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The Amazfit Band 7 is $50.
I may finish my evaluation there — my tackle Ernest Hemingway’s six-word story, “Baby Shoes.” However I’m not Hemingway. All I’m saying is all the pieces that’s good, unhealthy, and in-between in regards to the Band 7 will be traced again to its absurdly low-cost value.
Often, once I purchase one thing this low-cost, I’m anticipating a variety of tradeoffs. One thing that makes me go, “A-ha! That’s why it’s $50.” (Technically, it’s really $49.99, however let’s not quibble over a penny.) And sure, I had a number of of these moments whereas sporting the Amazfit Band 7 these previous few weeks. However as with the $99.95 Fitbit Encourage 3, sporting the Band 7 felt like stepping by a portal to the early days of wearable tech — and it made me notice how uncommon health bands are these days.
It is sensible. The road between health bands and smartwatches grows ever blurrier, to the purpose I usually puzzled throughout testing if anybody would miss health bands in the event that they had been to fully disappear. The jury continues to be out on that one, but it surely led me to a different query. The place did all of the price range health trackers go?
It’s not a looker, but it surely’ll do
Nobody goes to go with you for sporting the Amazfit Band 7. I doubt anybody would even give it a second look except it’s to ask, “Oh, is {that a} Fitbit?”
I imply, take a look at this factor. It doesn’t assist that black is essentially the most boring colour for a gadget, however fashionable or distinctive, this isn’t. There are different colour choices, like pink and beige, however they’re solely attention-grabbing in that they’re not black. That is the tracker for utilitarians who purse their lips at premium design thrives, considering, “Why would I want any of that?”
The default strap is a bit stiff, however nothing feels prefer it’s about to disintegrate. (It does have a tendency to gather useless pores and skin and mud, nevertheless.) The entire thing feels a bit plasticky, however that’s completely positive as a result of that’s what you join with a $50 tracker. The Band 7 is mild at 28g and is snug sufficient to put on to sleep. It’s “heavier” than the Encourage 3’s 17.7g, however I doubt most individuals would have the ability to inform the distinction.
It’s, nevertheless, nearly unattainable to placed on one-handed. I needed to brace it in opposition to a desk to cease it from sliding round my wrist when attempting to safe the strap. I think this can be a drawback unique to the Tiny Wrist Membership, however even once I did get it on, it was nonetheless too unfastened. I needed to put on it additional up my arm for match as I used to be on the smallest gap already.
The excellent news is it’s straightforward to swap out straps. Just like the Garmin Vivosmart 5, there aren’t any pins. You simply pop the tracker out. The unhealthy information is you want to get a strap particularly for the Band 7, which largely limits your choices to different colours. I did, nevertheless, discover this snazzy third-party strap on Amazon for about $13.
The nicest factor in regards to the Band 7 is its 1.47-inch OLED show. The bezels are smaller than its predecessor, and all the pieces on the show appears to be like shiny and colourful. Notifications are straightforward to learn, and I had a straightforward time swiping by menus. Surprisingly, the brand new watchfaces are cute as nicely. I used to be significantly keen on the one you see in these evaluation pictures. It added a pop of colour and enjoyable that’s lacking from the general design. For the information nerds, there are different watchfaces that’ll show the stats you crave — and people aren’t too unhealthy trying, both.
And OLED doesn’t completely destroy battery life. The Band 7 lasted just a little over two weeks on a single cost, with the always-on show enabled a couple of third of that point. Watch out, although, because it comes with a proprietary charger. Don’t be like me and overlook the place you stashed it since you didn’t want it for therefore lengthy. I swear I caught it in my work bag, however I can solely conclude it fell by an interdimensional portal to the nice e-waste graveyard within the sky. Not less than changing the charger isn’t fairly as unhealthy as with different units. An additional charger prices $9.99 itself, however you will discover a greater deal as long as you’re okay rolling the cube with third-party accent makers on Amazon.
What $50 will get you in 2023
For those who’ve by no means heard of Amazfit, you solely actually need to know one factor about its wearables. They pack a metric crapton of options at costs that in all probability depart Fitbit executives gnashing their tooth.
As an illustration, right here’s a listing of the Band 7’s most important options:
- Amazon Alexa
- Steady coronary heart charge, blood oxygen, and stress monitoring
- Sleep monitoring with sleep levels, sleep scores, and respiration high quality
- Coaching metrics like VO2 Max, restoration time, coaching load, and coaching impact
- Digital Pacing for runs
- Irregular coronary heart charge, SpO2, and stress alerts
- PAI, which is analogous to Fitbit’s Energetic Zone Minutes or Garmin’s Intensity Minutes
- 120 sports profiles, which by some means embrace parkour, people dancing, and chess. Sure, chess.
- Menstrual cycle monitoring
- Push notifications, fast replies (Android), discover my cellphone, digicam remotes, alarms, timers, and even a Pomodoro timer
- Media controls
Typically, I don’t anticipate to see these kinds of coaching metrics on one thing below $180 lately except it’s on sale. I actually don’t anticipate to see irregular coronary heart charge notifications for below $100. And also you get stage of accuracy for all the essential well being metrics. (I can’t say a lot in regards to the irregular coronary heart charge and SpO2 alerts aside from that I by no means triggered them.) These options, mixed with the OLED show and longer battery life? Pfft. Paying $50 for this function set feels such as you’re getting away with one thing.
There are some things that can remind you that this can be a price range gadget, nevertheless. The Zepp app — Amazfit and Zepp share a guardian firm and companion app — isn’t as polished as what you’ll discover on bigger-name manufacturers. There are quirks. As an illustration, it could be nice if Zepp may determine how one can make switching to Imperial items stick 100% of the time. It’s additionally overly beneficiant to name Zepp’s 10 mini apps an ecosystem, as . Often, it’s a must to reconnect with GPS satellites earlier than an outside exercise, or your knowledge can be wonky. (You’ll be notified earlier than beginning, nevertheless.) However the app is uncluttered, easy to navigate, and will get the job completed.
The options that are lacking really feel extra like wise compromises than obvious omissions. There aren’t any NFC funds, for instance, and it makes use of your cellphone’s GPS as an alternative of getting its personal built-in sensors. And when you can discuss to Alexa, there’s a tiny lag, and there’s no speaker, so it’s a must to learn no matter its responses are. (Not a horrible loss, nevertheless, if you happen to discover Alexa annoying.)
In my day-to-day, I wouldn’t say the Band 7 went above and past my expectations. That mentioned, it did precisely what I wished it to. It informed me when to take a break from sitting, notified me when texts got here by, and infrequently urged me to sit back out. It’s such a light-weight gadget I usually forgot I used to be even sporting it. As with the GTR 4, I made most use of the Pomodoro timer whereas puttering round doing chores. It’s not a glamorous gadget, but it surely’s not meant to be. Generally, it’s a aid to make use of a tool that doesn’t aspire to be greater than it’s.
Informal exercise, not coaching
The Band 7 is finest for individuals who wish to transfer extra. I most loved utilizing it for actions like strolling, yoga, and body weight energy coaching. These are the sorts of workout routines the place I’ll perhaps look at my wrist to verify period or coronary heart charge. That’s excellent because the show isn’t going to point out you as a lot as a bigger smartwatch would, anyway. As for accuracy, metrics like step depend and coronary heart charge had been proper on par with different units I examined throughout the identical interval, together with the Apple Watch Extremely and Garmin Forerunner 265S.
I’m additionally a giant fan of Amazfit’s PAI system. It provides you an indicator of whether or not you’re getting sufficient exercise by measuring what number of PAI factors you recover from the course of every week. You earn PAI by elevating your coronary heart charge. I am going extra in-depth into PAI in my Amazfit GTR 4 evaluation, however the gist is it’s a extra holistic and beginner-friendly method to getting your really useful 150 minutes of average train per week.
That mentioned, I’d by no means use this to prep for my subsequent race. If I’m going to torture myself with 12-16 weeks of coaching, I need extra exact GPS knowledge than a tethered gadget can provide me. On a 3.03-mile run recorded by my iPhone, it solely logged 2.45 miles, whereas the Apple Watch Extremely logged 3.01 miles. That, in flip, threw off metrics for tempo and VO2 Max. (Although a few of this was resulting from a delay within the Band 7 buying a GPS sign.) That’s okay for brief, informal runs (e.g., 1-4 miles), but it surely’s not what I wished throughout the house stretch of my half-marathon coaching. Between the Forerunner 265S and the Band 7, you may guess which one I left on my nightstand on race day.
The place have all of the health bands gone?
Lately, there are extra smartwatches than health bands. That wasn’t all the time the case. It was once that I may record a number of sub-$200 health bands off the highest of my head. There was the Misfit Ray and Shine, the Fitbit Alta HR (and most Fitbits earlier than the Blaze), the Jawbone UP, and Samsung Gear Match 2. However other than the Amazfit Band 7, I can solely identify a handful of different health bands which have come out prior to now yr — the practically an identical $49.99 Xiaomi Mi Band 7, the $99.95 Fitbit Encourage 3, and the $149.99 Garmin Vivosmart 5.
And now that I consider it, it’s odd.
We now have price range telephones, laptops, audio system, TVs, and headphones — and I think my friends in these classes may in all probability identify greater than three from respected manufacturers that got here out within the final yr. There are a number of causes I can assume as to why that’s, however the reality is corporations are prioritizing premium flagship smartwatches on the expense of inexpensive, easy health trackers. I’m positive revenue margins have one thing to do with it, but it surely’s a disgrace.
However maybe I’m mistaken. Perhaps this is individuals voting with their wallets. Perhaps health bands have had their time, and the overwhelming majority of individuals don’t discover the financial savings or further battery life price it. I by some means doubt that. And even when it had been true, that doesn’t negate the necessity for good price range choices. No matter you consider wearable tech, health trackers is usually a motivational instrument to enhance your well being or keep related with out watching your cellphone 24/7. You shouldn’t must pay $200 or extra for that if all you need are the very fundamentals.
So, sure, this is a $50 fitness band. And one at that. I want there have been extra prefer it.
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