The gaming brand's new outdoor watch boasts an 18-day battery life and extreme durability specs
Black Shark—the gaming hardware brand with ties to Xiaomi—has unveiled its latest smartwatch, the Black Shark GS3 Ultra.
Similar to the brand’s debut smart ring, which arrived around a year ago, its latest wearables launch is another outside of its usual lane of pure gaming aesthetics.
Instead of a follow-up ring, though, this new watch pivots hard into the rugged outdoor watch market, offering durability specs that rival heavyweights from Amazfit and Garmin.
The headline feature is the IP69K rating, a certification rarely seen on consumer smartwatches. Unlike the standard 5 ATM waterproofing found on most devices (which covers swimming), IP69K certifies that the device can withstand high-pressure, high-temperature water jets.
Combined with a 9H hardness Gorilla Glass screen and a thick metal bezel, the GS3 Ultra is, at least on paper, one of the toughest watches on the market. The watch also features a 1.43-inch AMOLED display with a 466 x 466 resolution and 1,000 nits of peak brightness.
Inside, it packs dual-band GPS (L1 + L5) for accurate tracking and supports over 160 sports modes. Black Shark also claims a whopping 18 days of battery life with typical use (or 45 days in standby mode), which is obviously essential for those multi-day adventures.
While pricing and global availability are yet to be confirmed, the GS3 Ultra offers a comprehensive health suite, tracking heart rate, SpO2, stress, and sleep, though it lacks advanced medical sensors like ECG or skin temperature monitoring.
The Wareable take
Black Shark continues to carve out an interesting—if a little confusing—niche with its slow trickle of wearables releases.
There doesn’t appear to be too much of a clear focus from the brand, and international expansion doesn’t seem any more likely with this release than with its smart ring, but it’s one to follow going into next year, nonetheless.
After all, with Xiaomi often content to operate at the budget end of the smartwatch bracket—but not the smart ring or outdoor watch segments—Black Shark could easily become its proxy to cover and compete in those areas.
It’s not hard to imagine the GS3 Ultra becoming a budget-friendly sleeper hit for tradespeople, extreme sports enthusiasts, and anyone who has a history of smashing fragile screens. Stay tuned for more on this one as we get it.
