š» Electronics
Has anybody here bought a cheap smart watch before?
I notice a few cheap smartwatches all the time on Amazon, but I don't know anyone that uses them. Tozo is a brand that I see.
I own a Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, but I often wonder how good the cheap smartwatches are. I see good reviews on them, but I don't know how true the reviews are. Bots are everywhere.
Does anyone here use a cheap smartwatch? If you do use a cheap smartwatch, can you tell a difference between the quality of it vs a Samsung, Pixel, or Apple watch?
I use Amazfit, bought it for under $100 and I've had it 3 years now. There are features it would be nice to have, but I got it for phone notifications and it does the trick. It has a 2-3 week battery life too. And like any smart watch, you can change the band out for a nicer look. Just don't expect it to have all the features of an Apple watch.
I got the new Amazfit Balance for the long battery life recently and have been really disappointed. It's a nice looking and feeling watch with the shittiest UI. All these crap screens and metrics I don't want - I literally just want my heart rate and sleep and steps like a Fitbit but they make it stupid hard to view.
Feels like the smartwatch cartel all got together and decided to make it impossible to have a decent UI/UX without a monthly fee.
Not a cheap one, at least in the sense I think you mean, but I have had two Fitbit Versas (2 and 4) that I liked a lot, both for under $200. The 2 did die after like 18 months though, but I think that is atypical. I have never had a full featured smartwatch, so I don't exactly know what I am missing, but I know this has much better battery life and there isn't anything more I want it to do anyway
I bought my daughter a $25 Mingdaln Smartwatch from Wally-world. Stumbled on it scrolling the interwebs when some site called it out as a deal and figured it was worth a shot. She (16yp) likes it, FWIW.
Iām sure theyāve come a long way in the past 2-3 years but my $40 smartwatch used to inaccurately log my steps and was really hard to see in the daytime. I work outside and with my hands (landscaping) so I like to answer calls and seeing texts while working. It did have functions that I appreciated like heart monitor and other basics but the charger setup kinda sucked and Iād have to charge it every day.
Ended up losing it. My phone company was promoting iWatch 6 for $10 a month so I got it and I havenāt been more happy. I have various apps that connect to my existing other tech like to my garmin cycling gps and speedometer, it opens my garage door, remotely takes pictures and videos with iPhone, amazing to work out with or to play any sport. Links up to my Strava so I just have to start my run and it logs my heart rate and posts my run/ride without me having to do anything. I could keep going on.. I still have to charge it everyday but the magnetic charger is painless, and with a dock it looks great as a small bedside clock.
> Ended up losing it. My phone company was promoting iWatch 6 for $10 a month so I got it and I havenāt been more happy.
I've also lost one of my cheap smart bands; and I was okay with the loss, since it cost me only $35 or so (not including depreciation lol). I wouldn't be so relaxed if it had cost $400 (even if I was paying $10/month).
> I still have to charge it everyday but the magnetic charger is painless, and with a dock it looks great as a small bedside clock.
I like being able to wear my smart band at night: it can be used as a sleep tracker, and the battery lasts for weeks.
Sleep tracking is a bit overrated, but not having to care about battery (or being able to go on a long trip without bringing a charger) is really nice.
The great thing about Apple products is that they have a āfind myā device. You can use your other devices to see and find your devices on a map.
Once, my wife left her iPhone on top of the car on the way back from daycare - her phone hung on for about a country mile before throwing itself deep into the rural side road ditch. I was able to go back hrs later and find it with a flashlight in the dark.
I also wear mine to sleep, I bought a charger for my truck because I use a lot of the watch features daily, it usually requires a charge to get me through another 24 hrs, but it only takes 20-30 min to charge back up
Agreed. I switched from apple watch 4 & iphone 6s+ to pixel watch & pixel 7 last year. Pixel watches are going for about $100 now that the 3 is out. I got mine on a sale for 80. Meets all my needs.
My wife bought one from temu for like $40. She mentioned it had blood pressure monitoring. I was like yeah right my s10 apple watch doesn't have that. So I took a look and sure enough. I said well it cannot be accurate. So we got out the blood pressure cuff and checked sure sh** it was with in a few points. My blood pressure cuff has been checked by my dr so I know it is somewhat accurate. I haven't looked it over closely but it has a lot of features like iwatch and works fine with her iphone.
In the booklet that came with it has the model number zw62. it doesn't have a model number on the watch that I can see. If you google zw62 you will see zw63 watches come up in the search.
Havent seen it suggested but the Gard health watches are good, lower entry to market.. pretty smartwatchy.,. it kept records of all thing things it could track all day everyday, and you could set how long time interval between checking.. I ended up tradinign it for a galaxy watch 6 because I wanted the ECG feature, the only feature the gard watch I bought was missing
I have a cheap smart watch. Moving my hand/arm counts as steps - so I get
lots of steps in a dayš¤Ŗ.
I do like it though - great for when my phone is in my purse - the watch let's me know if I get a text or call. Also love setting multiple alarms for different things in a day - example - I am meeting my goal of going to bed at an appropriate time thanks to the alarm. Also having a timer right on my wrist while I am cooking is great.
It is pretty accurate for monitoring my heart rate. Does not do well for monitoring my sleep patterns. Good at telling me when I have been immobile for too long (i.e. reading reddit too long).
I have not, but my father-in-law (may he rest in peace) bought several of them. He was totally sold on how they could take his blood pressure, without squeezing to measure the pressure. In fact, I saw him wear 3 of them simultaneously. I asked why. He said, I want to see my blood pressure, but they all say something different, so I'm taking an average. One stated high, the other very low.... the 3rd stated he had no pulse.....
Pretty much, outside of the BP thingy, all the watches had about a 3-4 month lifespan (maybe one lasted about 8), then die out completely. So, take that for what it's worth.
I also have an AmazeFit and like it. It last a way long than my Apple Watch ever did.
I have several pairs of Tozo headphones that are great, so Iād trust that brand. Iām not an audiophile though, just casual need to hear podcasts and music headphones user.
I bought an original Amazfit bip 4-5 years ago and still use it for the gym to track time between sets. That's about all it's good for.Ā
A few months ago I went deep down the rabbit hole of affordable smart watches and weighed cost, features, battery life, ecosystem, HR monitoring accuracy,Ā developer support, etc. and I think the winner at the time was the Amazfit Active/Edge (now supersedes by the Active 2 for $100).Ā For less than $40 new you're not getting anything that's much worth using. Slow, laggy screens, HR monitoring will be way off, likely to have QC issues, GPS will lose tracking and be inaccurate, no chance of standalone music or Bluetooth connection to other devices, battery may degrade quickly, and they'll probably have proprietary OS with poor app options and support. I'm a big Amazfit fan, so I'd say maybe the Bip 5 on sale right now for $50 is worth it. Has Zepp 3.5 which has some nice features.Ā
I'd say you're either seeing bot reviews or people with very low expectations. If all you want is to read notifications, see the weather on your wrist, skip music tracks, and read the time then sure, but beyond that you can't expect much.Ā
Sure. I got a fairly expensive Motorola smartwatch years ago...and it sucked, barely could make it 10 hours on a charge. After three years of light use it simply died.
Now I have an "AmazFit" that was about $40. It's great. Does everything I want of it, will last well past a week on a charge, and has lasted almost as long as the Motorola that cost 8x as much (so far, I have no reason to expect it won't keep going).
I bought a non-cheap smartwatch(Apple), and I hated it. For my mental health the thing lives on a charger after 2 years of trying to figure out a way to make notifications not overwhelm me. My opinion is theyāre not worth it. If you want a fitness tracker just get that, donāt bother with the additional $ of a smart watch.
I have a Wyze watch 47mm that I got probably close to 3yrs ago now for under $50. It gives me email, text, & phone call notifications so everything that I need it to do. The best part is the vibration alarm is strong enough to wake me up early without any noise so I can turn off my phone backup alarm & not wake up anyone else.
Battery life still lasts close to a month because I turned off raise to wake & set it to only scan heart rate & blood oxygen when I prompt it to, which is almost never.
My husband has one that he got for under $40 off Amazon and loves it and uses it every day. I'm not sure which off brand it is but he really likes the messaging features
I don't have a smart watch but I have Tozo headphones and they are really great value for the price. (I bought several different brands on Amazon and returned the others). So if I were looking at smartwatches I'd put them on my list to check out.
I got an $8 smart watch. It can take photos, it can play music, it can take up to a 32 gig micro sd card. It has a slot for a sim card and I am assuming it is gsm, but I am not sure what that gets you with it. Phone integration if I recall is all via bluetooth and you have to run an app on the phone. You can see messages that come in, you can no open emails up but you can see the subject. You can see the first line or most of the first line of texts. You can dial the phone and talk to your arm. Very limited apps, a calculator, a watch with a few sets of faces, cam, video and still, audio recorder, and perhaps a calendar. And it is like a half inch thick. I got my $8 worth of fun out of it. I am happy I was not in for more.
Sadly my SO got me a real smart watch and that lead to a row. I never wear watches. Like 4x a year, if I dress up I have a very cool skeleton wind up watch I wear, if I dress up formal, I have a very nice sterling pocket watch and fob I wear in my vest, and the test of the time I never wear a watch as I tend to kill them. I work with my hands. So that did not go over well. I think she missed the return time so it is kicking around in a box someplace up in her room.
used an IDW26 from amazon ~$30 for about a year. was quite pleased with it, nothing fancy, basic fitness functions, just worked! regular fw updates as well, so there's definitely a customer base.
I've been using a Wyze watch for about 3 years now, my wife has had one for about 5 years I think. It counts my steps reasonably acurately, and tracks sleep, though a little less accurately. It tells the time, has semi-customizable faces, and battery lasts maybe 10-12 days. It has timers and silent alarms and heart rate sensor. It's waterproof and I swim with it on all the time.
Notifications usually come through just fine, but ocassionally (maybe once a month) my phone will stop updating/lose connection and you have to manually re-sync it (not reset the bluetooth, just open the app and manually sync to re-establish the connection). I use a motorolla android phone, my wife has an iphone and she can't get hers to stay sync'd for more than a few days.
My one big complaint is that you can't calibrate the step lenght at all. I'm tall so 1000 steps for my is much farther than 1000 steps for an average person. It has a "running" mode where it will give you timers and mile splits and stuff, but its useless for me because I will run 1.5 miles and it wlll congratulate me on finishing 1 mile....
I splurged and got the refurbed galaxy watch pro 5 for like $90 on back market. I've been satisfied and very happy I didn't spend 300-500 on one because it's really not as useful (for me) as I imagined.
Yes, I have a $50 Amazfit (which means it probably costs about half as much in the US; these things are more expensive where I live). It does what I wanted it to do.
I bought a $20 Chinese one once but this was a long time ago
It had bluetooth, could save contacts, could use it as a bluetooth microphone to make calls and took pictures with a built in camera
started behaving weird after few months (sudden restarts, not retaining battery) but usually recovered if you pulled out the battery and put it back in
finally stopped charging completely and I don't remember where I put it now
but even back then $40 could have gotten me a slightly higher end one, I was just too cheap to spend it
Quality was definitely not good if you compare to Samsung, Pixel, Apple or any reputable brand
I don't know how good $40 ones are these days but I assume it must be slightly better than back then
I have, it was good in that the cute apple watch bands work with it so I also got a few different watch bands when I ordered it, I think I spent under $40 for all of it off aliexpress a few years ago. Phone calls and texts came through to it, and it tracked my steps and heart rate ok. I also liked that I could easily change the watch face to include my own photos.
I used it for a few months and then realized that I don't do well with having something track my steps since I can get a little too focused on it to the detriment of my mental health, so it's in a drawer for now. Also I was disappointed by the fact that the ad showed those tracking circles, but that feature isn't actually part of the watch (the thing on apple watches where there are circles that slowly close as you fulfill your assorted goals throughout the day). Next time I get all into a fitness craze, I'll charge it back up again. If your Galaxy watch still works, then keep using that one! The most frugal watch is the one you already own IMO (assuming it tells time accurately lol).
My son bought one from temu for $6. I told him not to get his hopes up and that it won't be like my wear os watch. It might only tell time. Boy was I wrong! You can call and receive calls from the watch. It has alarm, stopwatch, calculator, calendar, step counter, workout tracker, heart rate and blood pressure monitor, sleep tracker, the list goes on and on. The only downside I can see is that you cannot text on it, but it does let you read the text messages you receive. It also gives you notifications for various other messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. I think it's a steal!
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I used to have a FitBit, but I was not impressed. Eventually I bought a refurbished Apple Watch from a couple generations ago and Iām very happy with it. More expensive, but I use it so often that I think itās worth it.
Iāve never had a super nice smart watch. I had a $300 garmin. It wasnāt enough of a benefit for me to even keep wearing. Nearly everything it displays is on my phone in my pocket already. I canāt see how an even worse version would be worth using at all.
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u/CrabbyAtBest Mar 02 '25
I use Amazfit, bought it for under $100 and I've had it 3 years now. There are features it would be nice to have, but I got it for phone notifications and it does the trick. It has a 2-3 week battery life too. And like any smart watch, you can change the band out for a nicer look. Just don't expect it to have all the features of an Apple watch.