The smartwatch market has been growing faster and faster over the past few years, with Apple finally releasing its offering, the Apple Watch, to the public last month.
In fact, the Apple Watch was rated by Consumer Reports as the best smartwatch on the market, beating out competition from the likes of LG, Motorola and Pebble.
"We've been spot-testing smartwatches for a while now, but with the arrival of the Apple Watch, the category has catapulted into mainstream status. But Apple isn't the only game in town. Manufacturers such as Samsung, Pebble, and Martian have been selling high-tech wristwear for years, and some of the watches from these companies are in their second and third generations," said the report.
"For the last several weeks, we've run 11 smartwatches through our labs to test for durability, health functionality, readability in bright and low light, ease of use, and ease of interaction."
In fact, Apple took both first and second place in the results, with the standard Apple Watch being the best smartwatch, and the Apple Watch Sport tying with the LG G Watch R for second.
LG certainly took a prized position as the best Android Wear smartwatch, with quite a number of Android Wear devices currently being available on the market.
Fitness is a big part of the testing, and although the Apple Watch certainly performed well, despite reports suggesting that certain sensors do not work for those with tattoos, LG's step-counter stole the show as far as accuracy went.
One of the areas where the Apple Watch did excel was in scratch resistance. Consumer Reports was barely able to scratch the glass on the standard Apple Watch, which uses sapphire glass. The Apple Watch Sport did not fare as well as the standard Apple Watch, largely because of the Ion-X glass used on the device. While it might not have performed as well as the standard Apple Watch, it performed better than many other devices.
The smartwatch that performed the worst of the bunch was the Sony Smartwatch 3. While that might be a little surprising considering the advertising effort Sony has put into the device, it's clear that Sony's smartwatch range is a little behind the competition.
"In the end, our top-rated smartwatch is the stainless-steel Apple Watch. Its performance on the scratch-resistance test and excellent scores for ease of pairing and ease of interaction make it our top choice," continued Consumer Reports.
