Best smartwatches that support Google Wallet in 2023

Given that the Pixel Watch is Google’s device to show off what Wear OS can do, it should be no surprise that Google Wallet is one of its core features. Just double-press the crown, pick the card you want on-screen and hold the Pixel Watch near the terminal until you hear the chime. Done.

It helps that it’s a fine smartwatch in its own right, with a stylish look, brilliant integration with Google’s other services, and super health tracking facilities, thanks to the company’s purchase of Fitbit.

There are certainly drawbacks, though. Not only is it expensive at $350, but the battery requires daily charging — and you may consider the chance of it being out of juice when you need Google Wallet a reasonable reason to avoid. All the same, it remains a brilliant showcase of what Wear OS can do.

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Samsung’s smartwatches used to be Samsung Pay only, but with the adoption of Wear OS, you now have a choice: Google Wallet or Samsung Pay.

How does the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro justify its $450 price tag over the regular version, which starts at $280? Well, that chunky, rugged 1.36-inch titanium case houses a 590mAh battery that’ll last twice as long, for a start, and it offers a few nice extras for adventurers, including GPS mapping for cycling and hiking.

But the admittedly premium look can’t disguise the fact that you’re not getting a whole lot more for your extra $170. With the same processor, performance is identical, and that makes it feel a touch expensive. On top of that, while some will love the bold and bright 1.3-inch screen, it’s weighty at 46.5g, and those with smaller wrists need not apply.

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The original TicWatches were a Kickstarter success story, and the wearables’ maker — Mobvoi — has stuck with Wear OS on a budget. The TicWatch E3 comes in at a modest $200, but still includes NFC, so Google Wallet is present and correct.

Despite its budget price, you also get the snappy Qualcomm Wear 4100 chipset and a whole gigabyte of RAM to play with. These specs mean it’s in line for an update to Wear OS 3 in the future (though owners are beginning to grumble about how long it’s taking).

On the downside, the main way Mobvoi has kept the price low is with an LCD screen, meaning weaker contrast than its OLED-toting rivals, and it’s quite a chunky beast, measuring 12.6mm thick. Still, that does mean it can pack a decently sized battery, ensuring the watch will comfortably hit two days on a single charge.

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Thankfully, Samsung hasn’t reserved Google Wallet as a feature for its more premium Pro model, and it’s here on both the 40- and 44mm Galaxy Watch 5 wearables, too.

In truth, it’s a pretty modest update over the previous generation of Galaxy Watch, but the upgrade to scratch-resistant sapphire glass is welcome, as are the larger batteries. Samsung has refined the Galaxy Watch experience pretty well over the last few years, and there’s simply not much that needs changing year-on-year.

With that in mind, it’s enormously disappointing that the company did away with the ‘Classic’ model with a rotating bezel for selecting apps. The haptic alternative doesn’t work half as well, and it looks considerably less distinct without it. On top of that, the improved battery life will still have you looking for a charger more often than we’d like (think one to two days, max).

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If you bought a Fitbit in the past, you’d be stuck with the pretty poorly supported Fitbit Pay. One good thing to come from Google’s $2.1 billion buy out? After a delayed launch, Google Wallet is on its latest watches, including the Fitbit Sense 2.

Like Fitbit’s other products, the Sense 2 is a great watch for casual fitness seekers who need guidance from a brilliantly intuitive app. The Sense 2 is specifically about wellness, with sensors for temperature, stress, and blood oxygen levels. It tracks activity, offers breathing exercises, and has a week-long battery life.

But Fitbit OS is a lot more limited than Wear OS, and bafflingly Fitbit has made it even more so for this generation, stripping features like music playback, Wi-Fi, and the app gallery. If it weren’t for Google Wallet and Maps, there’d be a very good case for buying a Sense 1 instead.

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The Fitbit Versa 4 is slightly below the Sense 2 because it contains all of the same problems (a limited OS and fewer features than the Versa 3) and less of the perks due to being a stripped-back product. There’s no temperature, EDA, or ECG sensor on the Versa 4, and thus fewer features.

There’s still a lot to like — especially in terms of its sleek design and week-long battery life — and it is $70 cheaper. In short, you could do worse if you want a Google Wallet-supporting smartwatch and don’t want it to cost you the Earth. Just be prepared for a smartish watch rather than a smartwatch.

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Given our budget pick — the TicWatch E3 — supported Google Wallet via its NFC chip, you’ll be unsurprised to hear that Mobvoi’s all-singing, all-dancing TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra does too.

Your extra $100 gets you quite a lot more. You get a slightly faster chipset (the Wear 4100+), a higher-resolution OLED screen, MIL-STD-810G durability, and a massive 577mAh battery. This will easily last over 24 hours, but if you need to eke a bit more out, the watch has a unique dual-layer display that can switch to a super-low-power mode when you don’t need all its bells and whistles.

So why is it so far down the list? Well, the $300 price tag puts it up against some stiffer competition, and at 41g and 12.3mm thick, it’s undeniably chunky. It’s also still working with an older version of Wear OS, but Mobvoi says an update to 3.0 is coming.

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Luxury brand Fossil has had reasonable success with its smartwatches, and the Fossil Gen 6 is another solid entry in the series. It has NFC, meaning Google Wallet is supported, and the bottom button opens it by default for quick payments.

It’s undoubtedly sturdy and well-built, and the presence of three buttons is welcome for those who find touchscreens a bit fiddly. But at $299, it’s a tough sell in 2023, with occasional performance stutters and a less-than-stellar battery life letting it down.

Still, it’s been updated to Wear OS 3, and if you want a distinct-looking smartwatch away from the Googles, Fitbits, and Samsungs of this world, then the Fossil Gen 6 is still worth a look.

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Most running watches from the likes of Garmin and Polar focus on fitness at the expense of smartwatch features, which makes the Suunto 7 highly unusual. It runs Wear OS, which has its pros and cons, but one big pro is the presence of Google Wallet.

It also means you have way more apps than most running watches, alongside more fitness features than most smartwatches. Surely it’s the best of both worlds?

Well, yes and no. Battery life is poor for a running watch at 1-2 days, and it’s undoubtedly getting on a bit now, having originally been released in 2020 with the Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset (which makes it ineligible for a Wear OS 3 upgrade). Add in the fact that you need both Suunto and Wear OS apps to manage it, and the $399 price tag feels like a big ask.

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