Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsBest heart rate / sleep tracker I could find!
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2019
This is an excellent watch for what I was looking for and I'm really glad I found it.
The one remaining concern I have for it is longevity, because for $200 I expect this to last at least 3 years.
But to sing some praises first:
- Great battery life, quick recharge
8hrs in exercise mode (continuous HR monitoring) takes about 40% of the battery for me. Otherwise the battery seems like it will last a month if I didn't use that mode.
- Looks good
I literally had someone comment on how they would rather wear this than an Apple watch because it looks like a normal, nice watch. I agree, although the Apple watch has a lot more features and I'd use one if I liked their phones at all.
- Solid HR tracking
This was the reason I bought and kept this watch, the HR tracking is solid. The sensor could be better like the multiple larger lights in the galaxy watch, sure. But the galaxy watch and almost every HR monitoring wrist band on the market right now sucks. Either because they all skimp on the HR monitor or because the design doesn't make effective use of the sensor (including algorithms to get accurate HR from the sensor) because they don't think anyone wants to have accurate, continuous monitoring. But I do. I use this watch in workout mode to record my HR during exercise, where tracking can be hard for light based sensors. Other watches, including galaxy watch, suck at this. Sometimes sweat buildup messes up the reading on this one too, sure, but it happens way less often and swiping my finger under the reader fixes it right away. The watch itself is designed intelligently to push the sensor down onto your skin without pushing the entire watch body into it and causing chafing, unlike most other devices in this class. A simple yet effective as hell solution! Good job to the designers.
- Water resistance
I have had several devices like this and this one really makes me feel good with its simplistic physical design there is only one place where sealing could be a problem and it looks thoroughly sealed (button). I have worn it in the shower, swimming, and sweat like crazy during workouts on it, zero signs of any issues.
- Data is accessible
The HR data is transferable to other apps easily too, unlike the garbage data hoarding most of these companies do (Samsung health, more like Samsung hell). This was another huge plus for me. I use Withings app only because it does have a few nice addons to it I enjoy, but I feel a lot better knowing that if I didn't like how the company was behaving with my data they allow me to use the watch with other apps.
- Sleep tracking is good
Honestly the tracker is really good, I wish it had stronger compatibility with Sleep for android because it does a great job of detecting when I fall asleep, when I wake up briefly, etc. But it isn't compatible yet, so I use a Mi Band additionally for sleep tracking. I do like to compare their data, and this one is usually more accurate. The data IS accessible, it can be exported and then imported to Sleep, so that's nice, but obviously not how I wanted to do it.
For cons, I'll have to think hard:
- Stock band is a bit suffocating
I haven't had a chance to try other bands but I know with other watches I haven't had any instances of them trapping sweat under the band in a way that causes irritation the way this one has. It's not hard to fix, just keep it clean. I might buy other bands to try out in the future.
- Face is a little small for me
I would prefer something the size of the galaxy watch, but that's very much just a style preference.
- Gimmick VO2 feature?
I got this version thinking I'd like to use the VO2 feature but it ONLY works if you run outside where it can get GPS and elevation data during your run. I run on a treadmill, so I'm out of luck until I go hiking. That was disappointing to find out.
- Price
Of course I wish I paid less for it. I could have got the non sport version to save money since I'm not using that feature. But overall I'm using this like a fitbit for twice the price. I don't care about the notifications, it's not really a competitor for smart watches... It's a health tool and I have to admit it nailed that enough that I'm willing to pay for it. But I think if their competitors pulled their heads out of their asses for a day they could be quickly bringing the price down to something I'd be much happier with (like half..).
That's all I've got. Owned the watch about a month, so take that into account. Will be watching for battery life degradation, or other malfunctioning.
8-month Update:
Time flies! I've been using this watch for a while now. The company continues to support data migration which I LOVE, big props to them for putting in the support work to make it easy to use MY data with whatever I want to! This is probably the one thing that will keep me coming back to this watch. Oh, and my original review has some outdated information - the watch IS supported now in Sleep for Android, and a lot of other apps that didn't support it at the time. Very cool having that compatibility across so many apps, I love to support this kind of product.
They did a few firmware updates, not too many, and from what I can tell this improved the battery life in certain conditions (like in exercise modes). I do not like a recent update that added a "feature" to let you pause a workout, because I was used to just ending and restarting workouts whenever I needed and now I have to click through an extra screen to do that... but I see how others would want this. Overall I am really happy that they don't push out updates too often, but they are also clearly still constantly working on improvements! Great job.
One complaint I almost had was the button - it started sticking and losing the tactile feel to it, which made navigating menus harder. I was really annoyed at this because it signals to me that gunk (probably from all my sweating) is getting IN the button and that could even cause it to stop functioning eventually. However, I solved this... in the shower (which I take the watch with me in) when I was washing up, I got the lathered soap as much into the button as I could then pressed it a lot to try to work it in, then rinsed it and pressed the button a bunch more to wash out the soap. Worked. Button is working again like it used to. For now. Hopefully doing that doesn't do any damage long term to the watch though.
Oh, another complaint that other people have had. The watch face scratches easily. Mine has some nicks. =( Nothing that I can see without looking hard though, nothing functionally invasive. I've had plenty of surprised compliments from people who thought I was into the recent "vintage/classic watch" wearing fad, only to find out mine is actually fully functional! =)
I also have recently purchased the Fenix 5 Sapphire watch from Garmin and can offer a comparison to this. An important note for comparison, on a black friday sale the Fenix dropped to $300. That's the deep sale price for it. While of course, this watch has (since I purchased it for $200.. =( ) has dropped to around $120-$150 in sale prices. So literally comparing a watch that costs nearly twice as much. But still. The Fenix glass does not scratch almost at all, where this watch absolutely does. The Fenix is also a better HR tracker, sad to say. During heavy exercise I notice sometimes they both can run into issues losing tracking for a bit (usually cleared up by swiping sweat away from the sensor, or moving the watch around), it happens a lot less with the Fenix. The Fenix has great battery life too and does not drain nearly as fast during exercise tracking as this watch does. But Fenix also does not last as long in standby.
Data sharing I have yet to really test on the Garmin either, and I'm worried because I know for sure they aren't as easy as Withings is for exporting data. So I still use both (yep, two watches...).
Overall, still think this is a great value HR tracking watch, especially at the new sale prices.
