CMF Watch Pro 2 review: An ambitious but flawed

It’s no secret how much I enjoyed the CMF Phone 1 . I loved how it brought a level of performance and fun we don’t usually see at budget price points. The mission statement remains the same for the CMF Watch Pro 2, offering an ambitious feature set and gorgeous display for the price of a PS5 game. It also has the same fun styling as the CMF Phone 1, with interchangeable bands and bezels, allowing you to mix and match with all your CMF products.

It’s not without drawbacks, and Nothing cuts corners to keep the Watch Pro 2 low-cost, but it’s hard to argue with the result. If you’re looking for fitness tracking on a budget and aren’t afraid of a few flaws, the CMF Watch Pro 2 has a lot to offer for only $70.

Price and availability

The CMF Watch Pro 2 is available through Amazon and CMF Global for $70. It has four strap colors: blue, orange, ash gray, and dark gray. Depending on your color choice, you have two bezel options matching the ash gray or dark gray. Additional straps start at $19, but any 22mm watch strap will fit the Watch Pro 2.

What I like about the CMF Watch Pro 2

Great display and lots of functions

I’m amazed at the Watch Pro 2’s display quality. It sports a fantastic 1.32-inch OLED panel that’s sharp and readable outdoors. It’s also responsive, alleviating a main concern with cheaper smartwatches, usually hampered by poorly lit, laggy screens. Nothing leans heavily into aesthetics with the Watch Pro 2, and a high-quality display is an important part of the package. It’s one of the main reasons you’d consider buying, and I’m glad Nothing decided on a premium panel.

I mentioned the Watch Pro 2’s ambitious feature set, and that’s not an exaggeration. It boasts an impressive array of health sensors. In addition to heart rate and blood oxygen sensors, the Watch Pro 2 also measures sleep quality. It does a solid job across the board, and I was especially impressed with the sleep tracking. Inexpensive sleep trackers are lucky to know I’m asleep, but the Watch Pro 2 accurately broke down my sleep cycles.

I enjoy the accuracy of the sensors as well as how the CMF Watch app presents the information. I usually pray for Google Fit or Strava integration with budget smartwatch apps because the native app is so poor, but that’s not the case with the Watch Pro 2.

Information is clearly laid out, with different sections for heart rate, sleep, exercise, and even stress levels. Tapping on the individual widget within the app gives me granular data about sleep cycles or training loads. The app is a pleasure and a definite benefit of the Watch Pro 2. If you still prefer Strava or Apple Health, the Watch Pro 2 integrates with them, allowing you to aggregate health data from several trackers. Google Health Connect will also be added in a later software update.

The CMF Watch Pro 2 includes 120 built-in sport modes, available for manual input—five modes, such as running and outdoor walking, feature auto-detection. I had success triggering outdoor walks a few times, allowing me to track my progress around the block without having to log a workout manually. Onboard GPS is another helpful premium feature, enabling accurate distances for your runs and cycling sessions. All told, with its warm-up exercises and breath training, the Watch Pro 2 is an impressively well-rounded fitness companion for the price.

Of course, these features don’t mean much if the Watch Pro 2 is a paperweight on your wrist by dinner. Thankfully, Nothing fitted the device with a 305mAh battery, good enough for over a week on a single charge. The company claims the Watch Pro 2 will last up to 11 days with typical use, but admits heavy use of the GPS or Bluetooth calling features will limit those results. I saw additional drain with 24/7 heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring, but I never had to top off more than once a week. Charging speeds were adequate at just under 90 minutes for a full charge using the proprietary magnetic charging cable.

As expected, the CMF Watch Pro 2 isn’t driven by Wear OS 5 at this price. However, the company’s in-house OS works quite well. In fact, the Watch Pro 2 does some things better than even the Fitbit Charge 6 for half the price.

The Watch Pro 2’s on-device software is snappy and adopts Nothing’s design language, with orange and black panels and dot matrix lettering. It’s also well-appointed, with a calendar app, voice assistant, and music controls. Gesture controls are intuitive, and the menu system is clean, allowing you to scroll through the various watch functions. Nothing included 80 watch faces at launch, giving you plenty of options for customization.

What I don’t like about the CMF Watch Pro 2

Cheap build and poor connectivity

While I enjoy the Watch Pro 2’s playful design, I’m more critical of its build quality. Nobody expects titanium construction with sapphire crystal for $70, but the Watch Pro 2 feels cheap. It’s almost feather-light on your wrist, and the swappable aluminum alloy bezel felt like plastic until I removed it and heard it hit my desk. I have more serious reservations about the rotating crown. It sticks out a bit further from the bezel than I’d like and is flimsy. I hold my breath each time I use it, wondering when it will finally snap.

Early in testing, I encountered problems with the crown becoming unresponsive, requiring a hard reset of the watch. Although subsequent software updates appear to have alleviated the issue, I am still wary. The Watch Pro 2’s haptics are also poor, amounting to hollow, noisy thwaps against your wrist.

Bluetooth connectivity is particularly fickle, as the Watch Pro 2 disconnects whenever I am more than a few feet away from my phone. I had to manually open the app to force a reconnect several times a day, and I was repeatedly disappointed by the watch’s inability to recognize I was back within range of my phone. It’s hard to ask for everything to function well on a watch of this price, but the basics are important, and Nothing has work to do.

Should you buy it?

I’m rating the CMF Watch Pro 2 higher than I normally would because of the device’s potential, which is incredibly dangerous in tech reviews — it’s the tip of the sword. You should always buy a device based on what it can do now, not what you hope it can do in the future. However, with even minimal software support, the CMF Watch Pro 2 is fantastic value for money.

Even if its flaws aren’t rectified, you’ll find plenty of utility for $70, especially compared to other smartwatches, which are twice the price with half the features of the Watch Pro 2. Its great display, fantastic battery life, and plentiful health sensors make it hard to beat.