The best stylish smartwatches for women

Why you'll love it: The Kate Spade Scallop 2 is a truly feminine, whimsical, and charming smartwatch that packs serious tech features like a heart rate monitor, GPS, and NFC for mobile payments.

Most smartwatches are still more unisex than specifically made for women. Even though Fossil, Skagen, and Apple make very convincing unisex watches that women can actually wear, none of them are unapologetically feminine. If you, like me, have been waiting for the day when you can look at a smartwatch and say, "Oh my God! It's so cute!" your day has come.

The Kate Spade Scallop 2 is fully and completely designed for women. The round metal watch casing is relatively slim, very sleek, and absolutely adorable because it has the cute little detail of scalloping around the watch face.

The watch faces themselves are classic Kate Spade designs. You get a sultry winking moon face with perfectly curled lashes, calling you a leading lady; cute bubbly balloons for a digital watch face with numbers; a speeding cab that reassures you that you'll be there in a New York minute; and a daisy that loses petals as the time ticks away in a classic game of "He loves me; he loves me not."

The cute scalloped silicone band in black or a leather band in blush pink and the well-made, slim metal bracelet style watch band complete the feminine look. It is these little touches that make this watch so fun.

Underneath all the fun design is WearOS (formerly Android Wear) with all its skills and limitations. Like all the other WearOS watches in our guide, you can pair it an iPhone or Android device to get apps and all your notifications.

The second generation Scallop even has GPS, NFC for payments, and a heart rate monitor, making it more high tech than ever.

Pros: Adorable design, feminine watch faces and casing, cute straps, subtle details for fun, GPS, NFC, heart rate monitor

Cons: A bit expensive

Shop all Kate Spade Scallop Smartwatch styles for $275 and up

Why you'll love it: The Fossil Q Venture HR is a sleek smartwatch with a classic design and the power of WearOS.

If you're an Android user who wants a female-friendly smartwatch, you're in luck. Over the past few years, fashion brands and watchmakers have started making great WearOS smartwatches. Fossil's smartwatch line continues to grow each year, and the new Q Venture HR is its fourth-generation model.

The improvements are immediately obvious: The watch casing is smaller and less bulky and the touchscreen looks more refined. There's also finally a heart rate sensor, GPS, and NFC for mobile payments.

Fossil offers several different finishes for the Q Venture's watch casing. I love the simple rose gold casing and tan leather strap option, but you can also get one with a bedazzled ring around the watch face. There's also a rose gold metal bracelet strap or one that mixes rose gold with a bold navy color.

Women who are less into trendy colors can obviously go for the more traditional finishes like the silver and gold. If you don't like any of the included straps, Fossil and other brands sell dozens of 18mm watch straps you can choose instead to really make the Q Venture your own.

It's a chunky watch, which is great for women who like bigger watches. It's not as flashy as the Michael Kors Access Bradshaw smartwatch we'll discuss later on in this article, though. Even though it's stylish, this smartwatch is also waterproof up to 3 ATM, so you can swim with it on.

As for the tech inside, the Q Venture won't let you down. It runs WearOS (previously known as Android Wear) and works with thousands of apps on the Google Play Store. You can answer texts, interact with notifications, and choose your own watch face — just like you would on any other smartwatch. Fossil has lots of nice watch faces in feminine colors, too.

It'll work with both Android phones and the iPhone, but it's best with Android devices. When Android Wear watches are paired to the iPhone, a lot of functions no longer work, and you're left with a pretty watch that gives you notifications.

Pros: Classic watch design, stylish color options, lots of compatible watch straps, and it's compatible with iPhones and Android phones

Cons: It's a bit chunky, not as good with iPhone

Buy the Fossil Q Venture HR from Fossil for $255

Why you'll love it: The Skagen Falster 2 has the same unique, simple design as the original, but now it has a heart rate monitor, Google Pay, and GPS built in.

Skagen is known for its minimalistic design choices, and the Falster 2, its second smartwatch, is a prime example. The Falster 2 looks very different from most other smartwatches with its unique lugs and simple bands. It's also slimmer than the original Falster.

It's an interesting smartwatch, because it could easily suit men or women. I tried the Falster 2 on for size, and while it was large for my notoriously small wrists, it looked just fine on other women's larger wrists and on men. If you like bigger watches, it'll look right at home on you.

Just like all other WearOS (previously Android Wear) smartwatches, the Falster 2 works with both iPhone and Android devices. As always, WearOS is best with an Android phone. Some functions simply don't work as well when you pair this watch to an iPhone.

You can download thousands of apps from the Google Play Store and get notifications on your wrist. This second generation smartwatch also has GPS, NFC for Google Pay, and a heart rate monitor built in, so it's more fully featured and high tech than the original Falster. It's everything we wanted the original Falster to be.

Pros: Cool design, simple mesh band, suits women and men, WearOS, works with iPhone and Android, GPS, NFC, heart rate monitor

Cons: A bit pricey

Buy the Skagen Falster 2 on Amazon for $295

Why you'll love it: The Fitbit Versa is a better fitness tracker than it is a smartwatch, but if that's what you want, it's a great alternative.

If what you really want is a great fitness tracker with a few key smartwatch features and not a techy smartwatch, the Fitbit Versa is a great choice. It's the best looking Fitbit smartwatch so far, and it has a nice Apple Watch-like design that looks great on women.

The Versa tracks your fitness metrics just like every other Fitbit. It has a built-in heart rate monitor and it uses your phone's GPS to track workouts. It doesn't have standalone GPS like the Apple Watch, though, so runners who like to leave their phones behind may be disappointed.

As a smartwatch, the Versa isn't as fully featured as the Apple Watch or WearOS watches, but it has more than enough smart features to keep most people happy — so long as you want a fitness tracker first and a smartwatch second. As a fitness tracker, the Versa is great. It has excellent pre-set workouts you can follow, you can swim with it on, it has a personal coach, tracks your sleep and activity, and you can see how your workout is going in real time for more than 15 types of exercise.

The Versa can hold about 300 downloaded songs and it works with Deezer or Pandora. Unfortunately, other music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music are MIA. Again, this only matters if you leave your phone behind because otherwise, you just play music on your phone. You can also pair wireless headphones to the Versa if you do want to leave your phone behind.

The app and watch face selection is still fairly limited, but hopefully more developers will add apps as time goes on. You can get notifications for texts, calls, and WhatsApp messages on the Versa, which is a nice touch. Sadly, iPhone owners can't reply to messages on the watch, though Android users have the option to reply with a few canned responses.

From a distance, the Versa almost looks like the Apple Watch, but close up, it looks much more like the now-defunct Pebble Time Steel. The screen is more square in shape than the curvy rectangular Apple Watch, but it still looks quite nice if slightly less polished. The Versa is good enough looking that you could easily wear it to work or with a nice outfit.

The case is made out of aluminum and you can get it in silver, rose gold, or black finishes. Each Versa comes with both small and large silicone wristbands in either gray (for silver), black (for black), or pink (for rose gold). There are some special-edition bands, too.

You can also choose to buy additional wristbands made from leather, metal, or silicone. Those come in a variety of fun colors and styles. The only downside is that they cost extra.

I tested the silver Versa with the gray silicone wristband and a special Horween leather wristband. Both options looked great with the Versa, and I liked wearing the leather one for work and other nice occasions. The silicone one is perfect for workouts, yoga, and running because it can handle sweat without being damaged.

Pros: Good fitness tracking, heart rate monitor, uses phone's GPS, notifications, some apps, can choose your watch face, good looking

Cons: Bezel isn't as slim as it could be, few apps, no built-in GPS

Buy the Fitbit Versa from Fitbit for $199.95 Shop Classic Versa silicone bands for $29.95 Shop Versa leather bands for $49.95 Shop metal Versa bands for $99.95