Technology

CMF Watch Pro 2 by Nothing Review: Budget Smartwatch with a Twist

Published

1 week ago

July 9, 2024

At a glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

Watch design that doesn’t feel budget
Nicely stylised user interface
Easy to use companion app
Very affordable

Cons

Sports tracking is hit and miss
Still not fit for swimming
Some UI elements not optimised for round display

Our Verdict

The CMF Watch Pro 2 is another good-looking budget smartwatch joined by slick software that’s less buggy than its predecessor. It’s a good option for anyone looking for an attractive, affordable smartwatch.

The CMF Watch Pro 2 is the Nothing spin-off’s second smartwatch that wants to show once again that you don’t have to spend big to strap on a stylish smartwatch.

Unlike the CMF Watch Pro, CMF has gone circular for the design this time but is sticking to the same price as its squarer predecessor to make it both pleasing on the eye and on the bank balance much like Amazfit’s Bip series and the likes of the Honor Watch 4.

Some software gripes aside, the first CMF Watch Pro got a lot of things right to make it a pretty likeable cheap smartwatch and it looks like more of the same with the Watch Pro 2 – and it still costs just £69. It was announced alongside the interesting CMF Phone 1.

If you want a smartwatch that bucks the trend that budget smartwatches have to look and feel budget, then the Watch Pro 2 is going to appeal.

Design & Build

Interchangeable bezels and straps
Features watch crown
Not suitable for swimming

The difference in looks of the Watch Pro and Watch Pro 2 is dramatic to say the least. While the Pro had a display-dominating 47mm, square design, CMF has opted to shrink things down to a 45mm, circular case, made from aluminium alloy that comes in either black or silver looks.

That’s matched up with one of four 22mm watch straps that come in silicone or leather (pictured) and come in black, orange (pictured), light green or blue shades. It still heavily channels an industrial-strong design approach with a minimalist look that’s a bit of a throwback to the LG Watch Style, which had the same bezel-heavy look.

The other special trick here is that the bezel is interchangeable, with four available

Mike Sawh

That bezel sits slightly raised over the touchscreen display and has the CMF by Nothing name etched into it, which I think it could probably do without.

The other special trick here is that the bezel is interchangeable, with four available and it’s a simple process of twisting to clip it away from the watch body like a camera lens. This is something we’ve also seen recently from the Xiaomi Watch S3, though unlike Xiaomi, CMF is making it clear that it’s selling strap and bezel packs for £19, which means you’re going to need to spend a bit extra to be able to customise the look.

A new rotating crown button is in keeping with the understated yet attractive design and can be pressed to wake up the screen and get into the main menu screen. You can also hold it down to power off or restart the watch.

Mike Sawh

One thing that is disappointing to see is that there’s no movement on water protection. This is still a smartwatch with an IP68 water-resistant rating, that means it can be dunked in water but there’s no 5ATM rating to things like tracking for swimming.

In terms of creating a smartwatch that doesn’t look as cheap as its cheap price tag, CMF does a pretty good job here. It’s comfortable to wear, there’s a very nice quality strap and the fact those bezels are easy to remove and reasonably cheap to replace are likeable qualities about the Watch Pro 2.

Screen & Audio

1.32-inch, always-on AMOLED
New auto brightness feature
Can make calls over Bluetooth

The first Watch Pro had a hulking AMOLED screen and the Pro 2 drops to a smaller 1.32-inch, 466 x 466 resolution one that can be set to stay on at all times.

An added auto brightness mode means it will adjust brightness based on the level of lighting in your environment

Mike Sawh

It’s a screen with up to 620 nits brightness, so not quite as bright as the Watch Pro’s screen, though a 60fps refresh rate does mean a small improvement in that department (up from 50fps). An added auto brightness mode means it will adjust brightness based on the level of lighting in your environment and make sure it’s not shining too brightly when it doesn’t need to.

The overall screen quality is good for a smartwatch at this price. It’s an AMOLED panel with pretty deep blacks, good max brightness, though colours are a touch saturated. It doesn’t better the standout smartwatch displays at this price, but it’s certainly not in the category of bad ones either.

It’s no surprise to find this budget smartwatch lacks any sort of extra LTE connectivity to make it operate more standalone, though if you want something to make calls while paired to your Android phone or iPhone over Bluetooth, that is a way to do it.

There’s a microphone and speaker onboard, with the ability to add contacts from the companion from the CMF app to make calls. AI noise reduction technology is used to improve call quality, which I’d say is good enough to make it worthy of making calls from your wrist.

That microphone and speaker array can also be used to tap into your smartphone’s voice assistant, so it is able to connect to Apple and Google’s assistants to give you one less reason to reach for your smartphone.

Software & Features

In-house operating system
Works with Android and iOS
Over 100 watch faces

The Watch Pro 2 uses an in-house built operating system, which has the user interface feel of Google’s Wear OS, or at least an older version of its smartwatch operating system.

It is one that’s compatible with both Android and iOS via the CMF watch app and I’ve used it both with the Android and iOS versions of the app where setup, pairing and syncing data has generally been faultless.

Mike Sawh

On the watch, it’s a heavily gesture-based software, letting you swipe in all directions from the watch face to get to widgets, notifications, music controls, quick settings all stylised in that customary CMF colour palette.

The main menu screen reveals further features like a torch, a calendar view, find my phone mode and the ability to set reminders. I feel like the UI seems more optimised for a square smartwatch because elements like widgets don’t really sit so neatly on a round screen.

In addition to swiping on screen, you can use a series of quick gestures to interact with the software for handling calls, or skipping a song by rotating your wrist once or shaking your arm. These can be turned on from inside of the watch settings.

Mike Sawh

Clearly a lot of work has gone into the styling here, and that includes the watch faces where there’s a handful of preloaded ones with a few more options available inside of the companion app with scope to customise watch faces.

Unlike my time with the first Watch Pro, there seems to be less of the bugginess I experienced with notification support and the software in general, so that’s one big positive here. It might not be bringing anything necessarily new, but what it does have seems to have been executed well and crucially, made it quite an easy smartwatch to get to grips with.

Fitness & Tracking

Built-in GPS
Promised improved sleep tracking
120 sports modes

The Watch Pro 2 is no different to pretty much every smartwatch that says it’s going to be able to track your workouts, your heart rate inside and outside of workouts and be able to monitor your sleep.

there’s an accelerometer sensor for basic activity tracking and sleep monitoring, an optical heart rate and SpO2 sensor (for blood oxygen level) and there’s built-in GPS

Mike Sawh

Sensors-wise, there’s an accelerometer sensor for basic activity tracking and sleep monitoring, an optical heart rate and SpO2 sensor (for blood oxygen level) and there’s built-in GPS with support for five satellite systems. So, not the latest dual-band GPS support we are seeing on more expensive smartwatches but that’s understandable.

In sports tracking mode, five of the 120 available sports modes offer automatic workout recognition support if you’re not fussed about manually tracking workouts. For some workouts like runs, there’s the option to view some warm-up animations, which is something similar we’ve seen on Huawei’s watches.

There’s the addition of sports watch-centric insights like displaying your training load to make sure you’re not over or under-training and recommending ideal recovery time to take it further into those serious sports tracking realms.

From an accuracy point of view, it wasn’t a great story for me. For indoor rowing, the data is restricted to workout duration and heart rate monitoring, the latter for me wasn’t very accurate with minimum and maximum readings very far off a heart rate monitor chest strap.

Things didn’t get better for outdoor tracking where locking to a GPS signal took an absolute age and it took the third attempt at using it for a run to finally get a lock on. That meant accelerometer-based distance tracking was off from a dedicated running watch. With GPS finally in play, things were better, but heart rate tracking again was a bit of a disaster show.

As a fitness and general wellness tracking, it will continuously monitor heart rate, SpO2 measurements when enabled and will monitor stress from heart rate variability measurements. There’s also sleep tracking, which is apparently upgraded from the previous watch though it’s not clear what exactly has been upgraded.

You’re also getting new menstrual cycle tracking and Activity scores with the aim to aim for 100 scores to make sure you’re staying active enough each day.

Mike Sawh

Daily step tracking totals tended to be nicely in line with another fitness tracker and you’ve got a very Apple Rings-like widget on the watch and off it to chart your progress. For sleep tracking, I wore it alongside the Oura Ring Gen 3, one of the best sleep trackers I’ve tested and it recorded similar times I’d fallen asleep and woken up in the morning. Sleep duration was generally 10-20 minutes out from the Oura with sleep stages, though it didn’t seem to pick up the occasions I’d woken up.

With continuous heart rate monitoring, I found that daily resting heart rate data matched up with Garmin’s reliable tracking on some days and on others, it felt a touch high. The abnormal low heart rate alerts chimed in as well, though as a pretty active person, my typically low heart rate was triggering that.

While data largely lives inside of the CMF app, you do have the ability to share stats to Apple Health, Google Connect and also Strava for those chasing kudos on the well-loved fitness app.

Battery Life & Charging

Up to 11 days battery life
Up to 9 days in heavy use
Charges fully in over 1.5 hours

The Watch Pro 2 packs in a 305mAh capacity battery, so smaller than the one nestled inside of the Watch Pro.

CMF says that should get you up to 11 days in typical use or nine days in heavy use. If you set the screen to always-on, that number will drop further.

Mike Sawh

I’ve been using it with a mixture of the screen set to always-on and with the raise to wake and I’d say those numbers do seem to ring true. There isn’t any worrying drain through the day or over overnight to say this isn’t a watch that can get you a week at least, even in heavy usage and you can live without that screen being on 24/7.

There’s also a power-saving mode, which restricts you to the watch face and will give you 45.8 days of battery life. When you’re putting the GPS to use, you can expect up to 25 hours of battery life. I’d like to tell you how well the GPS battery performed but I simply couldn’t get the watch to lock onto a GPS signal to tell you that.

There’s a proprietary charging cable when it does need powering up, with no quick charge mode here, and will take 100 minutes to go from 0-100%.

Price & Availability

The CMF Watch Pro 2 goes on pre-order from July 8th 2024, before going on general sale on the 12th July.

It’s be available from the CMF website and in UK and EU Amazon online stores. Pricing is £69, so the same as the CMF Watch Pro, and as mentioned, you’ll be able to pick up optional bezel and strap sets for £19.

That pricing puts it below other budget smartwatches like the Amazfit Bip 5, Honor Watch 4 and the Huawei Watch Fit 3. So this really is one of the cheapest, feature-packed smartwatches you’ll be able to put on your wrist.

Check out our list of the best smartwatches for the top options.

Should you buy the CMF Watch Pro 2?

If you want a smartwatch that bucks the trend that budget smartwatches have to look and feel budget, then the Watch Pro 2 is going to appeal.

It’s well-made with very likeable hardware and software that while not groundbreaking does a lot of the smartwatch basics well. It delivers good battery life, some good and not so good fitness and wellness tracking support in an overall stylish package.

I’d say that its rivals like the Huawei Watch Fit 3, Honor Watch 4 and Amazfit Bip 5 offer a little more quality on the fitness and health front, but outside of that it’s really about how you like things to be packaged.

I’d say this is one of the most visually pleasing cheap smartwatches I’ve worn and I think a lot of people will be happy with what this budget pick offers if you can manage to snag one. It’s just not breaking new ground in terms of actual smarts.