, though, is the ChatGPT integration. Basically, there’s an app that lets you directly talk with the AI assistant for quick questions when you might not want to pick up the phone. There’s also a new transcribing feature that lets you record voice notes on the watch itself and transcribe them over on your phone.

Unlike its predecessor, the new watch pairs with the Nothing X app. It’s very polished, and there are many more health-tracking options. These include the ability to configure the frequency at which your heart rate is recorded. You can also configure what the watch does when you rotate or shake your arm.

Performance & Battery

Regardless of all the bells and whistles, the most important thing for any smartwatch is the tracking ability. It’s hard to get accurate numbers, especially when we have some watches that even measure a table’s heart rate. Fortunately, the CMF Watch 3 Pro does none of that. I put it against my trusty Galaxy Watch, and for the most part, it kept up. Heart rates on both watches were very similar, with a variation of just 2 BPM. I’m pretty active in the gym, so it’s important for me to track strength training. The Watch 3 Pro has over 131 workout/sports modes, some of which I’m hearing about for the first time. So whatever you’re into these days will probably be here.

I put the watch in Strength training mode, and yes, I was the guy wearing two health trackers at once. Nevertheless, both kept an eye on my workouts, recording my resting and elevated heart rate, and provided a detailed summary. There are different modes for when you’re using a Smith machine or working with dumbbells. There’s also a Blood Oxygen sensor, which I found comparable to a machine with only slight deviations in the reading.

Still, the best part about the CMF Watch 3 Pro is the running suite. Nothing has bundled a dual-band GPS, and it’s very solid. It takes about 5 seconds to lock onto your position before the run, and the readings were quite comparable to the Galaxy Watch except for the calories, which differed by about 15%. However, if you’re like me and have no experience of running, Nothing has bundled a custom running coach. You set it up in the app, including how many km you plan to run, your pace, and your time goal. Then, you need to complete a trial run. Once that setup is done, the watch creates a custom workout you can follow until your goal is achieved.

Sleep is something I don’t measure, since I don’t need a number telling me I didn’t sleep well last night because I was busy scrolling reels. But for this review, I did. It worked fine on the Watch 3 Pro, with stats such as overall duration and individual cycles. Beyond that, I love the battery life. It’s very nice to have a watch that doesn’t need to be charged every night. Nothing claims a 13-day battery life, but with AOD and sleep tracking, I got roughly 4-5 days of juice, which is pretty decent.

Verdict

At ₹7,999, the CMF Watch 3 Pro lands in a sea of smartwatches, each with its unique set of skills. But after testing it for a few weeks, I can say it’s one of the best I’ve tested so far, simply because it nails the basics. You don’t get gimmicky features. Instead, the design is unique in a fun yet stylish way, with a large dial and a bright AMOLED display that keeps animations fluid at 60Hz. The companion app is slick, and features like ChatGPT integration and Essential News are a decent addition. Workout tracking is fairly accurate, even compared to more expensive watches, and the running coach is genuinely helpful. Not to forget the awesome battery life. Overall, I recommend the CMF Watch 3 Pro.