CMF Watch 3 Pro Deal: Who Should Buy It at
Amazon dropped the CMF Watch 3 Pro to $69 this week, available in every color, according to The Verge. That's $30 below the standard $99 retail price confirmed by Trusted Reviews and WearableXP, and below the $79-$99 range the watch typically floats between on Amazon. The CMF by Nothing Watch 3 Pro normally lands at $69 only during brief sales; whether this is the lowest it's ever gone, the available data doesn't confirm.
At that price, The Verge notes the watch now costs $20 less than the screenless Google Fitbit Air. The hardware case is hard to dismiss: dual-band GPS, a 1.43-inch AMOLED display, a four-channel heart rate sensor, and 131 sports modes. The software case is harder. No third-party apps, no NFC payments, and a meaningful gap in features for iPhone users. Wareable concluded earlier this year that under $100, nothing beats it. At $69, that assessment gets more defensible, not less but only for the right buyer.
What this watch is, and what it isn't
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The spec sheet is genuinely strong for this price tier. That 1.43-inch AMOLED panel is brighter than the previous model, at 670 nits, per Wareable. The dual-band GPS covers five satellite systems GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and BeiDou per WearableXP. The 47mm case weighs 51 grams with strap, per Wareable, or 47 grams per WearableXP light enough to forget you're wearing it, though there's only one size.
The software is where the ceiling appears. The watch runs Nothing's own proprietary OS, not Wear OS. There's no third-party app store, no NFC for contactless payments, and no Google Maps on your wrist, per Wareable and Trusted Reviews. Strava, Apple Health, and Google Health Connect receive synced data from the watch; they don't run on it natively, per WearableXP.
iPhone users get an additional asterisk. The watch pairs with iOS 13 and above, but message replies from the wrist only work on Android iPhone users can read notifications, not respond to them, per WearableXP. Cross-platform compatibility exists; it's just unequal.
Water resistance deserves a direct answer. Wareable and Trusted Reviews list an IP69 rating; WearableXP lists IP68. Both ratings come with the same practical warning: CMF explicitly advises against swimming, hot showers, and saunas, per WearableXP. Rain and sweat are fine. Pool laps are not.
One note for returning buyers: the previous CMF Watch Pro 2 had swappable bezels. This model dropped them, per Wareable.
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GPS, heart rate, and sleep: what the fitness tracking delivers at $69
The dual-band GPS is the headline fitness feature, and it holds up in testing. Both Wareable and Trusted Reviews found satellite lock took roughly six seconds and held reliably after that. WearableXP calls the accuracy "remarkably" strong for a sub-$100 device, noting that dual-band GPS is rare at this price. Three independent reviews reaching the same conclusion is more meaningful than any one of them alone.
Heart rate tracking is solid during exercise, less reliable at rest. During high-intensity intervals, the four-channel sensor averaged within about 2 BPM of a Garmin HRM-600 chest strap, per both Wareable and Trusted Reviews. Wareable also noted the sensor was occasionally off by 5 BPM in the same testing conditions, and resting heart rate readings can wander, per WearableXP. These are hands-on reviewer tests, not lab results, but the consistency across sources gives the workout data real credibility.
Sleep tracking compared well against a Whoop 5.0 in Wareable's testing. The Watch 3 Pro logged sleep duration within seven minutes of the Whoop's figure six hours four minutes versus six hours eleven minutes and produced near-identical recovery scores of 75% versus 76%, per Wareable. For a $69 device benchmarked against a subscription-based health tracker, that's a reasonable result. The watch also runs continuous heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring around the clock, per WearableXP.
Beyond fitness, the watch offers calendar access, a remote shutter for your phone's camera, and a voice assistant shortcut, per Wareable. Functional, if not expansive.
Why the CMF Watch 3 Pro deal battery math matters
CMF's 13-day battery claim is the watch's biggest marketing number, and it needs unpacking. That figure reflects light use with the always-on display disabled, per WearableXP. Run GPS workouts, keep notifications active, and enable AOD, and Wareable, Trusted Reviews, and WearableXP all landed at four to five days. The Verge's reviewer, with AOD running continuously, averaged two to three days per charge, per The Verge.
Four to five days is still the right number to anchor expectations on, and that's before comparing it to the competition. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 and Apple Watch Series 11 both top out at one to two days per charge, per Wareable. The Watch 3 Pro beats those by a wide margin even under active conditions.
Charging is fast. A full charge from empty runs about 90 minutes, and a 30-minute top-up restores roughly 47% of capacity enough for at least two more days of use, per Wareable. The 350mAh battery is an upgrade from the 305mAh unit in the previous model, per Trusted Reviews.
One practical screen note: at 670 nits, the display is fine indoors but can be difficult to read in direct sunlight, per Wareable. Worth knowing if outdoor use is a priority.
Buy it, skip it, or spend less
The buyer case at $69 is straightforward. If GPS accuracy, multi-day battery, and a large OLED display are the priorities and apps, NFC payments, and swimming are not there's very little competition at this price. Wareable concluded earlier this year that under $100, no smartwatch beats it. The current Amazon price only sharpens that argument.
Skip it if the missing features are the features you actually use. Anyone who wants contactless payments, third-party app support, or full message functionality on iPhone will hit the software ceiling fast. Wareable is explicit that this watch isn't designed to compete with even the Apple Watch SE 3. That's a category description, not a criticism.
If $69 is still over budget, the older CMF Watch Pro 2 is currently $39 on Amazon, down from its usual $55, per The Verge. It loses the dual-band GPS and the larger display, but it gets the job done for basic fitness tracking at a price that's hard to argue with.