If there’s one thing there isn’t a shortage of, it’s smartwatches and fitness trackers. You can get ultra high-end devices that cost over $500. You can get entry-level options for less than $100. There are watches and trackers at every price in the middle, too.
Today, we’re going to look at a very affordable smartwatch with a very fitness-focused feature set in the Amazfit Pace. It retails for around $140 from GearBest, which puts it right in that entry-level price point. However, its suite of features rivals watches that cost quite a bit more.
There aren’t many watches in the same price range, with most either falling under $100 and lacking features, or coming in at closer to $200. The closest, both in price and feature-set is the Sony Smartwatch 3, which comes with a $130 MSRP. However, the Sony watch doesn’t come with heart rate monitoring, so that’s definitely something to keep in mind.
Design
As for colors, the watch itself is mostly black, and the band is black with orange accents. It’s quite nice looking, but some users might find the orange to be a little too bright for their tastes. Thankfully, it comes with a standard 22mm strap, so you can replace it with another band.
There’s only one physical button on the Amazfit, and it’s used for power and waking it up from sleep. You can also turn on an option that allows you to wake the device up by double-tapping the touch screen. This will make it so you almost never need to use the tiny button.
The watch face itself is 1.34 inches (3.4cm), making it large enough to read comfortably, but small enough to let it maintain that more traditional watch style. It comes with a resolution of 320 x 300, so text and the interface elements both appear sharp enough.
The Pace comes with a transflective display. You can freely use it while out in the sun without worrying about glare. This is obviously beneficial for a watch that’s designed to use while running.
Features
Let’s dig into the part that makes it smart — the features. For a watch in this price range, it does quite a bit more than you’d expect. Its feature set includes a heart rate monitor, step tracker, sleep monitoring, GPS tracker, music control, notifications from your phone, and more.
The main feature you don’t usually see from cheaper smartwatches and fitness trackers is a heart rate monitor. The truth is that heart rate monitoring from a wrist based device is notoriously difficult, and should not be relied upon for accurate readings. However it still gives you a relative idea of your heart rate compared to what it would normally be.
In my testing, it always showed a lower heart rate while resting. My resting rate tended to fall between 65 and 75. While playing hockey, my heart rate was consistently over 100, which is where it should be.
In an even more nuanced test, I took my heart rate right as a flight was taking off, and it read in the high 80s. This makes sense as I do tend to get a little stressed when it comes to flying.
One of my favorite features is the ability to control music and podcasts from the watch. Even with an iPhone on an Android-based watch, the feature worked flawlessly. It’s a nice convenience not having to pull your phone out of your pocket to change songs, pause the music, or adjust the volume.
I’m forced to question the overall accuracy of the sleep tracking, however. It did get the time I went to sleep and the time I got up right, but the data in the middle seems questionable. At least two nights I woke up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. However, the data the next day said I spent zero minutes awake. Not only was I awake, I walked 20 feet and back to get to my bathroom.
Fitness
This smartwatch leans more on the fitness tracking side than the watch side of things. As such, we need to really dig in and have a look at the fitness tracking features on their own.
To access the fitness menu, you simply swipe left from the main watch face and choose the activity. Right now, the activities are mostly focused around running and biking, so if you’re doing something not on the list, you’ll need to choose the closest thing (for hockey, I choose elliptical, as it seemed like the closest).
Once you start an activity, you’ll get continuous heart rate monitoring and plenty of data points. You can see distance ran (with GPS, if you enable it), calories burned, time, and so on. Just about everything you need to know is covered here.
Daily Use
Now, that we’ve talked about what the watch can actually do, we need to look at what it’s like living with the Amazfit Pace on a daily basis.
While not perfect, I’m quite happy with the watch. I used it every single day for two weeks, and aside from a couple small gripes, it did exactly what I wanted it to.
After wearing the watch all day (including to sleep), I must say that it is very comfortable. Not only that, but it looks quite stylish regardless of the setting. It’s also very light, so most of the time I forgot it was even there.
As mentioned before, I’m not so sure how accurate the sleep tracking is, but it’s still nice to get a general idea of how many hours I slept the night before.
No comments: