CMF Watch 3 Pro review: Nothing’s budget smartwatch grows up
Nothing’s CMF sub brand has quietly turned into one of the most interesting players in the budget wearable space. Where a lot of cheap wrist gadgets still feel like rebadged generic fitness bands, the CMF Watch 3 Pro tries to look and behave like a modern smartwatch while staying comfortably under the 100 dollar and 100 euro mark. It builds on last year’s Watch Pro 2 with a larger AMOLED display, a bigger battery, dual band GPS and a handful of clever software tricks that lean into Nothing’s minimalist aesthetic.
Yes, this review is landing several months after the Watch 3 Pro first hit shelves, and some readers will roll their eyes that it feels late. The upside of a slightly delayed verdict is that the watch has already received a couple of firmware updates and has had time to prove itself in real world use, away from launch hype. After wearing the CMF Watch 3 Pro for over two weeks, day and night, paired mainly with an iPhone but also briefly with an Android phone, it is clear that this is one of the more polished budget smartwatches you can buy right now, even if it is far from perfect.
On paper, you get a 1.43 inch AMOLED touchscreen with 466 by 466 resolution, 60 Hz refresh rate, around 670 nits of peak brightness and full Always On Display support. There is IP68 water and dust resistance, detachable 22 mm straps, a complete set of health sensors including heart rate and blood oxygen tracking, sleep and stress monitoring, more than 130 sports modes, dual band GNSS for better GPS accuracy, a microphone and speaker for calls, and a claimed battery life of up to 13 days. All of that for about 99 dollars, 99 euros or 99 pounds depending on where you shop.
The question is not whether the CMF Watch 3 Pro is stuffed with features; it clearly is. The question is whether the hardware, the software and the everyday experience feel coherent enough that you will actually want to live with this watch for more than a week before tossing it in a drawer. Let us dive into the design, software and tracking performance to see where it shines and where Nothing still has work to do.
Design and build quality
From a distance, the CMF Watch 3 Pro looks almost identical to its predecessor. You still get a big 47 mm circular case with a metal body on top, a single rotating crown on the right side and a silicone strap that attaches via standard 22 mm spring bars. That familiarity has a downside if you were expecting a radical redesign, but it also means Nothing is refining a language it already knows works: flat surfaces, clean lines and subtle color blocking instead of fake luxury flourishes.
The most obvious change is what you do not see. Last year’s removable bezel is gone, so you can no longer swap different metal rings around the screen to change the watch’s look. It was a quirky idea that appealed to a small group of owners, and its disappearance will disappoint those who bought into the concept. On the flip side, removing the modular bezel simplifies the case, makes it feel more solid and likely reduces manufacturing complexity and potential rattles or misalignments over time. The Watch 3 Pro looks more like a single piece of hardware now, which arguably fits Nothing’s minimalist ethos better.
The review unit in Light Green is much more striking in person than stock photos suggest. The top of the case has a satin metallic finish that subtly shifts with the light, while the mid frame and crown are a darker gray that grounds the look. Flip the watch over and you will find a plastic backplate that houses the optical sensors and charging contacts. At 14.4 mm thick and 51 grams without the strap, this is not a slim little fitness tracker. On smaller wrists it will dominate the arm and can feel chunky at first. After a few days, though, the weight largely disappears and the ergonomic curve of the underside helps it sit securely without digging in.
The supplied silicone band is soft, flexible and has enough holes to fit a wide range of wrist sizes from around 140 to 220 mm. Because CMF uses a standard 22 mm width with quick release pins, you can dress the watch up or down easily with leather, nylon or metal third party bands. It is a small but important detail; unlike proprietary strap systems, you are not locked into CMF’s catalogue if you want a more formal look or a lighter sport band.
Build quality is respectable for the price bracket. The metal shell does not creak, the crown has a precise click when you rotate or press it, and the watch has an IP68 rating, meaning it can survive dust and brief submersion. There is no official rating for high pressure swimming like 5 ATM, so while showers and rain are fine, serious water sports are better handled by watches specifically designed for that use case.
Display: big, bright enough and always on
The CMF Watch 3 Pro’s star feature is its enlarged 1.43 inch AMOLED panel. Compared with the 1.32 inch screen on the previous model, the extra real estate is immediately noticeable when you glance at notifications or look at maps. The 466 by 466 pixel resolution keeps icons and fonts sharp, while the 60 Hz refresh rate makes scrolling and animations smooth enough that the watch never feels laggy in everyday swiping.
Peak brightness is around 670 nits, which is decent though not class leading. Under direct midday sun you may occasionally shade the display with your palm to read smaller text, but for most outdoor conditions the auto brightness does a competent job. In side by side use with something like Huawei’s Watch GT series, the CMF panel is a little dimmer, but that is an understandable compromise at this price and rarely a deal breaker.
Always On Display support is implemented well. Many of the watch faces have dedicated AOD variants that simplify the design, reduce animations and dim the brightness, but still keep the essential information visible: time, date and sometimes subtle complications like step count or battery percentage. You can schedule AOD to turn off at night or leave it active 24 by 7 if you do not mind the battery hit. For a watch that tries to look like a traditional timepiece, having the dial visible without a wrist flick makes a surprisingly big difference to how premium it feels.
Software, interface and smart features
Like its predecessor, the CMF Watch 3 Pro runs a custom real time operating system rather than Wear OS. This brings both strengths and limitations. On the plus side, the interface is extremely light, quick and consistent. The home screen shows your chosen watch face, swiping down reveals quick settings, swiping up opens notifications, and horizontal swipes cycle through widgets for activity, heart rate, weather and more. It takes minutes to learn and never feels bloated.
The rotating crown is more than decorative. Pressing it brings up the app grid, and you can scroll through lists by spinning it with a satisfying haptic bump. A double press shortcut is also available, but CMF bafflingly restricts what you can assign to it. You can launch workouts, recent apps, music controls and a handful of other functions, yet a simple timer shortcut is missing, which will annoy anyone who relies on glanceable countdowns for cooking or productivity. It is a small software oversight, but one that becomes visible in daily use.
There is no app store, no way to install third party services like Spotify, Google Maps or banking apps, and no NFC for contactless payments. If you are used to a full smartwatch platform like Wear OS or Apple Watch, the CMF software will feel more like a sophisticated fitness watch than a mini phone on your wrist. For many people, that is actually a positive. The interface focuses on core tasks: telling time, tracking health and workouts, relaying notifications and handling calls.
Notification handling is solid across both Android and iOS. Messages come in quickly with linear vibration that is strong enough to feel but not aggressive. You can expand messages, read full emails and see icons for most apps. On Android, you also get the option to send basic preset replies or quick responses from the wrist. Rich reply options like emoji, handwriting or full keyboard are absent, which helps keep the interface uncluttered but limits serious wrist only communication.
Watch faces and playful customization
Where a lot of budget watches stumble with generic and dated watch faces, CMF leans into Nothing’s visual identity. The Watch 3 Pro supports more than 120 faces from the Nothing X companion app, divided between minimalist analog designs, bold digital layouts and more information dense options with multiple complications. The majority feel cohesive and modern instead of slapped together. Better yet, they are all free, unlike some rivals that aggressively upsell premium face packs.
You can only store up to seven faces on the watch at once, which is more limiting than some competitors but still enough for a rotating wardrobe: a clean analog for the office, a bold digital step counter for workouts, a subtle monochrome face for evenings and so on. Swapping between them on the watch is quick, and changes are mirrored instantly in the app.
CMF also offers three creative face tools that go beyond simple color tweaks. Album dial lets you choose photos from your phone’s gallery that rotate each time you wake the display, turning the watch into a tiny digital photo frame. Video dial goes a step further by allowing a short five second loop from a video clip; every raise of the wrist plays the snippet. It is undeniably a gimmick, but a charming one that delights when you put a pet, child or favorite vacation memory on your wrist.
Studio dial is the most ambitious of the trio. Using AI on your phone, it generates stylized watch faces based on prompts or mood presets, which you can then sync to the watch. Results are mixed; some designs look fantastic, others feel like they were created by an art filter app a few years ago. Still, it showcases CMF’s willingness to experiment and gives owners a sense that their watch can evolve with their taste rather than being locked to a handful of static designs.
Voice calls, Essential News and assistants
The built in microphone and speaker mean the CMF Watch 3 Pro can handle phone calls when connected to your handset. Call quality is perfectly respectable in quieter environments; voices are clear, volume is sufficient and the other party can usually tell you are on a watch but does not struggle to understand you. In noisy streets or busy public transport, the small speaker’s limitations show, but that is true of most wrist based calling.
What sets the watch apart is a quirky feature called Essential News. Inside the Nothing X app, you can pick topics that interest you, such as technology, sports or world news. The app then syncs short summaries of top stories to the watch. When you have a spare moment, you can play them back aloud through the watch speaker, narrated in English by Nothing executive Tim Holbrow. It is a surprisingly pleasant way to catch up on headlines while making coffee or pacing around your apartment with your phone in another room. It will not replace a full news app, but as a bite sized information stream, it adds genuine character.
Voice assistants are also supported. You can trigger your phone’s built in assistant from the watch, issuing commands like setting reminders or asking for the weather. There is also integration with ChatGPT, allowing you to send simple prompts from the watch and see or hear responses, though in practice the small screen and slower interaction make it more of a novelty than a daily tool. Still, it is impressive to see such features trickle down to sub 100 dollar hardware.
A native voice note app rounds out the smart extras. Tap the icon, dictate your thought and the watch saves a short recording, which you can review later on your phone. For anyone who has ever had a good idea on a walk and then completely forgotten it by the time they reached a keyboard, this is more useful than it sounds.
Health tracking: heart, oxygen, sleep and stress
On the health side, the CMF Watch 3 Pro covers the standard metrics most people care about. An optical sensor on the underside records your heart rate throughout the day and night, and can also perform on demand measurements. You can set the sampling frequency in the app, choosing intervals such as one, three, five or ten minutes. Higher frequency improves accuracy and trend granularity but eats more battery, so it is nice to have control rather than a one size fits all approach.
Blood oxygen saturation, or SpO2, is available as well. Continuous background monitoring is not marketed for medical use, but it can flag rough patterns and alert you if levels dip below a threshold you configure. Combined with heart rate variability data, the watch also generates a stress score. Like all wearables using optical sensors on the wrist, these numbers should be seen as indicators rather than diagnostic tools. Across two weeks of use, values from the CMF Watch 3 Pro broadly matched those from a Huawei Watch Fit and an older Garmin Vivoactive, with minor fluctuations that can be explained by strap tightness and sensor placement.
Sleep tracking has improved compared with last year’s model. The watch detects when you fall asleep, breaks your rest down into stages like light, deep and REM, and shows total duration, time spent awake and a composite sleep quality score. The most impressive aspect is wake time detection. Some competing devices tend to register the moment you finally get out of bed as the end of sleep, ignoring the 20 or 30 minutes you spent rolling around half awake beforehand. The CMF Watch 3 Pro was consistently closer to reality, often marking the first real awakening rather than the final one. In the Nothing X app you can see historical sleep graphs and trends, which helps you connect habits with how rested you feel.
Activity tracking, sports modes and GPS
For many buyers, activity tracking is where a smartwatch earns its keep. The CMF Watch 3 Pro ships with support for more than 130 exercise modes, ranging from obvious categories such as outdoor runs, indoor runs, outdoor walks and cycling, to more niche options like jump rope, hiking and various gym workouts. Rather than trying to differentiate each mode with hyper specific metrics, CMF focuses on basics: duration, heart rate, calories and, where applicable, distance, pace and cadence.
The move to a six axis accelerometer and dual band GNSS is the headline upgrade for athletes. Previous CMF watches were criticized for slow and flaky GPS locks that could take frustratingly long to acquire a signal at the start of a workout. The Watch 3 Pro, in contrast, typically locks onto satellites within a few seconds when starting an outdoor run, even in a moderately built up area. Dual band L1 plus L5 means the watch can better handle reflected signals and maintain a stable fix under trees or near tall buildings, where single band receivers sometimes struggle.
Accuracy in our running tests was very good for a wearable in this class. Distances reported over familiar 5 and 10 kilometer routes were within a few percent of trusted reference devices, and route traces on maps looked smooth rather than jagged or obviously offset. This gives you confidence to leave your phone at home for runs or walks without worrying that your stats will be wildly off.
Beyond raw GPS, the Watch 3 Pro offers some more advanced running metrics such as estimated VO2 Max, training load indicators and suggested recovery times. Serious athletes will still gravitate towards Garmin, Polar or Coros for richer data and ecosystem depth, but for casual and intermediate runners, the CMF package is more than sufficient. Being able to sync workouts to Strava, Apple Health and Google Fit also means you are not locked into a proprietary silo; your CMF data can slot into whatever health dashboard you already use.
A particularly interesting addition is the AI driven Running Coach. After a short setup where you define your current level and goals, the system generates a multi week plan with varied sessions: easy runs, intervals, tempo efforts and rest days. As you complete workouts, it adjusts difficulty based on your performance rather than blindly following a rigid schedule. It is not as nuanced as the adaptive plans from high end sports watches, but again, for a sub 100 dollar device it is impressive and can provide structure for runners who otherwise just jog the same loop at the same pace every time.
Indoor workout tracking is more basic. Strength training modes exist, but there is no automatic rep counting for specific lifts and you will not find detailed exercise libraries. The watch is fine for logging time spent in the gym and keeping an eye on heart rate, less so for meticulously tracking every set and exercise. As for swimming, the hardware is water resistant but there is only a simple pool swimming profile with limited metrics and no open water mode. People who swim regularly or compete will want something more specialized.
Battery life and charging
Nothing equips the CMF Watch 3 Pro with a 350 mAh battery and claims up to 13 days of light use or 10 days of heavier workloads. In real life, with auto brightness enabled, Always On Display disabled, continuous heart rate and SpO2 sampling, 100 plus notifications per day and three logged workouts, the watch comfortably lasted around seven days on a charge. That is a solid result given the size of the screen and the number of active sensors and is in line with many midrange watches from larger brands.
Turning on AOD or increasing the heart rate sampling frequency to the most aggressive option will knock a couple of days off that figure, while being extremely conservative with features can stretch it slightly. The nice thing is that you can tweak these settings and quickly find a personal sweet spot after a week or two of experimentation.
Charging is handled via a small two pin magnetic puck that snaps onto the contacts on the back of the watch. A full refill from empty to 100 percent takes around 90 minutes. A ten minute top up gets you roughly 20 percent, and about half an hour yields close to 50 percent, which is enough for several days of moderate use. There is no wireless charging support; you must use the proprietary cable. At this price point that is not shocking, although the convenience of dropping a watch on any Qi pad remains something you only really appreciate once you have it.
Limitations, quirks and comparisons
For all its strengths, the CMF Watch 3 Pro does have clear limitations, some of which will be deal breakers for certain buyers. The absence of NFC means you cannot pay at terminals with your wrist, something a growing number of people now consider core smartwatch functionality. If you are deeply invested in Apple Pay, Google Wallet or similar services on other platforms, switching to the CMF ecosystem will feel like a step back in that regard.
The lack of third party app support is the second major trade off. You are entirely dependent on the built in tools for music control, workout tracking and notifications. There is no offline music storage, no ability to install streaming service clients directly on the watch and no map navigation apps. For users who prefer a distraction free, focused wearable that complements rather than replicates a phone, this minimalism can be refreshing. But power users who rely on wearables as wrist mounted app hubs should steer towards Wear OS, Apple Watch or even some of the more feature rich offerings from Huawei and Samsung.
Physically, the 47 mm size means this is not a unisex crowd pleaser. On medium to large wrists it looks bold but balanced; on smaller wrists it can feel and look oversized. There is no smaller variant, so if you already find 42 mm watches pushing your comfort, the CMF Watch 3 Pro may simply be too much watch.
Then there is the matter of timing. By the time some readers come across this review, the watch has been on sale for a few months and early adopter excitement has cooled. The upside is that firmware bugs have largely been ironed out and prices may have dipped a little in some markets. The downside is that the market has not stood still; new budget and midrange models from bigger brands have appeared, some with brighter screens, more refined ecosystems or better swim tracking. Even with that context, the CMF Watch 3 Pro holds its own by leaning hard on design, essential features and overall polish rather than chasing every single spec on the checklist.
Verdict: a confident budget smartwatch with character
The CMF Watch 3 Pro is not trying to be the Swiss army knife of smartwatches. It will not replace a high end Garmin for serious training, it will not stand in for an Apple Watch if you expect deep app integration and cellular independence, and it will not rival Huawei’s latest for multi week battery life with Always On Display enabled. What it does do is deliver a surprisingly cohesive and enjoyable experience at a price that undercuts many of those rivals by a wide margin.
You get a sharp, always on capable AMOLED display, a comfortable and easily customizable 47 mm case, dual band GPS that finally fixes past location issues, and health and activity tracking that is more than accurate enough for most people. The watch faces and AI powered customization tools are fun rather than tacky, Essential News and voice notes add flavor, and the interface stays snappy thanks to the lightweight RTOS. Battery life of about a week strikes a reasonable balance between performance and convenience.
If NFC payments, a rich app store or ultra detailed training metrics are non negotiable for you, the CMF Watch 3 Pro is not the right choice. But if you want a stylish, modern looking smartwatch with solid fundamentals, reliable notifications and thoughtful extras, all without spending more than 100 in your local currency, this watch deserves a place on your shortlist. Late review or not, the verdict is clear: Nothing’s CMF Watch 3 Pro is one of the more compelling budget smartwatches of 2025, precisely because it focuses on doing the basics well and sprinkles in just enough personality to stand out.