Nothing CMF Watch Pro 2 review: The anti-smartwatch smartwatch

Nothing, the company founded by ex-OnePlus Carl Pei, also released a new smartwatch relatively recently, albeit through its affordable CMF brand. Dubbed the CMF Watch Pro 2, it's a steal thanks to its extremely affordable price tag of just $69! Nice!

What's more, it's a smartwatch that subconsciously could attract people who are usually against smartwatches. First up, it's sort of a "dumb" smartwatch––it doesn't have any dedicated apps like watchOS or Wear OS devices. Instead, it relies on several pre-built features and functionalities. Phone notifications are also merely mirrored to the watch, so you can't  Let's get on with it and you will find out.

Table of contents:

Inside the CMF Watch Pro 2 box, minimalism is king. Aside from the watch itself, you also get the usual booklets and a magnetic charging cable. That's just about it, all the essentials with zero fluff. 

Here are the hardware specifications of the CMF Watch Pro 2:

What's impressive here is obviously the exceptional battery life, which is measured in days on the CMF Watch Pro 2. Definitely an outlier among most smartwatches, but then again, the CMF Watch Pro 2 isn't a smartwatch in the truest sense of the word. 

Nothing's ultra-affordable wearable is a win from a pure design standpoint. 

It comes with a classic-looking round case with an extremely minimalistic style, which stands out with its simplicity. There's a single button on the right-hand side of the case, which doubles as a digital crown that lets you scroll through the interface and the various menus. 

What will immediately strike you when you take the watch in your hands is just how lightweight it feels in comparison with other smartwatches. The CMF Watch Pro 2 weighs just 44gr, while the Apple Watch Series 9 starts at 51gr. The wearable is perfect to wear to sleep and while practicing your favorite sport.

Made of aluminum that's as soft as velvet to the touch, the CMF Watch Pro 2 has a pretty intriguing design feature––interchangeable bezels. You can twist to remove the existing case bezel easily, exposing the screen, and put another bezel you can get from CMF. Sadly, there's no extra bezel inside the box. Some available bezels are: Dark Grey Curved Bezel, Dark Grey Flat Bezel, Ash Grey Curved Bezel, and Ash Grey Flat Bezel.

The CMF Watch Pro 2 is available in a single 42mm version. Overall, it's exceptionally comfortable to wear. The watch is available with either a liquid silicone or a vegan leather band. Those bands attach to the watch with a simple mechanism; you can attach any other 22mm watch band you might have.

The smartwatch is IP68-rated, which means a 30-minute submersion in up to 1.5m (3ft) of freshwater, but isn't rated for deeper diving. If you're into that, you're better off with a dedicated diving smartwatch like the Apple Watch Ultra 1st or Apple Watch Ultra 2nd Gen, as well as the fresh new Galaxy Watch Ultra.What's more, the display isn't protected by sapphire crystal, so expect it to attract scratches with time. The same applies to the aluminum case, which will most certainly attain a patina over time. 

The display is a 1.32-inch AMOLED one, with a 466 x 466-pixel resolution. The display achieves up to 620 nits peak brightness, which is okay for indoor use, but doesn't really deliver good outdoor legibility. 

You might have a hard time discerning tiny text on the display, and while the mostly monochrome interface style helps with content standing out, a higher peak brightness would have been immensely more helpful.

After all, smartwatches can achieve up to 3,000 nits of peak brightness these days. In bright daylight, the interface was mostly legible, but a higher brightness would have made the whole experience that much more better.

Haptics on the CMF Watch Pro 2 are objectively terrible. High-pitched and clunky, it feels as if you have a million mosquitoes strapped on your wrist. I wouldn't judge if you turn them off altogether as that's what I did. 

In terms of software, the CMF Watch Pro 2 comes with its own rather rudimentary OS that covers all the basics, but doesn't have an app store or allow you to install apps. As we mentioned, this is a "dumb" smartwatch, which doesn't give you a full smartwatch experience like watchOS or Wear OS do, but still delivers many smart features. 

For example, notifications are supported on a rather basic level: notifications are mirrored from your phone, but you can't reply or interact with those in any meaningful way. 

To use the watch properly, you need to get the CMF Watch companion app, which is available on both Android and iOS. Yes, this means that you can use the smartwatch alongside your iPhone, though you might have some connectivity issues. 

The device has a pretty long list of available features and functionalities available. With the CMF Watch Pro 2, you get Bluetooth calls, customizable watch faces, breathing training, message notifications, music controls, timers, stopwatch, alarms, weather, find phone, flashlight, camera remote, reminder, voice assistant, calendar, calculator, and world clock.

In terms of sports tracking, Nothing says the watch can detect and track 120 different sports, including niche ones like gateball, shuttlecock, and kabaddi. You can set different goals for each sport to track your performance, like distance, time, and calories. 

During workout tracking, you get an informative and data-rich interface that lets you monitor your pace, distance traveled, overall time, heart rate, steps, calories, as well as control music playback on your phone. 

Sleep tracking is also on board, and for the most part, it's pretty accurate. Like on other smartwatches, you get to see your deep and core sleep as well as REM broken down. However, the sleep tracking feature is not accurate: the watch almost always thought I'd woken up at shorty after 5am, which is widely off the mark. It even detected that I went to sleep at 5am one night, which is something I haven't done in a decade or so. I'd be wary of trusting the sleep data from the CMF Watch Pro 2.

Heart rate monitoring seems pretty accurate and mostly consistent with data I cross-checked on another smartwatch, an older Apple Watch 7th Gen. You can't really deem one or the other more accurate, and I don't have access to medical-grade heartrate monitoring hardware, so let's just say that the CMF Watch Pro 2 isn't widely off the mark in comparison with an Apple Watch Series 7. 

The interface is pretty intuitive and straightforward. All the features and functions are available as a scrollable list that you access by pressing the button. Swiping left or right on the watchface gets you to the widget screens. Those are customizable from the CMF Watch app and allow you to combine different types of information panels, like weather, sleep, timers, stress, blood oxygen, heart rate, activity, steps, and so on. 

Weirdly, you can only have six watchfaces at times on your watch. If you happen to like another one from the watchface gallery, you have to replace an existing one. 

Sadly, there's no NFC or wireless payments on deck. The lack of those on such an affordable device is understandable, but it would have certainly made the CMF Watch Pro 2 an even more enticing buy. 

This smartwatch has an INSANE battery life. 

While the 305mAh battery probably doesn't suggest that, this one will last you nearly 11 days of typical use. That's spectacular, but wait until we get to the ultra-power saving mode, which will keep things up and running for 40 or so days. Granted, you can't do anything in this mode aside from view the current time. 

My experience with the smartwatch is consistent with the battery life stats that Nothing claims. I've been using the watch for a week now, and the battery sits at 40%. I might have to get it charged the next weekend, it seems.

 

As far as charging goes, the device will reportedly get fully charged in an hour and 40 minutes. I wouldn't know, I'm yet to deplete the battery a single time! 

That said, the charging cable inside the box is a rather minimalist one that attaches to the two pins at the bottom of the watch magnetically; there's no charging puck, so things are light and tidy here. What irks me, however, is that on the other side of that cable sits a large and unsightly USB-A port, which doesn't feel right in 2024. 

The smartwatch boasts Bluetooth 5.3 and also supports the full roster of GPS services: GPS/GLONASS/Galileo/QZSS/Beidou. 

Both iOS and Android are supported, but I routinely experience disconnection issues on iOS. From time to time, the device will simply disconnect from the iPhone, and you will have to open the app and manually connect once again. Can't say if it's a CMF Watch Pro 2 quirk or an iOS issue. 

You can make and take phone calls with the CMF Watch Pro 2. The audio quality is adequate, good even as per smartwatch standards. 

There aren't many alternatives to the CMF Watch Pro 2 in this price niche. At around $70, you may stumble upon a plethora of no-name smartwatches of suspicious overall quality.

Some legit ones include the Amazfit GTR 3 smartwatch, which has a similar feature list and also works with Android and iOS. 

However, big names like the Apple Watch, the Galaxy Watch, or the Pixel Watch are way pricier, albeit more capable as far as smart features go. 

Overall, the CMF Watch Pro 2 is a winner. This is the perfect smartwatch for those who detest devices like the Apple Watch or the Galaxy Watch with their single-day battery life.

It covers all the basics: its simple design is genius, its battery life is insane, and its price tag is impossible to beat. 

It does all the activity and health-related basics just right, and it also has multi-platform support. 

Sure, I wish the software were more fully developed and supported contactless payments, but aside from those minor gripes, there aren't any major issues. Even if there were some, those would certainly be outweighed by the ultra-low price tag.