[Nissan1180]

I purchased a few entry level smart watches recently, and would like to share a short perspective.

1. GOQii Stream: The watch is well designed, although bulky. The data shown is accurate and can be verified with a pulse oximeter. More than the device, it is the 3 month app subscription that makes this a very good buy. They give you access to contact a lifestyle coach, and track your health data to give you insights about habit changes that can improve your health. I am stunned by how well the ecosystem works. The smartwatches look boring in comparison to the competition, but they are made of good quality plastic and it does not scratch easily.

2. Dr Trust Healthpal 1: The device looks a bit old, but the sensors are accurate and I have verified the readings with an actual BP meter. The app provides an option to calibrate the blood pressure, which is very rare in the budget smartwatch segment. The display is smaller than the competitors, but the sensors are accurate. I was surprised to find a device that manages to provide accurate body temperature, heart rate, blood oxygen, BP, and stress levels.

3. Noise Colorfit Buzz: This was the first smartwatch I purchased this year. The device is simple, looks elegant, and the connectivity is good. However, voice clarity is deteriorating within a month of purchase, and the device stopped charging recently. I have raised a warranty claim and hope to get the device repaired.

4. Alt OG: This was a recent launch on Flipkart. I bought it at a promotional price because it was incredible value for INR 1499. The parent organization is the same as that for the Noise brand. The watch is beautiful, but it’d be better to wait for more long term reviews before buying anything from this brand.

I think a basic smartwatch is a good investment. It enables the user to reduce the phone screen time by providing a message and notification summary, in addition to the fitness features. I am glad to see many Indian companies designing these watches locally. If the volumes arrive, manufacturing will happen too. The next generations of these devices should focus on the software feature enhancement. Many Indian brands still use the Chinese apps, but Noise, GOQii and a few others have their own apps. If you’re buying any of these watches, you can check the App Store reviews to have an idea about the quality of the interface.

[girishv]

Placed order for amazfit t rex pro for around 7.2k using axis card on FK.
Expecting delivery tomorrow. I'm a fan of casio G shock and this is a smart watch which comes the closest to it.

When I checked last, the offer still available

[JMaruru]

Originally Posted by girishv

Placed order for amazfit t rex pro for around 7.2k using axis card on FK

Wow! That's a damn good price, you got. The same watch is selling for around $180/- in US.

Isn't this the same model?

https://us.amazfit.com/products/t-rex-pro

[girishv]

Originally Posted by JMaruru

Wow! That's a damn good price, you got. The same watch is selling for around $180/- in US.

Isn't this the same model?

https://us.amazfit.com/products/t-rex-pro

Thank you. Yes its the same watch and same colour too. Was not too keen on desert grey while steel blue looked alright.

[ram.iyer95]

Originally Posted by ram.iyer95

I almost ordered one, but then backed out since I am not sure if I can live with this kind of battery life. Already struggling with poor battery life on my smartphone (S20FE), don't really want to add another device to the charge-it-daily list.

Quoting myself, finally bit the bullet and ordered the Galaxy Watch 4 44mm BT version from Flipkart. Paid a final price of ₹8.9k after card discount, a steal deal in my opinion considering that the Watch 5 is not a major improvement over the Watch 4. Also ordered the Caseology (Spigen) protective case and a tempered glass.

Now anxiously waiting for delivery. I was always hesitant to buy this due to the bad reviews on battery life, but this price seemed too good and irresistible, and hence decided to overlook the cons and go ahead it with. Hope this turns out to be a decision that I won't regret.

To anyone who is interested in picking up a smartwatch, the deal is still live on FlipKart.

[atnyia]

Originally Posted by ram.iyer95

ordered the Galaxy Watch 4 44mm BT version from Flipkart. Paid a final price of ₹8.9k after card discount…
I was always hesitant to buy this due to the bad reviews on battery life… Hope this turns out to be a decision that I won't

I had bought the Watch 4 for my mom back in July and had worn it for four days (before handing it over). It was so good that I was beginning to have second thoughts about giving it. I infact ordered another one but cancelled due to some issue.

There is no question of regretting as this is so so much better than ANY of the Chinese brands. I have been carrying TRex which isn’t a bad watch itself. But, Watches by Samsung are in different league.

This sale, I ordered Watch 4 and cancelled again. Then I have ordered Watch 5 Pro. Two reasons:
1) Long enough battery life
2) Trackback feature (I love hiking although I no longer go)
3) Asthetics as watch is the only ornamental thing I wear.

p.s. - Has anyone ordered UltraHuman ring? I have been giving it serious thoughts.

[Nissan1180]

Originally Posted by Nissan1180

3. Noise Colorfit Buzz: This was the first smartwatch I purchased this year. The device is simple, looks elegant, and the connectivity is good. However, voice clarity is deteriorating within a month of purchase, and the device stopped charging recently. I have raised a warranty claim and hope to get the device repaired.

An update- Noise sent me a new watch, although the device was repairable. I am satisfied with the customer service provided by the company.

[vinu_h]

Would you know if the Pixel watch will work with Indian carriers ? Usually it's just the bands that matter but here they've explicitly called out the countries and carriers.

[ram.iyer95]

Hi all, I've been using the Galaxy Watch 4 (44mm, BT version) for the past two weeks, and would like to share my user experience. Since the newly launched Watch 5 is mostly similar to the Watch 4, I am hoping that this might benefit even people considering getting the newer device.

Background:
I had been using the Mi Band 4 since early 2020 for my step tracking and basic fitness tracking needs. I bought it for just over 2000 INR, and it works pretty well to date, and still gives a solid battery backup of 10+ days on a single charge. However, accuracy is not it's forte, and off late, after starting to workout regularly, I had started noticing a significant difference between the distance ran and calories burnt readings between the treadmill's in-built tracker and the band. The band used to show almost one km lesser than the treadmill even though I had turned ON the workout right at the start. Hence, since the past few months, I had been casually looking for an upgrade. Since it was more of a want than a need, I was in no hurry and was just waiting for that "perfect" device to get launched.

Requirements:
1. Accurate sensors, primarily step count and heart rate.
2. AMOLED or OLED display.
3. Decent battery life of atleast 3 days.
4. Ability to access most of the functions from the watch itself, without depending on the companion app. For example, setting alarms or reminders directly from the watch. My Mi Band 4 needed alarms to be set up on the companion app.
5. Unique looks (preferably circular dial). I did not want it to look like just another Apple Watch clone; there's plenty of such devices in the market already.
6. Good water resistance of atleast 5ATM.
7. Must have auto brightness sensor.

Good to have, but not necessary:
1. Ability to interact with notifications (Read: reply to messages).
2. Bluetooth calling.

Budget:
Within 15k INR, stretchable by another 2-3k at max if I found something that is really worth it. Was planning to buy in this year's festive season sales.

I largely depended on YouTube reviews by 'The Quantified Scientist' to understand the fitness tracking accuracy and features of most of the devices shortlisted. I would whole heartedly recommend anybody interested in wearables tech to check his work before making a purchase decision.

Options Considered:
1. Amazfit GTS-4 Mini / GTS-3 / GTR-3
The GTS-4 Mini at 7k INR seemed to be a good option. However, what lets it down in my books is that it looks pretty much like an Apple Watch clone. I don't understand why every square dial smartwatch needs to mimic an Apple Watch's looks. I have nothing against the Apple Watch in any way, but I would prefer my watch to have it's own unique identity. 'The Quantified Scientist' had also been very critical on the fitness tracking accuracy of Amazfit devices. However, for the retailing price, it seemed like an option worth considering.

2. Amazfit T-Rex Pro
This was available for a great price during the BBD sale. Pros: Tough build, 10 ATM water resistance and splendid battery life.
Cons: Older version of Amazfit's OS (the one before Zepp OS), and also the sensors' accuracy, as the watch did not perform well in The Quantified Scientist's tests.
This was still a strong contender, and seemed like a great VFM deal when compared to the latest T-Rex 2.

3. Honor Watch GS3
Pros: Good sensors, unique looks, great build and great battery life.
Cons: Poor companion app, uncertainity on Honor's/Huawei's commitment to our market.

4. Samsung Galaxy Watch 4
Pros: Looks and build, accurate sensors, proper smartwatch with WearOS, plenty of third-party accessories.
Cons: Battery life, made worse by SLOW 5W charging.

The Watch 4 seemed like an overkill for my basic requirements, and I would have not considered it, had it not been for the killer price for which it was offered. The sub-par battery life was another thing which was making me think against getting one.

5. Realme Watch 3 Pro
Last minute entry as it was available for around 3.5k INR during the sale.
Pros: Big AMOLED display, bluetooth calling and good battery life.
Cons: all plastic build, lack of auto-brightness sensor (deal breaker), unknown fitness tracking accuracy as none of the trusted tech reviewers have reviewed this, which is not confidence inspiring.

6. Fitbit Versa 3 - This seemed to have everything that I was looking for. However, it was rejected upon knowing that Fitbit does not have any kind of service support in India, as per a lot of Amazon/Flipkart user reviews. The high price, and the premium subscription requirement for some features were also deterrents.

The moment the sale price of 9999 INR (with further card discounts) for the Galaxy Watch 4 was announced, I immediately made up my mind that this is the one to go for. I was ready to make peace with the battery life, and had made up my mind to deal with charging daily. Ordered it on Flipkart exactly at 12 AM the moment the sale started on 24th September. The final price paid was 8909 INR after a further 1k card discount, plus a 100 rupees discount coupon, which further sweetened the deal. I used this 1k saved to buy a Spigen protective case and a tempered glass.

Impressions after using for 2 weeks:
Pros:
1. Brilliant display: I use a Galaxy S20FE 5G, and find the watch's display to be as sharp as my phone. It's a Samsung afterall.
2. Step count accuracy: I find the distance and calories burnt readings to consistently and closely match with the readings shown by the treadmill.
3. Automatic workout detection works very well, though it gets triggered only if you've been working out for more than 10 mins. It does not forget those 10 minutes' data once it starts the workout recording, which is a good thing.
4. Wear OS opens up a lot of options to expand the watch's functionality, courtesy of the Google Play Store.
5. Comfortable strap that does not cause any discomfort or irritation even after wearing continuously from morning to night.
6. Plenty of native and third-party watch faces available, even though I'm sticking with the in-built Digital Dashboard watch face as I really like the clean look.
7. Raise-to-wake works very well and the success rate is pretty high. The display almost always turns on as expected.
8. Vibration intensity is strong enough to wake you up from sleep even without any alarm sound.
9. Wireless charger available in the box.
10. Samsung Health companion app is very comprehensive, and presents data in a much better way than the Zepp Life app that I was using earlier with the Mi Band 4.
11. Since this supports wireless charging, you can use the 'Wireless Power Sharing' feature in supported Samsung phones to charge your watch in case you forget to carry your charger. My S20FE supports it, and it works well if I remove the thick protective case from the phone. Charging speed is slightly slower than the watch's charger.

Cons:
1. The elephant in the room, i.e the battery life. I have set the heart rate measurement interval to 10 minutes, and have turned off Always-On Display, Wi-Fi, GPS and NFC. I do about 30 minutes of treadmill running per day which I use the watch to keep track of. No sleep tracking as I am not comfortable wearing it while sleeping. I use raise-to-wake instead of Always-On Display as the former works pretty well. With this setup, I get 2 days of battery life if I really stretch it (average of 40% drain per day). This is a watch that you have to charge daily, no two ways about it.
2. Standby battery drain: On an average, the watch loses 9-10% of charge over a 9 hr night, even when it is not worn, and is in power saving mode. I have tried turning off bluetooth on the phone to disconnect it from the watch and stop syncing, but it still does not make a difference.
3. You cannot set a different (read: simpler) watch face for the Always-On Display. Many cheaper, non WearOS devices have this option.
4. Slow charging at 5 Watts. Takes a bit more than 2 hours to fully charge from 0 to 100%. The bundled wireless charger has a USB Type-A head instead of USB-C, which is an irritant. I read somewhere that the Watch 5's charger has a Type-C head, though I'm not sure. Also, it would have been great if the charging cable could be detached from the wireless charger base, as that would have enabled to carry just the charger base (which is about the size of a 2 rupee coin) while travelling.
5. Power-saving mode is not customisable. I would have loved to restrict everything else to save battery juice, while still keeping raise-to-wake turned ON. The good thing is that this mode does not affect any of the fitness tracking features, which makes it pretty useable. Hence, heart rate measurement frequency is not affected.

Overall Thoughts:
For the price that I got it for, I consider it to be a steal. I would say, it is 80% of the new Galaxy Watch 5 at one-third of the price. If you can manage to charge the watch daily (a top up of 40% charge in the morning should comfortably get you through the day), then you can definitely go ahead and get one. All proper smartwatches including the ones from Apple require daily charging anyway, hence it is pretty much the norm I guess.

I have not enabled ECG and BP monitoring as that requires the use of an unofficial modified version of Samsung Health to be installed on both the phone as well as the watch, something which I am not comfortable with.

Even though the model is more than a year old, it is still very similar to the latest Galaxy Watch 5. The processor, display, looks, and most of the sensors are the same. The Watch 5 also has similar levels of battery backup (though marginally better), but offers much faster charging at 10W.

As a user, I am happy with the device, and would recommend getting one if you are in the market for a smartwatch in this price range.

[fiat_tarun]

Originally Posted by ram.iyer95

Hi all, I've been using the Galaxy Watch 4 (44mm, BT version) for the past two weeks, and would like to share my user experience...

Thanks for your post. I was not at all into smart watches but recently got a Watch 4 Classic for just 3k as part of the launch offer with the new Z Flip 4.

The experience has been quite good and I am impressed at how accurate the watch is, even for body composition measurements. I love the rotateable bezel that the Classis comes with so you don't need to keep touching the screen.

Battery life is ok and like you said it need to be charged everyday. Samsung also gave the duo wireless charger free as part of this deal so the phone and watch can charge together

I had originally planned to sell the watch if I didn't like it, but i'm keeping it now. Will probably replace the strap soon as I find the stock one too boring !

[AppyS]

Happy to have laid hands on this at 9999 in the BBD sales. Also using it made me clear the LTE version I longed for was not worth it afterall. Battery life is about two days with flight mode on most times as I prefer having Bluetooth and radios not always on, especially against my bones. With all radios on the watch barely makes it through the day, but with intermittent switching on and off, the flight mode easily extracts 2 days plus out of the 44mm. Ecg works well with the mod on xda forums without much sweating involved, official support would have been better though.

Pros :
1) Absolute VFM esp at 9999, comes with all bells and whistles
2) Good health tracking features and almost all on Galaxy watch 5, barring the temp sensor afaik
3) Good display and gesture controls
4) Variety of watch faces and great integration with wear os.
5) A watch that lets you turn every radio off compared to other fitness bands in this sub 10k price range with the brand value of Samsung

Cons :
1) Sometimes the watch feels very mildly warm against the skin if radios are on and in wide usage continuously.
2) Battery drains fast if you try using AOD, Continuous heart monitoring etc. Pretty sure it would be worse with LTE.
3) Call and text on other devices, esp calling with wifi on and no bt is buggy most of the times
4) 10 min hr measurement stops suddenly sometimes
5) Pathetic charger that charges and heats the watch at the same time

[destinykid]

I purchased a Galaxy Watch 4 as well during the sale. Yes, it works really well with Samsung Health app and definitely a value for money deal. The only thing I found missing is though it is a wear OS based, yet, it doesn't sync well with Google Fit app. Hope Google sorts this.

[axe_deo]

I got the watch 4 LTE from samsung shop app @18999 after discounts. Although double of what the watch4 BT was being sold, I still bought it specifically for the LTE calling without needing to carry your phone.
I am happy and satisfied with this. Just that the battery life ought to be better. My 4 year old galaxy gear sport also has a similar battery life.

[model-t]

Have had a terrible experience with this watch. I was never the Samsung fanboy after a bad experience with Galaxy Note 2 and never touched Samsung for a few years.

This year, the premium phone bug bit me and I purchased Galaxy Note 22 Ultra and got a watch along with it for 3k. The watch lasted 3 months. Apparently, the watch which is supposed to log swimming as an exercise suffered water damage (According to the Service Advisor) and kept on restarting.The funny part is I don't know how to swim and the watch never saw a pool. If sweat caused the damage to the watch, what can I say of the build quality.

Took it to the Service Center wherein they told me it will not be covered under warranty. I thought maybe it is my fault and let us get it repaired. The repair bill estimate given to me in the evening was 17,000. This was 3,000 more than the cost of the watch on Amazon.

After blasting the Service Advisor , promptly left a message to Samsung India on Twitter. Apart from a generic response to my Twitter handle never got a call. Wrote to them a couple of times again but the same. Zilch response. No one bothered to reply to either my email or DM's on Samsung.

Anyways, long story short, I had to purchase another Galaxy Watch as I was tracking everything on the watch. So brought another one which lasted me 3 months again. This one conked up abroad while I was driving.

Mind you, this time I was extra careful and had the watch always in a Spigen armoured case. Also had a backup Spigen case just incase the current one got damaged.

Same story. Pathetic experience, zero customer service and below average experience.

Now back to my Honor watch which has been serving me really well for the last 2 years. Never purchasing anything from Samsung again.

[raghukodali]

I am using a Garmin Fenix 5 for the past 5 years for my cycling and as a regular watch. Works like a charm for whatever I can throw at it including underwater for extended periods of time. The charge used to last two weeks and even after 5 years, it lasts a week of normal watch use. with GPS on, it still lasts more than 24 hours which is way more than what I need.

Expensive though. I will be replacing this with Garmin Descent MK2i in the near future.