Remember these points before you buy a smart watch

If you are looking for a new smart watch, do remember these points before you buy a new smart watch or fitness band. If you buy a product purely based on discounts or its price, you will end up with a watch that is as good as dead horse. I had used couple of Mi Bands, moved to Honor Band 5 and am now using Amazfit GTR 2e. I wanted to buy a full fledged smart watch but decided to wait another year as I will be switching to Apple iPhone next year. Read on to know how to pick a good smart watch.

Stick to established brands

When you are looking for a smart watch or a fitness tracker, you have to go for models that provide you data that is fairly accurate. These watches/bands cannot get the accuracy of medical grade trackers, especially when it comes to heart rate, SpO2, ECG reports. Brands like Amazfit, Samsung, Apple, Mobvoi, Fossil invest lot of time and money to get fitness tracking as accurate as possible. This is the major selling point for these brands. Moreover, the higher the quality of sensors and software, the higher the price is for the product. Well, except in the case of Apple where Apple tax makes the watch overpriced, however good it is.

Brands like Noise and Fire-Bolt sell rebranded models that they import from countries like China. They are like those sell it – shut it – forget it type of brands. They just want to sell and make money. In the end, when you end up with inaccurate and unpredictable data from your fitness tracker, you end up on losing side.

Stick to Apple Watch if you have iPhone

When it comes to iOS compatibility, there is nothing that can match an Apple Watch. If you have an iPhone, look no further than Apple Watch. If newer model is out of budget for you, you can look at Series 3 (no ECG and SpO2, no compass) or you can look at Series 5. Do note that Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 series will not work with iPhones and it may stay this way for a while. The same could be the case with Wear OS 3 devices. Even if these watches work, they may have limited functionality.

If you want Android Watch, go with one powered by Snapdragon Wear 4100

Android is CPU/RAM hungry and same is the case with WearOS. Avoid watches with Wear 2100, even if you get them for free. These are frustrating to use. They have laggy UI and have very inconsistent performance. WearOS 3100 is better but this too is a dead platform (read below). If you want Android watch, you have to get those that come with Snapdragon Wear 4100 CPU and it should have at least 1GB of RAM.

Avoid Google WearOS 2 and Tizen OS watches, however cheap they are

These two platforms are dead. Google has announced WearOS 3 (collaboration with Samsung) and only those watches that are powered by Snapdragon Wear 4100 will get the Wear OS 3 update. Except Galaxy Watch 4 series, every other watch will get the update in 2022. This is a major bummer. Galaxy Watch 2 Active was available for 9k. It looked like a super value offer. In reality, it is waste of money as the platform is as good as dead and Samsung and retailers are trying to clear the unsold models. Why else would they sell this one for 9k and new ones for 25k+?

This is the list of watches that are confirmed to get Wear OS 3.

• Fossil Gen 6.
• Mobvoi Ticwatch Pro 3.
• Mobvoi Ticwatch E3.
• Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 (already running WearOS 3).
• Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic (already running WearOS 3).

As Samsung has collaborated with Google to create WearOS 3, they will be ending development on their Tizen OS that they have used till now for Galaxy Watches. Though they say that they will provide updates, I would not take their word. Developers too will move to create apps for Wear OS 3.

For normal fitness tracking, RTOS watches from Fitbit, Garmin, Amazfit, Mi etc are better

If fitness tracking is your top priority, if you are not much interesting in gimmicks like taking calls from phone and replying to notifications on phone etc, watches from Amazfit, Fitbit, Garmin etc are far better than watches from Samsung, Fossil, Apple. These RTOS watches last couple of days one single battery charge and they do one thing and they do it really well. That one thing is ‘Fitness tracking’. You can get these watches for as low as 3k INR (Amazfit Bip S Lite).

I had earlier used Honor Band 5 and it used to last 10 days and was fairly good at counting steps, heart beat bpm and SpO2 level. Now, I have switched to Amazfit GTR 2e (paid 7800/-) and I now have a watch with GPS tracker and altimeter built-in. When I go for a bicycle ride, my watch maps my ride without connecting to phone and when I connect it to phone, the ride data (distance, speed, elevation changes, heart beat etc) to Zepp application in phone. Zepp then syncs this data to Google Fit and Strava. It has been a week since I got this watch and it still has 31% of battery left (with continuous heart rate monitoring enabled). My wife purchased Amazfit GTS 2 Mini. This watch looks absolutely gorgeous even when the screen is off. This one too lasts atleast a week on single battery charge.

Stay away from models that have poor 3rd party fitness app (Strava etc) integration

I love Strava platform. It helps me achieve higher workout rate thanks to the social network like features, activity groups, segment timing/records. When I buy a new fitness watch, I expect the watch maker to give me ability to sync data to Strava. Atleast, it should sync with Google Fit. I ditched Honor Band 5 for not giving this option. OnePlus watch is a very good fitness watch and it has evolved a lot. I almost purchased this one over Amazfit GTR 2e. I added it to cart and then I doubled checked OnePlus Health app syncs data to Strava or other platforms. The answer is NO. I cleared the watch from the cart and went ahead with Amazfit watch. Now, the moment I finish my workout, the ride data is synced to Zepp and then to Google Fit and Strava.

I started using MyFitnessPal for calorie counting and this workout data (calories burned) gets synced to MyFitnessPal. This gives me a better overview of my weight loss program. This is why, having a platform that can sync with other platforms is a must.