Nothing CMF Watch 3 Pro – At $179 expect Nothing (review)

The Nothing CMF Watch 3 Pro is a $179 smartwatch, and if you expect Nothing, you will be pleasantly surprised at the features and value. CMF is Nothing’s value sub-brand.

Smart watches tend to fall into three categories

• Cheap and nasty Temu specials – generic brand and limited functions.
• Mid-range – brand names and the beginnings of sports and health tracking.
• Prosumer -no expense spared and added EGG, 4/5G, and more

This watch retails for $179, is being flogged for <$130, and it is a perfect mid-range watch backed by a decent brand.

Australian Review: CMF Watch 3 Pro by Nothing

Brand	CMF by Nothing
Model	CMF Watch 3 Pro
RRP (5/11/25	$179 but seen for less
Warranty months	12-months
Website	Product Page
From	JB Hi-Fi or Nothing AU online
Country of Origin	China
Company	Nothing (Est. 2020) is London-based and is manufactured in China.
More	CyberShack Nothing news and reviews

Ratings

We use the following ratings for many of the items below. CyberShack regards a score between 70 and 80/100 as a fit-for-purpose pass mark. You can click on most images to enlarge them.

• Fail (below expectations), and we will let you know if this affects its use.
• Pass(able) rating that is not as good as it should be.
• Pass (meets expectations).
• Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good, but does not quite make it to Exceed
• Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader).

First impression – stylish but not for all

It is a large 47 mm in diameter with a 14.4 to 15.2 mm depth and from 51 to 52.4g (varies by colourways)

It has a metal Body (likely aluminium) and a standard 22mm liquid silicon strap with the typical lever release pins. It is IP68 rated, but not for swimming.

The crown is to select a sub menu, and it rotates through the options. It also gets caught on fabric and backpack straps.

It has four variants: Light green, Orange, Dark Grey (all with a flat bezel), and light grey (round hemispherical bezel). The review unit is light grey (aluminium silver) with a pale grey band, and frankly, The Light Grey review unit is not my style. The flat bezel colourways are more appealing, but under the skin, they are all the same.

Setup – Simple enough

Download the new Nothing X app for Android and iOS, set up an account and follow the prompts. There was one ‘gotcha’ that you need to select a language, or it will likely not be set up for English.

The Nothing X privacy and terms of use are benign, but leave the door open to market to you.

There is one other minor issue. This watch uses Bluetooth 5.3 to communicate with your phone. If it had Wi-Fi, it means you don’t need to have the phone beside you for many features to work.

Below are device screenshots

Display – Pass+

The large, bright (650 peak nits), 1.43-inch, 466 x 466, 60 Hz AMOLED display is good, although the auto brightness setting is a little conservative. I set the manual brightness to three (on a five-point scale), and that worked well except in bright direct sunlight, where Auto was best.

There is no mention of screen protection, so I am guessing it is just tempered glass.

Watch Faces – Pass

As it is not a Google Watch OS, everything comes from the Nothing X app. There are over 120 with a mix of analogue, digital, stylish, experimental, and you can modify colours.

Tech – Pass

Tech-wise, it has a combo 6-axis Accelerometer/Gyroscope (simulates a pedometer), Ambient light (for the screen), Dual Band GPS, 4-channel optical heart rate/SpO₂, and a haptic linear motor. It also has a microphone and speaker for calls and voice commands.

Missing: altimeter, compass, barometer, 1-lead ECG. The dual-band GPS can give altitude and compass data.

Heath app – None

It doesn’t have one. Instead, it allows you to direct connect to Strava or Google’s Health Connect, which allows you to sync with other compatible apps like Google Fit. It provides a dashboard ‘score’ overview.

Battery Life – Seems excellent

It has a 350 mAh battery. A rather unreliable two-pin charge dongle attaches magnetically to the underside bottom the watch and detaches too easily if bumped. It is commensurate with the price bracket where wireless charging is not expected. Charging time is about 1.5 hours at 5V/2A/10W, but I suspect 5W is sufficient, as it does not support fast charge.

CMF quote battery life as:

• Typical use is 13 days
• Heavy use is 10 days
• AOD (always-on-display) mode + heavy use 4.5 days
• Power saving mode 60 days
• Bluetooth calls 17.9 hours
• GPS use 17.2 hours

Over two weeks of typical testing, we found it used 8-10% of battery daily, meaning its claimed use figures are correct.

GPS – Dual band – Pass+

Dual-band GPS (L1 and L5) does two things. First, it is more accurate and second works in more countries. It can show your route on Google Maps.

Music – Pass

Music control is via smartphone link and BT buds to the phone. You cannot download music to the watch.

BT Calling – Passable

We found the mic and speaker not quite adequate for the task. We have had much better experiences with other brands.

Health and sport functions – Pass

It has 131 sports modes, seven with auto-recognition. While that seems a lot, we are not able to comment on whether these meet prosumer standards.

Automatic heart rate measurement	24-hour heart rate measurement	Resting heart rate	Exercise heart rate	Heart rate reminder
Average heart rate	Active score	Sleep detection (support enhanced sleep tracking)	Blood oxygen measurement	Women’s physiological health records
Blood oxygen reminder	Stress monitoring	All-day step count	Calories	Distance
Exercise duration	Water reminder	Stand up reminder	131 SPORT MODES	7 SMART RECOGNITION ACTIVITIES

I did not test all, but between the Nothing X app and Google Fit, you get a good picture.

It does build insights over time and has a custom running coach.

Smartwatch functions – Pass

Some features require a Nothing Phone. For example, CHATGPT and any of Nothing’s essential space functions *.

Recording transcription*	Essential news*	Bluetooth call	Cloud watch faces
Photo albums watch faces*	Video watch face	Watch face studio	Watch faces switching
Breath training*	Message notification	Music control	Timer
Stopwatch	Alarm clock	Emoji message alarm	Weather*
Find my phone	Flashlight	Camera remote*	Reminder
Voice assistant*	Calendar	Calculator	World clock

CyberShack’s view: Nothing CMF Watch 3 Pro is a good value mid-range smart watch

Apart from my mild dislike of the light grey review unit and its rounded hemispherical bezel and the two-pin charger, it does everything you expect of a mid-range smartwatch.

I hardly mention the crown because it’s awkwardly placed, caught on my backpack straps and loose-weave clothes, and is just used to change menus and scroll through them (touch does this better). But I am not qualified to criticise design, just because it does not suit me.

Nothing has done a good job with the Nothing X app and offers flexibility to sync health data with other apps. The app’s only drawback is that it may not support your favourite health app, so Google that first.

The other point is that some of the smartwatch functionality is limited to using a Nothing phone with the Essential Space features. Nothing needs to be far clearer about which functions work without a Nothing phone.

Competition

While Nothing obviously competes on style that Nothing users love, JB has around 400 brands/models/variants, including the CMF Watch 2 Pro at $119, which is not its tool-shoddy predecessor. Its strong points are a reasonable range of apps and good battery life.

For my money, a Google Watch OS provides more functionality, Wi-Fi, and a huge app and watch face marketplace. Fossil has watches from $150, Samsung from $350 and Google Pixel 3 from $499. However, you are likely to spend $600+ to get what you really want. I really like the $699 OPPO Watch X2 – a fascinating and fully-featured smart watch.

Nothing CMF Watch 3 Pro rating

Remember the three grades – this is a mid-range, offering a little more than other mid-rangers. As such, it should not be compared to more expensive models.,

• Features: 80. Because it’s limited to the Nothing X app ecosystem, what you see is what you get.
• Value: 80. It’s reasonable value, and you would have to spend two to three times as much to get a Google OS. You can save 10% if you buy a Nothing phone.
• Performance: 80. It seemed responsive with excellent battery life.
• Ease of use: 75. Limited to the Nothing ecosystem, and that is it. 1 1-year warranty is OK.
• Design: 70. Maybe it would have been higher had I not received the Light Grey, but overall, it’s a large watch with a touchy battery charge connection and does not exude the build quality of more expensive watches.