Best Wearables in Australia (2026)

Samsung released the Watch Ultra2 on 7 August 2026 and it fixes the one thing that kept the previous Ultra off the top of Android buyers' lists: endurance. The new 800mAh cell is about 35 percent larger than the 2025 model's, which turns a comfortable two days into a genuine multi-day watch even with always-on display and overnight sleep tracking running. It is also the first Galaxy Watch on Qualcomm's Snapdragon Wear Elite platform, and the difference shows in how quickly the watch wakes, how smoothly Wear OS moves, and how fast it holds a GPS lock at the start of a run. The rugged formula is unchanged, which is the right call: 47mm titanium cushion case, sapphire crystal, 10ATM water resistance and an emergency siren, so reef snorkelling, dusty trails and a summer of sweat are all well within scope. Samsung's BioActive sensor suite still covers heart rate, ECG, blood pressure and body composition, with the Antioxidant Index and Vascular Load metrics carried forward, and Gemini handles on-wrist assistance properly rather than as a demo. The price is the sticking point at just under $1300, blood pressure still needs a Samsung phone to calibrate, and the case remains chunky on smaller wrists. For Android users who want the most capable rugged smartwatch available in Australia, though, nothing else comes close.

Apple put the Watch Ultra 4 on Australian wrists on 18 September 2026, and Amazon AU sells and ships the 49mm Black Titanium model with the Ocean Band itself at A$1,347, a shade under the A$1,349 list price. The Ultra 3 listing we ranked here has lost its buy box on Amazon AU, so this is the Ultra you can actually order. The headline is battery. Apple rates the Ultra 4 at 50 hours with the always-on display, up from 42 on the Ultra 3, and Tom's Guide found that claim held: two days of real wear with three and a half hours of workouts tracked. Workout tracking with full GPS and heart rate now runs 25 hours rather than 20, Max Extended Workout mode stretches outdoor runs, walks and hikes to 45 hours, and fifteen minutes on the charger buys about 18 hours back. For a watch this size that is the difference between charging every night and charging when you remember. The other real change is underneath. A redesigned health sensing system gives the electrodes more skin contact and rearranges the photodiodes, which Apple says makes this the most accurate heart-rate sensor in a wearable. Tom's Guide ran 22 miles against a chest strap to test exactly that. Continuous heart rate and far more frequent HRV sampling feed a new daily Readiness score and a Health Age figure, and the S11 chip brings Siri AI features such as Live Rewind and Siri Recap. What has not changed is the outside. Same 49mm titanium case, same 3,000-nit 422 x 514 display, same 100m water rating, same two colours. Tom's Guide marked it down for that and for the fact that the Audio Intelligence features Apple demonstrated are not shipping until later in the year. One practical caveat for this ranking: the watch is two days old in Australia, so only one publication has finished a rated review of it and Amazon AU has no owner ratings yet. That is why it is not seated at number one despite scoring well, and we will revisit the order as more reviews land.

The Apple Watch Series 12 replaces the Series 11 as the default recommendation for iPhone users in Australia, and Amazon AU now sells and ships this 46mm GPS + Cellular version itself. The changes are mostly under the glass. A new heart sensor takes a reading every five seconds in the background, which feeds better heart-rate variability tracking and a new daily Readiness score out of ten that tells you whether to recover, pace yourself or go hard, based on your overnight vitals, sleep and recent training load. Tom's Guide gave it 5 out of 5 and called the heart-rate upgrade the headline. The S11 chip powers new Audio Intelligence features that use the microphone to flag sirens and doorbells or let you rewind the last 15 seconds of a conversation. Everything the Series 11 did well carries over: hypertension alerts, Sleep Score, ECG, blood oxygen, fall and crash detection, Apple Pay and the full App Store. Cellular is the practical reason to buy this version: add a carrier plan and you can leave the iPhone at home on a run and still take calls and stream music. The trade-offs are familiar. Battery is still rated at 24 hours, so nightly charging stays the routine, the design and display are unchanged from the Series 11, and the cellular plan is a monthly cost on top of the watch. It is iPhone-only. The listing is new, so it has no Amazon AU owner ratings yet.