Smartwatches these days can track a lot of health metrics, that includes heart rate, sleep, stress monitoring, and the list goes on.
The heart rate sensor comes as a default in even budget watches these days, but ECG/EKG is what differentiates the top smartwatches for heart health from the pack.
AFib is a medical condition where the heart doesn’t beat properly (has irregular rhythms), and it can lead to stroke. The condition is quite elusive as it comes and goes without any symptoms and is often only picked up by an ECG test.
That’s where an ECG-enabled smartwatch can help you. You can do an on-the-spot check on the watch and then consult a doctor if the results are abnormal. Many watches now also check your heart rhythm in the background and alert you automatically.
To help you find the best smartwatches for aFIB, we’ve compiled a list of top picks based on our extensive research.
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Best Smartwatches for Atrial Fibrillation Detection:
Here is a list of the top three contenders for this roundup.
- Apple Watch Series 12: Best for iOS
- Google Pixel Watch 5: Best for Android
- Samsung Galaxy Watch 9: Best for Samsung Phones
Compare AFib smartwatches by features, price and battery life
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Apple Watch Series 12: Best Overall
Features and Specs:
- Compatibility: iPhone only
- Size: 42mm, 46mm
- Price: From $399
- Battery: Up to 24 hours (38 hours in Low Power Mode)
Two Minutes Review:
From the outside, the Series 12 doesn’t look much different from last year’s watch, but Apple has rebuilt the parts that matter most for heart health. It runs on the new S11 chip, comes in aluminum, titanium, and a returning ceramic finish, and adds a daily Readiness score and new Audio Intelligence features. Battery life is still rated at 24 hours, but charging is much quicker: 15 minutes on the charger gets you up to 12 hours of use.
Apple was the first company to get FDA clearance for a smartwatch ECG back in 2018, and it went as far as enrolling 400,000+ participants in the Apple Heart Study to prove the tech. With the Series 12, the new Health Sensing System adds a larger electrode surface for better skin contact during ECG readings, and the heart rate sensor now takes a reading every five seconds, day and night, a 60-fold jump over the Series 11.
You get the single-lead ECG app, irregular rhythm notifications, and AFib History, which estimates how much time diagnosed users spend in AFib each week. On top of that, hypertension notifications analyze your blood vessels over 30-day periods, and Apple expects the feature to flag over a million people with undiagnosed high blood pressure in its first year. Sleep apnea alerts, fall detection, and crash detection round out the package.
The real-world stories keep coming. Austin resident Mike Gomez bought his Apple Watch to track workouts and calories, until it started warning him about a high heart rate. By the fifth notification, the watch was flagging AFib, and when he got to the hospital, doctors confirmed he was in serious AFib within about a minute of hooking him up.
You can’t use the Apple Watch with Android, so keep that in mind before buying it. And you’ll still be charging it every night.
Pros: Most validated ECG on the market · Hypertension alerts · Fall and crash detection
Cons: iPhone only · One-day battery
Google Pixel Watch 5: Best for Android
Features and Specs:
- Compatibility: Android only
- Size: 41mm, 45mm
- Price: From $399
- Battery: 30–40 hours with always-on display
Two Minutes Review:
The Pixel Watch 5 shipped on August 20 and keeps the same design, display size, and battery life as the Watch 4. That’s not a bad thing: the domed display is still one of the best-looking on any smartwatch, and you get 30 to 40 hours with the always-on display (up to 72 hours in Battery Saver on the 45mm model). It runs Wear OS 7 with deeper Gemini integration, offers LTE and Satellite SOS, and, unlike Samsung, all of its heart features work with any Android phone.
The Pixel Watch is now where all of Fitbit’s heart tech lives. Fitbit’s ECG app was cleared by the FDA in 2020, and its background Irregular Rhythm Notifications were cleared in April 2022 based on the Fitbit Heart Study, which enrolled more than 455,000 people. In that study, 98% of the irregular rhythm alerts turned out to be real AFib.
Google now bundles everything into a suite it calls Health Guardian, which covers irregular rhythm alerts, high/low heart rate alerts, Loss of Pulse Detection, breathing emergency notifications, and sleep breathing quality.
Loss of Pulse Detection is the standout. To train it, Google had patients wear the watch while their hearts were briefly stopped during scheduled defibrillator tests. When researchers then tested it on 355 people going about their daily lives, it placed just one mistaken 911 call.
If the watch thinks your heart has stopped, it buzzes and sounds an alarm, and if you stay motionless, it calls emergency services for you. The Watch 5 also adds monthly Blood Pressure Trends and Insulin Resistance Trends reports, plus 15% more accurate sleep staging.
One drawback: the ECG app isn’t meant for people under 22 or those with other known arrhythmias, and it isn’t available in every country. And of course, it won’t pair with an iPhone.
Pros: Best heart safety alerts · Works with any Android phone · Fall and crash detection
Cons: No iPhone support · 1–2 day battery
Samsung Galaxy Watch 9: Best for Samsung Phones
Features and Specs:
- Compatibility: Android (heart features need a Samsung phone)
- Size: 40mm, 44mm
- Price: From $379
- Battery: Needs charging nearly every day
Two Minutes Review:
Samsung launched the Galaxy Watch 9 in July 2026 alongside the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2. It’s a modest upgrade on the outside, but it’s the most comfortable Galaxy Watch yet, with a lighter aluminum build, a 3,000-nit display, and Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon Wear Elite chip, which reviewers called the fastest they’ve tested in a wearable. Batteries grew to 390mAh and 445mAh, but battery life is still its biggest weakness: plan on charging it every night, and recharging is slow at around 100 minutes.
Samsung got FDA clearance for its ECG app in 2020, and its Irregular Heart Rhythm Notification feature was cleared by the FDA in 2023. For Canadian readers, both features have held a Health Canada Medical Device License since April 2024. With IHRN turned on, the watch checks your pulse a few times a day while you’re still and alerts you if it detects about an hour of irregular rhythm suggestive of AFib, so you can confirm with an on-demand ECG. Newer additions include a Heart Health Score that factors in sleep, BMI, vascular load, and vigorous activity, along with Vitals and Daily Cardio Load.
The ECG on Samsung watches has its own headline story. Joseph Holycross, a 39-year-old father of four, ignored a racing heart for nearly two years. When his wife noticed he was short of breath, she urged him to run an ECG on his Galaxy Watch4 Classic. It flagged AFib, he went to the ER, and doctors uncovered serious heart problems that led to open-heart surgery.
However, the same catch from our 2023 review still applies. ECG, irregular rhythm alerts, blood pressure, and sleep apnea detection all require a Samsung phone. If AFib monitoring is your main reason for buying, that’s a deal-breaker for Pixel or OnePlus owners.
Pros: Bright, fast display · Huge subscription-free health suite
Cons: Heart features locked to Samsung phones · Short battery life
Samsung Galaxy Watch 8: Best Value for Money
Features and Specs:
- Compatibility: Android (heart features need a Samsung phone)
- Size: 40mm, 44mm
- Battery: Around 30 hours
Two Minutes Review:
The Galaxy Watch 8 launched in July 2025 at $349 and is now considerably cheaper at many retailers. It runs Wear OS 6, offers around 30 hours of battery life (an 8% bump over the Watch 7), and shares the same lightweight, comfortable feel as its successor. Unlike the Active 2 we recommended in 2023, which ran Samsung’s abandoned Tizen OS, the Watch 8 runs Wear OS, so it will keep getting updates for years.
Here’s the thing: the Watch 9’s health hardware barely changed from the Watch 8. You get the same FDA-cleared ECG and the same background Irregular Heart Rhythm Notifications, which prompt you to take an ECG when something looks off. It also brought Vascular Load, which tracks stress on your cardiovascular system while you sleep (you need to wear it to bed at least 3 nights out of 14), along with Antioxidant Index, Energy Score, sleep apnea detection, and body composition. If AFib monitoring is all you need, you’re getting nearly the same protection for a lot less money.
Like the Watch 9, the heart features need a Samsung phone, and you’ll be charging it daily.
Pros: Affordable · Same core heart features as the Watch 9
Cons: Needs a Samsung phone · Short battery life
Withings ScanWatch 2: Best Hybrid
Features and Specs:
- Compatibility: iOS and Android
- Size: 38mm, 42mm
- Battery: Up to 35 days
Two Minutes Review:
The ScanWatch 2 looks like a regular analog watch from the outside, and that’s still its USP. It has a stainless steel case, sapphire glass, and real watch hands, with a tiny greyscale OLED screen tucked into the dial for your stats and notifications. It comes in 38mm and 42mm sizes, is water resistant to 5 ATM, can auto-detect more than 40 activities, and works with both iPhone and Android. Withings now rates the battery at up to 35 days, which is beyond exceptional.
The original ScanWatch was cleared by the FDA in October 2021 for ECG and blood oxygen readings, and the ScanWatch 2 carries FDA-cleared AFib detection through its ECG app. Rest a finger on the bezel, and in 30 seconds you get a single-lead ECG. In a clinical study of 262 people, it caught AFib 96.3% of the time and correctly identified a normal rhythm 100% of the time on conclusive recordings, though about 19.5% of readings came back inconclusive. In July 2025, Withings also started testing firmware that checks for signs of AFib in the background every 10 minutes and prompts you to take an ECG if something looks off. Add skin temperature, SpO2, and detailed sleep tracking, and it’s a serious health tool in disguise.
One of its major drawbacks is still GPS. It piggybacks on your phone’s GPS, so you’ll need to carry your phone during workouts.
Pros: Classic looks · 35-day battery · Works with iPhone and Android
Cons: Expensive · No built-in GPS · No fall detection
Garmin Venu 4: Best Battery Life
Features and Specs:
- Compatibility: iOS and Android
- Size: 41mm, 45mm
- Battery: Up to 10–12 days
Two Minutes Review:
The Venu 4 is Garmin’s flagship lifestyle smartwatch, and it’s built for people who want serious fitness tracking without a rugged outdoor look. It has a metal case, a bright AMOLED touchscreen, and a built-in flashlight, and it works with both iPhone and Android through the Garmin Connect app. The battery is the headline: up to 10 days on the 41mm and up to 12 days on the 45mm in smartwatch mode. There’s also a handy Lifestyle Logging feature that lets you log things like caffeine and alcohol and see how they affect your sleep, stress, and HRV. That’s useful, since alcohol is a common AFib trigger.
Garmin was late to the AFib party. Its ECG app, the company’s first FDA-cleared smartwatch feature, launched in January 2023 on the Venu 2 Plus. In Garmin’s clinical study of 590 participants, it correctly detected AFib 99.5% of the time compared with a standard Lead I ECG, not counting inconclusive results.
It expanded to the EU and Australia in January 2025. You record a 30-second ECG, see the result on your wrist, and can save it as a PDF to share with your doctor. However, Garmin’s AFib checks are mostly on-demand rather than the passive background alerts Apple, Samsung, and Fitbit offer.
The Venu 4 is best for people who are happy to take regular spot checks, and the battery means you’ll actually wear it to bed.
Pros: Works with any phone · 10–12 day battery · Excellent fitness tracking
Cons: AFib checks are mostly manual · ECG not in every region
Best Fitness Tracker for AFib Detection: Fitbit Charge 6
If you aren’t fond of smartwatches and want something more subtle, the Fitbit Charge 6 is a great alternative. It’s a slim band with Google built in, and it tracks heart rate 24/7, sleep, steps, SpO2, and skin temperature, plus an EDA sensor that shows how your body responds to stress. It costs a lot less than any watch on this list but still delivers the two AFib tools that matter most.
The Charge 6 supports both the Fitbit ECG app for on-demand AFib checks and Irregular Rhythm Notifications, which analyze your heart rhythm while you’re still or asleep. In Fitbit’s validation study, 98.2% of people who were flagged (221 of 225) also showed AFib on an ECG patch at roughly the same time. Keep in mind, though, that Fitbit’s irregular rhythm feature doesn’t check for AFib continuously, and alerts arrive after your data has been analyzed, not live during an episode.
Fitbit’s background alerts have caught real cases. Knoxville’s Doris Jubran started wearing a Fitbit again after her husband passed away, and it alerted her to a possible irregular heart rhythm. Her doctor ran an EKG and immediately sent her to the hospital by ambulance, where she was treated with an electrical cardioversion. On the other hand, one Charge 6 owner on the Fitbit forums had a major AFib episode confirmed by ECG while the tracker reported no irregular rhythm, a good reminder that these alerts aren’t real-time.
If you want something even more low-key, Google’s new screenless Fitbit Air is an option. Just know that it relies only on background irregular rhythm notifications, with no ECG.
Pros: Subtle look · ECG plus background AFib alerts · Affordable
Cons: Small screen · Alerts aren’t real-time
Final Verdict
The Apple Watch Series 12 is our top pick for AFib detection, thanks to its validated ECG, background rhythm alerts, hypertension notifications, and fall detection. Android users should get the Google Pixel Watch 5, and Samsung owners the Galaxy Watch 9 (or the cheaper Watch 8). If you hate charging or want a classic look, go with the Withings ScanWatch 2 or Garmin Venu 4.
Remember, a smartwatch is a screening tool, not a diagnosis. If your watch flags possible AFib, see your doctor.