Battery life at maximum speed: five long-playing smartwatches

For the release of Xiaomi Haylou Solar smartwatches, they were collected from the world by a thread on the Youpin crowdfunding platform. Donaters got the gadget for only $21. However, it is not much more expensive on the shelves of online stores.

The model is assembled in a case with a round dial in the dimension of 45 mm. The clock is controlled by tapping on the touch screen and by pressing a single mechanical button on the starboard side. On the main menu tab of Xiaomi Haylou Solar, one of the five available dials is visible. By swiping through the interface, you can turn on the heart rate monitor, view data on user activity, sleep quality, or use the services of the music control menu on your smartphone.

The "out of the box" interface of the watch is full of Chinese characters. Fortunately, the icons opposite each menu item allow you to intuitively understand their purpose. Also, claims to the watch are made due to the slow response of the screen to touch controls and a deeply hidden tab with notifications. We remember the price tag of the gadget and boldly turn a blind eye to these small details.

Xiaomi Haylou Solar monitors 12 different types of activities, including running, cycling, exercise bike training, yoga, rowing, etc. In terms of additional functions, the watch monitors the weather and helps to do breathing exercises. Well, the most delicious thing is a month of battery life of the model in energy—saving mode and about 15 days of operation without recharging with an active heart rate monitor.

The fast-growing Realme brand is notable not only for smartphones of strong middle management. The ecosystem of the brand's products is expanded by TWS headphones, televisions and wearable devices. In particular, the fitness tracker Realme Band and the Realme Watch smartwatch.

The company's first smartwatches are equipped with a square touchscreen display "under the cover" of Gorilla Glass 3 with a diagonal size of 1.4" and a picture resolution of 320x320 pixels. Perfectionists are unlikely to appreciate in them only the asymmetrical placement of the screen with a pronounced "chin". Otherwise, the display of the gadget shows responsiveness to touch and has a clear menu structure, albeit with minor flaws in localization issues.

The fitness functionality of the watch is represented by 14 training modes (aerobic exercise, running, team sports in the manner of basketball and even cricket, etc.). The device also measures the pulse of the "carrier" 24/7 (every 5 minutes), monitors the quality of sleep and the level of oxygen saturation in the blood. In the active mode of the heart rate monitor, the battery charge of the 160 mAh watch lasts for a week, in the energy saving mode they will need to be charged once every 10 days.

The Realme Link proprietary application is used to configure and manage the parameters of the smartwatch. It is available exclusively for Android smartphones, that is, you will not be able to use the Realme Watch together with the iPhone. At least at the start. In the future, support for "apple" products must necessarily be "given a lift". On a linked smartphone, you can control the audio player via the watch menu interface. The chances of success in the low-cost segment of "smart" wearable gadgets at the Realme Watch are very high and the watch takes full advantage of this.

At a cost not much more expensive than a mid-low-cost fitness tracker, the Xiaomi Amazfit Bip S watch model can offer much more advanced functionality. And now about everything in order.

Smartwatches were released in 2020 to replace the popular model Amazfit Bip . A distinctive feature of the wearable gadget in appearance is a "rectangular" design. Plastic predominates in the materials of watch making, which is done for the sake of accessibility to a wide audience and minimizing the weight of the device — together with the strap, they weigh only 31 g. As a result, the watch is practically not felt on the hand.

The main character of Xiaomi Amazfit Bip S is a transflective screen with a resolution of 176x176 pixels with a 1.28-inch diagonal and the ability to display 64 colours (the predecessor had support for only 16 colours). The display of the wearable device retains excellent readability in the bright sun and consumes a minimum of energy. As a result, one charge of the battery with a capacity of 200 mAh is enough for 15-20 days of battery life (in standby mode and even 3 months in a row).

The skills of the model are reduced to displaying the date and time, measuring the pulse, taking into account steps and distance traveled, drawing the track of a jog or bike ride according to GPS satellites, controlling music on a paired smartphone. Also, the watch duplicates notifications from the phone, monitors the quality of sleep, monitors the user's activity indicators during training. They lack only an abundance of dials. In the dry balance, Xiaomi Amazfit Bip S will appeal to those who are looking for an inexpensive smartwatch with balanced characteristics and outstanding battery life.

Huawei Watch GT2e is a sports modification of the second generation of popular smartwatches of the Chinese brand with an eye on users leading an active lifestyle.

The differences between the model and the original watch Huawei Watch GT 2 Classic 46mm Price from 4 859 up to 6 499 ₴ it can be called the absence of a separate bezel, microphone and speaker, as well as a closed strap mount. The front side of the "smart" gadget is a juicy round-shaped AMOLED screen with diagonal dimensions of 1.39". According to the passport, 5 brightness levels and Always-On mode support are prescribed for the display. But if you do not turn on the screensaver, the watch will "live" without recharging for 2 weeks.

The level of battery life of the gadget is also directly affected by the geo-positioning module. In active GPS tracking mode, the battery charge of the watch is enough for a 30-hour marathon of work. When listening to music — for 24 hours of battery life. By the way, audio tracks can henceforth be stored directly inside the wearable device. For this case, it provides 4 GB of onboard memory. About half of this volume is "eaten" by the proprietary "OS" Lite OS with a package of pre-installed programs. Third-party applications will not be installed on the watch.

The model is able to track various types of sports, including outdoor and indoor workouts. After that, the clock registers the frequency of contractions of the heart muscle, monitors the quality of sleep and measures the level of oxygen saturation in the blood. The latter feature allows you to roughly assess the effectiveness of the respiratory system and is especially relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to the monitoring of exercises throughout the week, the watch gives recommendations on the intensity of training and recovery time. The developed functionality of Huawei Watch GT2e is supported by an adequate price for the product.

Wrist sports watches make up the backbone of the products of the Finnish company Suunto. In 2019, the brand's portfolio was replenished with interesting Suunto Five GPS watches that help in achieving training goals.

The model has a matrix screen with a diagonal of 1.2", which is atypical for the smartwatch squad. In terms of readability, there are no claims to it, but the display does not support touch control. The rest of the "filling" of the watch is placed in a strong steel case with a degree of water resistance of 5 ATM (it can withstand dives to a depth of 50 m).

Suunto 5 monitors the level of physical fitness and adapts personal training recommendations according to progress along with the goals set. The collection of statistics on various types of activity is managed by about 80 sports modes of operation of the clock. In parallel, the watch monitors daily activity, as well as the level of exercise and sleep quality. The most detailed graphs with data can be viewed in the Suunto mobile application.

For precise positioning in space, the watch was equipped with GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and QZSS modules. Depending on the user settings in the active GPS monitoring mode, the wearable gadget stays "afloat" for 20 or 40 hours. In general, the battery life of the watch ranges from 7 to 14 days. The device will help adherents of a sporty lifestyle to find their rhythm and achieve goals faster.