Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsA value for money watch
Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 15 July 2022
There are cheaper watches. But nothing this rugged. It looks good on a male wrist and does not look bad for regular office work. This may not suit those in customer facing roles due its sporty all terrain wear look.
Otherwise this watch looks stunning. Colors are vivid and display is bright. It is visible in sunlight. But a little hard to see in direct sunlight. But can change viewing angles to get best view of the time.
The custom watch faces for AOD itself are so nice that I hardly find the need to see the main dial. These are AOD exclusive watch faces Im referring to. There is another AOD watch face setting that 'follows the main watch face design'. The battery lasts for exactly 5.5 days before a recharge is needed. At this point the charge is ~15%. I'm observing 20% drain every 36 hours. Charges in 1 hour or so. Speed may depend on your charger since only cable is bundled. .
Workout detection works only for basic things like walking, cycling etc., It detected my walking and route fairly accurately (My GPS mode is in accuracy mode). I'm not pixel peeping to see how accurately it tracked. It got the route right and I'm good with that. I
Augst 2022 update : ts not perfect either. At times it prompts me and asks If i'm walking when am actually in the car navigating my office parking slowly. It probably noticed my long walk from my desk to the car and continued to think i'm walking even after i started driving. Its not that big a deal. I just press ignore and move on.
For other workouts it tracks Spo2, Heart rate etc., it also shows aerobic and anerobic workout levels , workout load etc., its all usable for those who need indicative data for their daily workout. We cannot use it as reference numbers. This is not a pro grade equipment.
The buttons to navigate are very handy and sturdy. The watch comes with a ton of optimizations and settings. We can set it through the phone app or the watch itself.
The watch is also very responsive and i have not felt it struggle to navigate. Everything is fast and snappy.
The companion app also has ton of settings and i find myself getting lost many a time. Its very extensive. The mobile app to watch synchronization is also instant and i've not seen any lags or data misses.
I wanted to buy a watch where i would not have to worry about breaking it as i regularly bang my arms on tables or doors. Looks like this may be the right watch for it. Lets see.
The analog and digital watch faces are also very nice and the cloud options are also plenty. I often find that simple watch faces are the best. The ones with tons of info shown on watch face is not readable at glance. A simple analog or digital with basic battery and pedometer info works best. But to each his or her own tastes.
Notifications pop up in the watch promptly. Its very handy for those OTPs when you are on a laptop or Tab and the phone is say on charge. Canned replies work well for whatsapp and SMS. Yet to make it work for signal. Probably some setting. August:2022- Yet to figure out how to make quick replies work for Signal.
I have not had problems with watch connectivity with the phone. It automatically connects when the phone is near. No issues. The instructions from the manufacturer asks us to keep the app open and in the ignore list of the battery optimizers that will either kill or disable the app.
I did not like the Map Navigation (GPS) notification on the watch option. It uses a 3rd party app to send the Google map notifications to the phone and that 3rd party app asks for too many permissions like draw on top of the app on the phone etc., not cool
Sleep detection feature is also approximate. It always shows that you have slept lesser than you actually have. It shows Deep Sleep, REM mode, Light sleep etc., They are not very accurate. It shows similar numbers for days i've had undisturbed sleep and not so great nights where I tossed and turned. So, its not of much use in my experience.
Glitches - Before the OTA update i received yesterday (the 2nd one so far) its AOD would not turn ON automatically at 5am as scheduled. Instead, it would take longer and turn on randomly at 545 or 6am. If i went to the app and set up the AOD schedule again, it would get fine. Similarly, notifications also would suddenly stop and i would have to reset it. my guess is that this happens when I do some other setting change through the phone (say watch face change). I have to observe closely. But this is nitpicking to be honest. The experience has been great so far. August 2022 update: This glitch no longer occurs. I guess the OTA fixed it.
Aug 29th update: The funny AOD issue seems to have gone away. I also noticed that the phone(Samsung) pulls the permissions for the zepp app now and then(apparently a security feature). This causes notifications to stop and i have to go and grant the permissions again!
Lets see this lasts. Hopefully this helps you decide.
