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xiaomi-mi-watch-lite-review:-fitness-tracking-on-a-budget

Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite review: Fitness tracking on a budget

(Pocket-lint) – The Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite joins the Mi Watch as a part of a duo that wants to put smarts on your wrist for significantly less money than an Apple Watch or a Samsung smartwatch. 

If the Mi Watch is considered affordable, then the Mi Watch Lite is proper cheap, going toe-to-toe with a raft of Amazfit Bip watches available around this price – and other budget options you should probably steer clear of. 

For that cut price, the Mi Watch Lite offers a mix of smartwatch and fitness tracking features and battery life that can make it through a week. You’ll inevitably have to live with some shortcomings, but it feels like ones that don’t detract from what is a decent budget smartwatch.

Design & Display

  • Measures: 41 x 35 x 11.9mm / Weighs: 35g
  • 1.39-inch display, 320 x 320 resolution
  • Size options: 41mm
  • 5ATM waterproof

Like the first Mi Watch – the one that never made it out of China – the Mi Watch Lite is a square affair, featuring a 41mm case made from plastic.

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It weighs in at 35g, so it’s by no means a heavy watch, and it’s paired up with a TPU strap that’s removable. It just takes a bit of time to get it off and get something else on there.

There’s your pick of black, ivory or navy blue case colours, or the choice of five ‘fashionable’ Morandi colours including olive, pink and ivory. 

On the wrist, the Mi Watch Lite doesn’t look hugely different from other budget square smartwatches out there and the colour options are nice – but it would be stretch to say it gives them a more stylish look. It’s pleasant enough looking, but the larger Xiaomi Mi Watch is visually more appealing.

The Lite offers a single physical button on the side of the case that’ll wake the screen up and launch the app menu screen. That screen is the touchscreen kind of course. It’s a 1.4-inch TFT LCD type, so not the AMOLED kind you get on the more expensive Mi Watch.

It’s a good quality screen for the price and certainly doesn’t have that washed-out look you sometimes find on smartwatches this cheap. The backlight offers 350 nits of brightness, so it’s not one you’re going to struggle to see at night or during the day. It still offers good colours and it’s generally a nice screen to glance down at. 

What’s more problematic is the controls: tapping is prioritised over swiping through screens. You can scroll through some screens, but it’s slow moving when you do it. It’s generally less of a problem if you’re checking a notification or looking at one of the widgets, but when the sweat comes during exercise, it’s more problematic and frustrating to handle.

Like the round Mi Watch, Xiaomi has made the Lite suitable for swimming and showering by slapping it with a 5ATM water resistance rating, which means it’s good at depths up to 50 metres.  

Software & Performance

  • Works with Android and iOS
  • No third-party app support

Xiaomi uses its own in-house operating system for the on-watch software experience and it has Xiaomi Wear (Android) and Xiaomi Wear Lite (Apple) apps for that time spent away from the watch itself.

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Our screen control frustrations aside, it’s a very easy watch software to get to grips with. Swipe left and right to see widgets showing off data like heart rate and weather forecasts. The main menu screen is a mere button press away.

Like the Mi Watch, that main menu screen doesn’t include any text, so it’s up to you to quickly establish what launches what here. There’s some simple settings you can tinker with on the watch like screen brightness, watch faces, do not disturb mode, idle alerts, and setting up a password for security.

The companion Xiaomi Wear app is broken up into three sections letting you dig into your health and fitness stats, track workouts from and adjust settings. There’s no third-party app support here, so if you’re thinking of connecting it to the likes of Apple Health or Google Fit, you’re out of luck.

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The app itself – much like Zepp Health’s Amazfit and Mobvoi’s TicWatch – doesn’t feel the most polished or slick, but it does make it easy to adjust watch settings and delve deeper into your data if you want.

Sports & Fitness Tracking 

  • GPS and GLONASS
  • Built-in heart rate monitor
  • 24/7 fitness tracking and sleep monitoring

Like the Mi Watch, the Lite is one that’s built to track your fitness and health – and has the key sensors on board to deliver that.

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There’s built-in GPS and GLONASS satellite support to map outdoor activities. There’s accelerometer and gyroscope motion sensors for indoor tracking. And there’s 11 sports modes in total, including running (indoors and outdoor), cycling, trekking, swimming (pool and open water) and freestyle modes for those activities it doesn’t cover.

What you’re missing out from the Mi Watch are the Firstbeat-powered training features, stress tracking, the ability to take blood oxygen measurements, automatic exercise recognitio, and wider satellite support.

As a stripped-back sports and health monitoring watch, the Lite performs pretty well. GPS accuracy during our testing was reliable in comparison to a Garmin running watch. For indoor workouts, heart rate data was usually closely in-line with a chest strap monitor for HIIT and indoor rowing sessions – although we didn’t have to raise the intensity too high outside to see some odd spikes in heart rate.

If you’re less concerned about smashing out burpees and nailing 5K PBs, the Lite’s core fitness tracker features work well without really offering ways to make improvements or motivate you to move more.

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Step counts during our testing were within acceptable range of the Fitbit Sense, and it’ll capture distance covered and calories burned. It offered similar accuracy to the bigger Mi Watch for sleep monitoring, though doesn’t capture REM sleep stages or offer any kind of insight or advice to improve sleep.

If you choose to continuously monitor your heart rate, then based on our experience, resting and average heart rate data seemed high compared to the data captured on a chest strap and a heart rate monitoring pulse oximeter. While there’s no stress monitoring here, you do still get guided breathing exercises, though there’s nothing groundbreaking on that front in terms of how it’s delivered.

Smartwatch Features

  • Over 120 watch faces
  • View notifications
  • Music controls

For this low price you’re obviously not going to get an Apple Watch equivalent here, so you won’t be able to make payments, put music on it, or even download apps.

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What you can do is view notifications from a paired Android or iPhone, control music playing on your phone from native and third-party apps, check weather forecasts and set alarms. 

Notifications can only be displayed and not acted on and some messages can look a little messy at times in the manner they’re displayed. Music playback controls work well and dedicated screens to show-off weather data work without issue, so there’s definitely some nice elements here.

You do get a nice array of watch faces too, with the ability to store multiple faces on the watch itself and download more from the watch store, which you can find in the companion app. There’s a good mix of analogue and digital faces and additional ones if you want to pack it with data or keep things simple.

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That’s really your lot though. Aside from some timer and alarm features, Xiaomi keeps it basic, which some will be satisfied with and others possibly not so much. 

Battery Life

  • Up to 9 days in typical use
  • 10 hours GPS battery life

The Mi Watch Lite comes packing a 230mAh capacity battery, which Xiaomi says will get you up to 9 days in typical use. That typical use is based on lab tests where heart rate monitoring was set to be the biggest interval option, 100 notifications were received by the watch, and it tracked one 35-minute outdoor exercise session a week.

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The likelihood is that most people are probably going to be working out more than once a week or wanting to monitor heart rate with more detail. Our testing time didn’t reflect Xiaomi’s lab testing conditions. We had continuous heart rate monitoring on at 5 minute intervals, had notifications turned on and tracked five outdoor and indoor workouts a week. It ended up lasting about 5 days in our testing time, which is short by 4 days of that claimed 9 days life per charge. 

Those GPS battery life numbers seem to add up as well, offering the kind of drop off in 30 minute and 1 hour outdoor runs that suggest it could reach to those 10 hours when you want that hit of mapping data.



Best fitness trackers 2021: Top activity bands to buy today


By Britta O’Boyle
·

Our guide to the top fitness trackers available, helping you count steps, track calories, monitor your heart rate, sleep patterns and more.

When it comes to charging, there’s a large cradle that clips around the back of the watch and you’ll have no concerns it’s going to budge or fall out when it’s charging. It’s pretty well locked in place.

Verdict

The Xiaomi Watch Lite is a cheap smartwatch that is surprisingly nice to live with once you accept the compromises you have to make with it.

You’re not going to get that same high-quality display or some of the richer health and fitness features and insights you’ll get on the Mi Watch, but what remains offers a familiar and good experience.

It’s a solid albeit basic fitness tracker, competent smartwatch, and doesn’t do too badly as a budget sportswatch all considered. Compared to smartwatches in and around it at this price, the Mi Watch Lite stands out for the right reasons.

Also consider

Pocket-lint

Amazfit GTS 2

If you can stretch to spend more, the GTS 2 will get you a more impressive hardware and richer fitness tracking and smartwatch features. 

  • Read our review

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Writing by Michael Sawh. Editing by Mike Lowe.

vanmoof’s-powerbank-is-a-range-extender-and-problem-solver

VanMoof’s PowerBank is a range extender and problem solver

VanMoof S3 with PowerBank arriving at Castricum aan Zee from Amsterdam.
Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

We put a new 2021 S3 model to the test on a three-hour ride

VanMoof, maker of some of our favorite electric bikes, just announced the PowerBank, a range extender that also charges the internal battery of the company’s S3 and X3 models. Not only does the emotional-support battery promise to ease range anxiety by extending VanMoof e-bike commutes by a claimed 45 to 100 km (28 to 62 miles), it also addresses VanMoof’s biggest limitation: non-removable batteries that enable a sleek look, but could necessitate hauling the 19-kg (42-pound) bikes indoors to be charged.

I’ve had a new VanMoof S3, improved for 2021 (more on that later), with the PowerBank since Friday. After 3 hours in the saddle on two 90-minute rides, I can attest to the extended range and more convenient charging. It’s not cheap and it’s not perfect and I didn’t go quite as far as VanMoof claims, but the PowerBank makes a compelling case for purchase.

The 378Wh capacity PowerBank attaches in seconds (about 20 of them). It has an on / off button so you can choose when it charges the larger 504Wh battery found inside both the full-sized S3 and smaller X3 e-bikes. It charges from a standstill or while riding, and adds an extra 2.8 kg (6.2 pounds) to the total weight of the bike. That’s a reasonable (and unnoticeable) tradeoff if it means never having to carry the bike up the stairs to your apartment again. It also adds $348 / €348 / £315 to the cost of a bike that already starts at $1,998 / €1,998 / £1,798.

The PowerBank sits in a permanent mount you must first attach to the S3 or X3 e-bikes. The PowerBank battery then wedges into the frame and locks in place with a supplied key, and is further secured with two velcro straps. A third velcro strap is used to keep the charging cable from flopping around as it snakes up to the underside of the top tube and into the bike’s charging port. I rode on some rather bumpy brick roads and didn’t hear a single rattle from the assembly.

The thick velcro straps, while being inelegant, blend nicely into the dark black S3 model. But the straps and bulky battery are visually jarring on the smaller, light blue X3 e-bike.

Light blue VanMoof X3 fitted with a PowerBank. Eww.
Image: VanMoof

While a first for VanMoof, range extenders are not uncommon amongst e-bike makers, especially for electric mountain bikes. Last month Specialized announced the Como SL commuter e-bike with an optional $449.99 range extender that it says adds about 31 miles (55 km) of range.

Over the weekend I tested a PowerBank fitted to a brand new VanMoof S3 on a 76.7 km (47.7 miles) round trip from Amsterdam to the coastal hamlet of Castricum aan Zee, and back. That’s beyond the 60 km stated range of a VanMoof ridden at max power, and far beyond the 47 km I managed during my S3 range test in April of 2020. VanMoof claims that a fully charged S3 battery coupled to a PowerBank has a range of between 105-250 km (65-155 miles), depending upon the level of powered assist you’re using. I wasn’t anywhere close to that.

I rode at full power (level 4) on exceedingly flat Dutch terrain making liberal use of the Turbo Boost button. A bit more than half of my testing was directly into a fairly strong 14-knot headwind, the rest benefited from a 6-knot tailwind. In total, I’d estimate that I could have ridden about 80 km (50 miles) before both the S3 and PowerBank batteries were empty. In other words, the VanMoof PowerBank coupled to the new S3 extended my range by about 70 percent compared to 47 km (29.2 miles) I managed last year.

In my testing, I noticed that the S3 battery emptied faster than the PowerBank could recharge it while riding at max power with lots of Turbo Boost button presses. (VanMoof confirmed this behavior after my testing was complete.) So rather than risk having to stop and recharge on the way home (or ride in a less fun economy mode), I took advantage of a 20-minute ferry wait to top off the S3 battery when it was showing just 15 percent remaining. I likely would have made it the final 7.9 km home even without the top-up, but the whole point of having a PowerBank is to avoid range anxiety and I was in a hurry to get back.

As to my buttocks, well, I should give the VanMoof’s custom saddle honorable mention. It’s surprisingly comfortable, and the first time I’ve ridden it — my S3 review bike was fitted with a different saddle last year. While I did notice a bit of discomfort down there when climbing onto the bike for my return journey, it was far less than expected.

Despite my test coming in below the lowest range estimate for the PowerBank, VanMoof still stands by its numbers. “It should give most riders an additional 45-100km range depending on conditions and an individual’s use-level,” said the company in an email response to my findings. Apparently, my aggressive riding style, weight (190 pounds / 86 kg), height (6 feet / 183 cm), and ambient conditions at testing make me an outlier.

Some other observations…

VanMoof e-bikes don’t provide a USB charging port for phones mounted on the handlebar and the arrival of the PowerBank doesn’t change that. That’s an oversight in my opinion. A range extender enables riders to travel longer distances, which often requires GPS navigation on a phone operating at peak brightness and paired with Bluetooth headphones for turn-by-turn directions and maybe some music playing over your 4G / 5G connection. My three-year old iPhone wasn’t up to the task, which meant tethering it to yet another battery I had to carry in my jacket. I forgot about the cable when I stopped off at a ferry crossing, nearly causing me to topple over.

VanMoof says a USB port was considered but was ultimately left off for “waterproofing reasons.” Shame.

I should also note that the S3 I tested was one of the models that recently added support for Apple’s Find My tracking network. While that was the headline item, VanMoof’s X3 and S3 e-bikes were also upgraded with improved on-bike displays that are more visible in direct sunlight, and electronic shifters that are more accurate. I complained about the display readability in my review last year and it is slightly improved. More importantly, the e-shifter seems much improved over the S3 variation that I reviewed at launch in April of 2020. At the time I said it glitched on 2 out of 100 shifts, but the automatic four-speed on my new S3 glitched about 1 out of 100+ shifts over my three hours of riding. I characterize a glitch as an unexpected mechanical “clink” sound, a surprise free-wheel of the pedals when you expect to feel resistance, or an obvious feeling of being in the wrong gear.

VanMoof, unlike many e-bike makers, is able to constantly improve the hardware and software of its e-bikes because it has a dedicated factory and relatively tight control over a supply chain of custom VanMoof parts. That means it doesn’t have to compete for Shimano shifters or Bosch motors, for example, which left many bike manufactures without parts for months after the recent surge in e-bike demand. Good thing, too. The first shipments of S3 and X3 models were plagued by issue rates as high as 10 percent, the company co-founders told me last year.

VanMoof says it also improved the internal wiring of its bikes for better resistance to weather, added new pedals for better grip, and new fender flaps to reduce excess splash on wet roads. It also made the shipping boxes more environmentally friendly — important when you consider that VanMoof ships around 12,000 of those giant boxes a month, as of September 2020.

All this is to say that the 2021 S3 and X3 models, the ones with the “Locate with Apple Find My” label printed under the top tube, are the best VanMoof e-bikes yet, which really is saying something. The new PowerBank option is just icing on the cake.

All photos by Thomas Ricker / The Verge unless otherwise stated

fitbit’s-luxe-is-a-fashion-focused-fitness-band-that-costs-$149.95

Fitbit’s Luxe is a fashion-focused fitness band that costs $149.95

Fitbit has announced its new Luxe fitness tracker that looks like a more fashion-focused take on the Inspire 2. It leaked last week, but Fitbit is making it official with the news that the Luxe is available for preorder starting today, April 19th, for $149.95. This cost includes six months of the Fitbit Premium service, which usually costs $9.99 per month. The service recently launched the new Mindful Method program created by Deepak Chopra that packs in over 30 audio and video sessions on mindfulness and wellness.

A specific release date for the Luxe hasn’t been shared, but the company is aiming for a spring launch, so it shouldn’t be too long of a wait.

The Luxe was designed for “a diverse range of wrist sizes and skin tones for 24/7 wear.” Fitbit says the Luxe is its thinnest touchscreen tracker yet, and the company thinks most people should be able to sleep comfortably with it on. To that end, you won’t need to charge it every night, as Fitbit claims it’ll last up to five days per charge.

The Luxe includes an interchangeable silicone strap with several size adjustments. Other straps will be available at launch, including silicone bands in a few colors for $29.95 each, woven fabric bands for $34.95, leather bands for $49.95, stainless steel mesh bands for $79.95, going all the way up to $99.95 for stainless steel link bracelets from luxury jewelry brand Gorjana. If you just want the Luxe with the Gorjana band, a limited-edition version of the tracker costing $199.95 will include one starting in June.

The Fitbit Luxe in black.
Image: Fitbit

The Luxe is angled toward people who want their fitness tracker to be taken for jewelry. The company even went as far as using a metal injection molding process to craft the Luxe’s stainless steel case, which is apparently a traditional technique for jewelry-making.

The Luxe is a buttonless tracker, and inputs are delegated to its color OLED touchscreen. Like its previous smartwatches and trackers, Fitbit’s Luxe will be supported for iOS and Android devices. It’ll also support Google Fast Pair to pair more quickly to Android devices. The Luxe supports connected GPS while paired to your phone, so you’ll need to bring your phone along if you want to track runs or walks. If having built-in GPS is important to you, Fitbit’s Charge 4 includes that and other features like Fitbit Pay and Spotify controls.

Fitbit is using this launch to announce that the Luxe, along with the company’s other heart rate-enabled trackers and watches, support the companion app’s Stress Management Score that assesses your activity level, sleep schedule, and heart rate to help you manage stress. Through the app, the Luxe can track a host of other metrics, like your breathing pattern, your resting and variable heart rate, skin temperature, mood, sleep, and menstrual cycles. Sometime after launch, it’ll be able to record your blood oxygen levels (Sp02).

fitbit-luxe-vs-charge-4-vs-inspire-2:-what’s-the-difference?

Fitbit Luxe vs Charge 4 vs Inspire 2: What’s the difference?

(Pocket-lint) – Fitbit announced the fashion-focused Luxe activity and wellness tracker in April 2021, joining the Charge 4 and Inspire 2 in the company’s extensive portfolio.

How do the three devices compare though? You can read how all of Fitbit’s devices stack up against each other in our separate feature, but here we are looking at how the Fitbit Luxe compares to the Charge 4 and the Inspire 2. 

Price

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The Fitbit Luxe starts at £129.99 in the UK and $149.95 in the US, with the Special Edition model costing £179.99 in the UK and $199.95 in the US. There are a range of accessories available, including a Gorjana bracelet.

The Fitbit Charge 4 starts at £129.99 in the UK and $149.95 in the US, with the Special Edition models costing £149.99 in the UK and $159.95 in the US.

The Fitbit Inspire 2 is priced slightly lower than the Charge 4 and the Luxe, costing £89.99 in the UK and $99.95 in the US.

Design

  • Luxe: Waterproof, slim, stainless steel, colour touchscreen, buttonless, interchangeable straps
  • Charge 4: Waterproof, aluminium, large touchscreen display, inductive button, interchangeable straps
  • Inspire 2: Waterproof, plastic body, touchscreen display, physical button, interchangeable straps

The Fitbit Luxe is the most premium of the three Fitbit devices being compared here, offering a stainless steel body, coloured touchscreen display, a buttonless design, rounded edges and a focus towards fashion and style, with a range of accessories available.

The Fitbit Charge 4 has an aluminium body, and it too offers a premium design like the Luxe, but it has squarer edges and a more sporty look, along with a monochrome touchscreen display and inductive button on the side. Different accessories are available, but they are more standard compared to the bracelets and stylish straps available for the Luxe.

The Inspire 2 has a plastic body so it’s a little cheaper in its appearance compared to the Luxe and Charge 4. It also has a smaller touchscreen display than the Luxe and Charge 4 and it has a physical button on the side, making for a less streamlined design than the other two models.

All models being compared here are waterproof and they all feature a PurePulse heart rate monitor on their underside, as well as charging pins. The Charge 4 has an SPO2 monitor too however. 

Features

  • All: Steps, distance, calories, heart rate, advanced sleep, Active Zone Minutes, Auto exercise reognition, smartphone notifications
  • Luxe: Adds stress monitoring, Mindful Minutes
  • Charge 4: VO2 Max, NFC, Smart Wake

Many of the basic features offered by Fitbit are available across the Inspire 2, Charge 4 and Luxe fitness trackers, though there is some variation. 

All three trackers being compared here offer steps taken, distance travelled, calories burned and heart rate monitoring. They also all offer advanced sleep tracking with Sleep Score, swim tracking, Active Zone Minutes and they are able to automatically recognise some workouts with Fitbit’s SmartTrack, whilst offering the ability to specifically track others using the Multi-Sport Mode.

You’ll also find silent alarms on all the trackers, Reminders to Move, smartphone notifications with Quick Replies for Android users, Guided Breathing and female health tracking.

Beyond those features, things change a little between the devices. The Fitbit Charge 4 has NFC on board for Fitbit Pay, while the Inspire 2 and Luxe miss this off. The Charge 4 and Inspire 2 offer Cardio Fitness Level – which is a VO2 Max measurement – though it isn’t clear if the Luxe also offers this. The Charge 4 also offers Smart Wake, which uses machine learning to wake you up at an optimal time.

The Luxe meanwhile, has stress management like the Fitbit Sense, offering a Stress Score within the Fitbit app. It also launches a feature called Mindful Minutes, though this will come to the other Fitbit trackers and smartwatches.

Specs

  • Luxe: 6-day battery, Connected GPS, no NFC
  • Charge 4: 7-day battery, Built-in GPS, NFC, Altimeter
  • Inspire 2: 5-day battery, Connected GPS, no NFC

The Fitbit Luxe has Connected GPS on board, which means you’ll need to bring your phone with you in order to map a walk or a run. It offers six-day battery life, but as we mentioned above, there is no NFC for Fitbit Pay. 

At the time of writing, we didn’t know if the Luxe has an altimeter to measure elevation, though we would expect it to. 

The Charge 4 has built-in GPS, enabling you to map your route without your phone. It also comes with NFC on board and it features a seven-day battery life. It has an altimeter on board for measuring elevation.

The Inspire 2 has Connected GPS like the Fitbit Luxe. It comes with a five-day battery life and like the Fitbit Luxe, it doesn’t offer NFC for Fitbit Pay. There is no altimeter on board.

Conclusion

The Fitbit Luxe offers many of the same features and benefits as the Charge 4, though it trades built-in GPS and NFC for a more stylish and fashionable design. 

There are a couple of extra features on the Luxe compared to the Charge 4 and Inspire 2, such as Stress Monitoring and Mindful Minutes, though the Charge 4 is likely to get some of these through a software update. 

The choice between these devices will likely come down to which features are most important to you. If you want built in GPS and NFC, the Charge 4 is the one you’ll want. If you want a stylish tracker that is packed full of features but misses off a couple then the Luxe appears to be a great option. If you want most of the features Luxe offers but in a cheaper package with a more basic design, then the Inspire 2 will likely be adequate. 

Writing by Britta O’Boyle.

this-raspberry-pi-tricorder-is-straight-out-of-the-alpha-quadrant

This Raspberry Pi Tricorder is Straight Out of The Alpha Quadrant

We’ve encountered beaucoups of Raspberry Pi cyberdecks over the years and even a few tricorders but this is one of the coolest Pi-based tricorder cyberdecks we’ve come across. It was created by a maker who goes by Himmelen4 and is designed to resemble a TR-560 Tricorder VI standard model from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The best Raspberry Pi projects make science fiction a reality—something Star Trek has provided inspiration for over the years. According to Himmelen4, it’s fully customizable so modifying the design is possible for a variety of functions. It has multiple screens and a custom keyboard that can be programmed for any input needs.

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(Image credit: Himmelin4)

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Himmelin4 has shared plenty of pictures on Imgur that show off the internal components which are very well-packed inside the tricorder case. The outer shell is 3D-printed and even has holes for external port access.

It relies on a Raspberry Pi Zero and includes additional components to bring the cyberdeck together like a GPS board and a NESDR SDR radio module. There are two Adafruit screens used in the tricorder design: one in the top half and a smaller screen next to the keyboard in the bottom half. The keyboard was wired from scratch and featured 3D-printed keycaps.

This project is a work in progress so be sure to follow Himmelen4 for more updates. In the meantime, visit the original thread on Reddit to see the progress so far.

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Fitbit Luxe appears in leaked images with stainless steel body and OLED screen

Fitbit announced the Ace 3 fitness band for kids last month, and the next smart band it will introduce is called Fitbit Luxe, which has appeared in images leaked by German blog WinFuture.

The Fitbit Luxe has an elegant design and will have at least three color options. Its body is made of polished stainless steel, and its interchangeable straps will come with a buckle clasp we usually don’t see on fitness trackers.

The Luxe will pack a color OLED touchscreen of unknown resolution. We don’t have the detailed specs of the wearable yet, however, the leaked pictures reveal the fitness tracker will come with breathing training, heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, and some sports modes.


Fitbit Luxe with heart rate monitoring, meditation, and sleep tracking

The source also claims that Fitbit Luxe will come with stress monitoring and will be water-resistant, meaning you don’t have to take it off your wrist when swimming.


Fitbit Luxe

The Fitbit Luxe won’t have GPS on board, but you’ll still be able to track your workout routes with the help of GPS on the connected smartphone.

The pricing and launch date of the Fitbit Luxe is currently unknown, but since the official images are out, it shouldn’t be too long before Fitbit announces its new wearable.

Source (in German)

fitbit’s-next-fitness-tracker-looks-fancy

Fitbit’s next fitness tracker looks fancy

Fitbit may be ready to launch a new fitness tracker soon, if images published by WinFuture are to be believed. The new tracker is apparently named Luxe and features a more fashion-centric design than Fitbit’s existing Inspire 2. It’s not clear when the Luxe will be released or how much it will cost, but I would not be surprised if it has a higher price tag than the $100 Inspire 2.

The big upgrade for the Luxe is a new stainless steel body, which will be available in silver, gold, or black finishes. It also has a color OLED touchscreen, though WinFuture didn’t provide specs or detailed information about it. Both the stainless steel body and the color screen are upgrades over the plastic and monochrome options on the Inspire 2.

The Luxe is expected to have a heart rate monitor, sleep tracking, and all of the activity tracking features that Fitbit’s other wearables support. It’s not likely to have a GPS radio of its own, however — you’ll probably need to have your phone with you for accurate mapping of your runs. In addition to the body colors, WinFuture’s images show various strap color options, so it’s likely Fitbit will position this as much of a fashion accessory as a fitness device.

Fitbit, which is now owned by Google, built its brand on wrist-worn fitness trackers, and it looks like the Luxe is very much in that vein. The company has had less success producing a competent smartwatch, but perhaps it can inject some life into Google’s flailing smartwatch platform once the companies fully merge their resources.

stromer-st2-e-bike-review:-too-hot-for-europe

Stromer ST2 e-bike review: too hot for Europe

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The words “Swiss design” conjure images of luxury watch movements and delicately sculpted eyeglasses, not hulking e-bikes with thickly welded frames and face-melting power. Stromer is here to challenge those assumptions and force a rethink of how its Swiss-made electric bikes, with top speeds of 45 km/h (28 mph), can disrupt urban transportation for the benefit of residents. I’ve certainly seen the light after testing a new 2021 edition ST2, Stromer’s first e-bike with a carbon belt drive.

Broadly speaking, US cities have all of the fast e-bikes and no bicycle infrastructure, whereas European cities have all of the protective infrastructure and few fast e-bikes. It’s exceedingly rare to see fast e-bikes known as speed-pedelecs in my Amsterdam home, for example, where half of all new bikes sold are electric, and bicycles outnumber people by a lot.

It’s not that EU bike makers are an effete bunch of cheese-eating milquetoasts; they manufacture slow, underpowered e-bikes to avoid the draconian measures triggered by EU Directive 168/2013. It states that any e-bike that goes faster than 25 km/h (15.5 mph) with a continuous rated power above 250 watts is to be treated the same as a gas-guzzling moped. Makers of s-pedelecs like the Stromer ST2 are subjected to a grueling certification process that then requires owners to hold a moped-class driver’s license, liability insurance, and registration. By contrast, a similarly specced Class 3 e-bike in the US usually requires… nothing, other than a helmet.

To make matters worse, speed pedelecs are banned from riding on the vast majority of the ubiquitous bike lanes that famously protect helmet-less Dutch bicyclists in cities like Amsterdam. Why? Because mopeds are banned, and the law doesn’t differentiate. Fuck that. I wasn’t going to put my life at risk for this review by riding alongside heavy (and dangerous) automobiles just because European regulators can’t get their shit together.

Over the entirety of March, I spent my days fawning over the sophistication of the Stromer ST2 while fuming at lawmakers for holding back s-pedelecs from their full potential as car replacements. While I’ll be reviewing the ST2 on its own merits, it’s nigh impossible to recommend to Europeans without first considering the operational rules by which it’s constrained.

Before diving too deeply into why European rules suck, let’s start with what makes the new Stromer ST2 so good.

The ST2 is Stromer’s all-rounder model in a range of s-pedelecs that run from the entry-level ST1 to the ST5 (there is no ST4), with prices ranging from $4,199 / €4,628 to $11,699 / €11,428 and higher depending on configuration and options. Stromer’s motors range from 670W and 35 Nm of torque to 850W and 48 Nm. All Stromers are pedal-assisted e-bikes without throttles.

The ST2 starts at $5,699 / €6,128 and is fitted with a 750-watt Stromer CYRO Drive IG motor mounted on the rear hub. It produces a modest 40 Nm of torque to accelerate the bike up to 45 km/h (28 mph) from a standstill as safely and effortlessly as possible. A torque sensor ensures that power is delivered just as soon it detects a harder press on the pedal. The Gates Carbon belt drive linked to an internal five-gear hub propels the sturdy aluminum-framed bike forward on 27.5-inch wheels sporting high volume Cycl-e ST tires custom-designed by Pirelli.

My ST2 with the large-sized sport frame options came standard with fenders, a kickstand, and a mini rack; it did not come with the optional front and rear suspension. It weighs just shy of 33 kgs (72 pounds), which is undeniably heavy for an e-bike. But that mass makes the ride feel rock solid at top speed, without any worrisome wobble or flex when riding over bumps.

Safety is also boosted by custom front and rear hydraulic disc brakes, an electric horn, daytime running lights, and a Roxim Z4E Pro headlight that can produce between 600 and 900 lumens at night. (A dazzling 1600-lumen option is available.) There’s also an integrated brake light around back. The required rearview mirror is useful to see overtaking motorists on roads, but it makes the bike quite wide. This resulted in a few slapped car mirrors before I got a feel for the added width. Fortunately, the mirror folds to make it a bit easier to walk the bike through narrow hallways.

The keyless battery makes a pleasant “thunk” when ejected after a touchscreen and button combo.

My ST2 review bike came fitted with a 48V, 618Wh removable battery rated for up to 120 km or 75 miles, though I’d estimate real-world range for an aggressive rider like me is about half that. I managed just shy of 50 km (31 miles) with 10 percent charge remaining, according to the Stromer app, before deciding to top up. The ST2 has a customizable regenerative braking feature to make the most of the battery. That flat terrain I tested on didn’t benefit from the extended range allowed by the recuperation that’s possible on long steep declines.

I did about half of my testing while illegally riding on bicycle lanes because responsible individuals can regulate their speed for the slower flow of congested city riding. If a powerful Ferrari can share city roads with slower Hyundais, then certainly a powerful e-bike can share a dedicated lane with traditional bicyclists. Putting the ST2 into low-power mode makes this easy. My riding was an even mix of max power (setting 3) at max speed (up to 47 km/h, according to the integrated display) when commuting outside the city center, and lazy 20 to 30 km/h jaunts at low power (setting 1) around town. A beefier battery with a stated range of up to 180 km (110 miles) is also available.

The + and – buttons on the left grip make it easy to toggle between the three power modes, while the right grip is home to the shifter. The excellent 5-Speed Sturmey Archer shifter is smooth and reliable and conveniently works from a standstill.

The display washes out even on an overcast day.“,”image_left”:{“ratio”:”*”,”original_url”:”https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22445516/DSC_4195.jpeg”,”network”:”verge”,”bgcolor”:”white”,”pinterest_enabled”:false,”caption”:null,”credit”:null,”focal_area”:{“top_left_x”:0,”top_left_y”:0,”bottom_right_x”:4928,”bottom_right_y”:3264},”bounds”:[0,0,4928,3264],”uploaded_size”:{“width”:4928,”height”:3264},”focal_point”:null,”asset_id”:22445516,”asset_credit”:null,”alt_text”:””},”image_right”:{“ratio”:”*”,”original_url”:”https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22445517/DSC_4196.jpeg”,”network”:”verge”,”bgcolor”:”white”,”pinterest_enabled”:false,”caption”:null,”credit”:null,”focal_area”:{“top_left_x”:0,”top_left_y”:0,”bottom_right_x”:4928,”bottom_right_y”:3264},”bounds”:[0,0,4928,3264],”uploaded_size”:{“width”:4928,”height”:3264},”focal_point”:null,”asset_id”:22445517,”asset_credit”:null,”alt_text”:””},”credit”:null}” data-cid=”apps/imageslider-1618567556_3085_133009″>

The display washes out even on an overcast day.

The touchscreen display integrated into the top tube is the interface to a bike OS that’s overwrought, in my opinion, though some might like having access to every configuration option (and there are a lot) right on the bike. I do not, especially not when all that overhead makes the bike take 20 seconds just to boot, an eternity if you’re in a hurry. My bike was also configured to boot into a lock screen that was frustratingly slow to respond to the five taps required to enter my secret passcode. The display also easily washes out in sunlight.

In my experience, it’s rare to make any changes once a bike is set up to your liking, meaning it’s best to offload more advanced features to an app. I prefer simple displays that boot fast and serve as a simple dashboard for basics like power setting and battery remaining. Stromer’s app is already very complete, offering lots of ride statistics and bike diagnostics in addition to options to tune the ride to your preferred balance of speed, torque, and agility. (I rode exclusively with the default “standard” setting.) The Stromer OMNI app is one of the best e-bike apps I’ve used.

The ST2 is as high-tech as they come, fitted with Bluetooth to auto-lock / unlock the bike when in range, GPS tracking, and 3G data for over-the-air software updates. An anti-theft mode shuts off the motor and starts blaring the horn to scare off thieves.

S-pedelecs can nearly reach the 50 km/h speed limit of most European cities, which is why they’re often pitched as true car replacements. Traditional e-bikes can already replace car commutes for many, but their top speed of 25 km/h means you’ll have to accept an extended travel time (while getting outside for some exercise). To test this theory, I “raced” a friend to a golf course to the north of Amsterdam; he in his new Tesla Model 3, me on the Stromer ST2 with a six-club pencil bag slung over my shoulder. His 30-minute trip took me just 27 minutes, and I had to wait 5 minutes for a ferry to arrive. Technically, I cheated by occasionally riding at top speed on deserted bike lanes I wasn’t allowed to use… but should have been.

Speed pedelecs are forbidden on Dutch bike lanes like the one above and must share roads with cars instead.

Now, about EU directive 168/2013. As the name implies, it was conceived years before it was fully enacted on January 1st, 2017, which is part of the problem. It failed to anticipate the explosion of electric personal mobility devices we’ve seen over the last four years, especially in countries like the Netherlands where half of all new bicycles sold last year were electric. The directive splits e-bikes into two categories of “type approvals”: type L1e-A includes electric cargo bikes like the Carqon, while type L1e-B includes s-pedelecs like the Stromer ST2 and gasoline-powered mopeds. Any e-bike maxing out at 25 km/h and 250 watts of continuous power is exempt from the directive and treated exactly like a regular bicycle.

Type L1e-B vehicles are limited to a maximum speed of 45 km/h and maximum continuous rated power of 4,000 watts. It requires mopeds and s-pedelecs to be fitted with a rearview mirror, horn, brake light, and prominent license plate; while the owner must be at least 16 years of age, wear a moped-rated helmet, possess a moped (type AM) driver’s license, be covered by liability insurance, and pay to have the vehicle registered.

Critics like the European Light Electric Vehicle Advocacy group LEVA-EU argue that because it was designed primarily for mopeds with combustion engines, the current type L1e-B approval process is unnecessarily complex and burdensome for bike makers. S-pedelec manufacturers are required to comply with 1,036 pages of text, much of which is about moped safety and emission concerns that simply don’t apply to speed pedelecs. The result is higher costs passed onto consumers and curtailed adoption and innovation because… why would any company bother?

Because Europe is Europe, there’s often variance in how regulations are set into law in each member country. While I complain about s-pedelec access to bike paths in Amsterdam, at least some bike lanes still allow them, unlike other European countries. Conversely, Belgium gives owners the choice to ride their s-pedelecs on any bike path or any road with a maximum speed limit of 50 km/h. It’s policy is informed by an effusive in-country study from 2019:

The speed pedelec has the potential to be a sustainable alternative for cars with internal combustion engines for commuting purposes. For the Belgian case, commuting with a speed pedelec can solve problems regarding congestion and air pollution.

At the close of 2020, Stromer bikes registered in Belgium (4,061) were more than double that of my Dutch home (1,558), according to Bike Europe. And despite being the market leader for s-pedelecs throughout Europe, Stromer produced just 12,417 s-pedelecs in 2020, which is the same number of slow e-bikes Amsterdam-based VanMoof makes in a month. European S-pedelec demand is clearly being stifled.

So, what’s to be done?

The good news here is that the European Commission seems keen to address the regulations that currently govern e-bikes. In October, the EC asked TRL, a UK-based mobility researcher, to initiate a review of the EU’s type approval process required by EU directive 168/2013. TRL recently concluded its findings and recommended that s-pedelecs be moved out of the L1e-B moped category and into the far less restrictive L1e-A category. L1e-A type approvals currently cover 1,000-watt e-cargo bikes capped at 25 km/h and some vehicles with throttles.

It’s a positive sign but still “unfortunate” for s-pedelecs from the perspective of LEVA-EU. The advocacy group has been pushing for an entirely new set of vehicle regulations for zero-emission vehicles like e-bikes, standing scooters, and electric skateboards based upon weight and speed only, not maximum continuous power. LEVA-EU believes that vehicles with similar levels of kinetic energy should be subjected to similar rules. It would therefore distinguish between vehicles with a maximum speed of 25 or 30 km/h and those capable of 45 or 50 km/h, instead of trying to bend the current regulations dictated by Directive 168/2013 (and the related Machinery Directive) to the realities of modern transportation. While the TRL did recommend to “create a dedicated approval process for PMD [personal mobility devices] separate from Regulation (EU) No 168/2013 and the Machinery Directive,” it capped this at a max speed of either 25 or 30 km/h, thus excluding s-pedelecs from the PMD category.

The EC isn’t bound by TRL’s recommendations so we’ll have to wait until 2022 for it to reveal its legislative proposal. Even then, any proposal would have to be negotiated with the member states; a process that could go on for years before new legislation is enacted.

The Stromer ST2 is also available in dark gray.

As much as I’d love to call for revolution and demand that urban commuters act on the moral obligation to disobey the unjust laws governing s-pedelecs in Europe, I can’t really apply the logic I used for a short-term review to long-term ownership — especially not with ST2 prices starting at $5,699 / €6,128.

If you’re in the US, then no problem. But anyone in Europe interested in owning the ST2 or any speed pedelec that falls under the current L1e-B type designation had better do their homework. Not only do you need to factor in local laws that might differ from EU rules, but also the costs to register and insure yourself for such a nascent and confusing transportation category.

The Stromer ST2 is easily the most sophisticated and thrilling e-bike I’ve ridden since I began reviewing the category back in 2016. It also did the rarest of things by letting me glimpse a better future that’s just out of reach.

S-pedelecs could help accelerate European initiatives to green our cities and reclaim all of that space allocated to idling cars. But that won’t happen until EU regulators first remove the barriers to adoption and then create incentives to get city-dwellers out of their cars, even the electric ones, and onto bikes like the Stromer ST2.

Photography by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

oneplus-watch-review:-big,-basic,-and-boring

OnePlus Watch review: big, basic, and boring

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What makes a smartwatch “smart”? Is it the ability to show you notifications from your phone? What about the ability to track your physical activity and wellness, such as step counts, workouts, and sleep? How about providing you information about your day, such as the weather and upcoming calendar events? Or perhaps it’s the inclusion of a voice assistant on your wrist that you can ask to do things without having to use your phone?

Those are the questions I’ve been asking over the past week-plus as I’ve been testing the new OnePlus Watch, a $159 smartwatch and the first wearable from the smartphone company. The OnePlus Watch has all the looks of a modern smartwatch, but as I’ve learned wearing it on my wrist day and night, it doesn’t have all the smarts.

The OnePlus Watch is not like a Wear OS smartwatch, such as those made by Fossil, Motorola, or Mobvoi. Nor is it like a Samsung Galaxy Watch or an Apple Watch. All of those have software platforms that integrate with other apps and services, so you can download apps or watchfaces to the watch itself, just like you might with a phone. That makes them very extensible and customizable — you can easily make the watch look unique and do the things you need it to.

The OnePlus Watch, on the other hand (or wrist?), runs its own proprietary software, based on a real-time operating system. This software is very quick and power efficient, but it is not extensible — there’s no app store or third-party watchfaces to download on the OnePlus Watch. It’s similar to the software on the budget smartwatches you can get on Amazon; if you’ve ever used an Amazfit, Umidigi, or Wyze watch, you’ve used a real-time operating system. The OnePlus Watch is not very different from those in this respect.

This choice of platform affords the OnePlus Watch its greatest strength, long battery life, and also its greatest weakness: it just doesn’t do all that much compared to other smartwatches you can buy.

The OnePlus Watch looks like many other smartwatches, but most especially the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active.

OnePlus Watch software

The OnePlus Watch pairs with and is controlled by the OnePlus Health app for Android — there’s no iPhone compatibility at all. But you don’t need to own a OnePlus phone, it works with basically any modern Android device. I tested it on both OnePlus and Samsung smartphones and the experience was the same.

The app is where you can see what health and fitness metrics the watch has recorded, adjust which apps send notifications on your wrist, and view the available watchfaces. OnePlus has about 50 watchfaces so far, with some offering limited customizability in the form of selectable shortcuts or widgets, such as a weather widget, date, or shortcut to a built-in app like the timer. You can choose up to 14 faces to store on the watch and switch between them without using your phone. The company says it plans on adding more in the future, but as I mentioned earlier, there are no options for third-party watchfaces or third-party app widgets like you get with Samsung, Wear OS, or Apple smartwatches.

The watchfaces themselves are what you’d expect: there is the assortment of analog and digital styles to choose from, with some showing more information about your activity than others. I’m not a big fan of the analog options, so I settled on a digital face. Unfortunately, there’s a bug where digital watchfaces on the OnePlus Watch are stuck in 24-hour time and can’t show 12-hour time. The company tells me it is aware of this bug, and it is slated to be fixed “this month.”

The OnePlus Watch’s interface mimics Wear OS and is easy to navigate.

The watch interface has a familiar layout: swipe down for settings, swipe up to see notifications, press the side button to see your apps. You can swipe right from the watchface to access basic widgets for music control, weather, and activity tracking, similar to Wear OS or a Samsung watch. The design of the interface all looks mostly fine, and there thankfully aren’t any stutters or lags when navigating it.

I do have a few gripes with how notifications are handled. You can’t clear notifications by just swiping them away, like you can with every other smartwatch. Instead, you have to tap into each one and then press clear or scroll to the bottom to clear them all. It’s a clumsy and fiddly process. The OnePlus Watch doesn’t always sync with the notifications I’ve cleared on my phone, either, and occasionally notifications for the same messages would get duplicated, forcing me to see the same alerts more than once.

You can’t do much with those notifications, either. There are no actions you can take other than clearing them from your wrist. OnePlus supports canned message replies in just five apps: WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, Discord, and Facebook Messenger. Notably and frustratingly, that list doesn’t include standard SMS messages. On top of that, there are only four basic replies to choose from: “OK”; “Be right there!”; “In a meeting, contact you later”; and “I’m driving, contact you later.” I frequently use a smartwatch to triage notifications, delete incoming emails, or reply to messages when I’m away from my desk, but I can’t do most of those things with the OnePlus Watch.

The OnePlus Watch comes with a basic set of apps: weather, timer, stopwatch, alarm, workout, sleep tracking, etc. Oddly, it doesn’t have a calculator or a calendar app, so I can’t easily see my next meeting or appointment, something I do a lot with other smartwatches. There’s no way to get your next appointment on your watchface, either. And since there isn’t an app store, I can’t add any apps to that list.

You can forget about streaming music from Spotify or playing podcasts through your favorite app — the only thing you can do with the OnePlus Watch is control what’s playing on your phone or transfer MP3 files from your phone to the watch’s 4GB of storage. Want to track your runs with Strava or MapMyFitness instead of OnePlus’ app? Sorry, no dice. If you want to control smart home devices from your wrist, the OnePlus Watch is entirely useless unless you have a OnePlus TV, where you can use it as a remote. The OnePlus TV is only available in India.

The OnePlus Watch also lacks a voice assistant. I can’t ask it to start a timer when I’m in the kitchen and my hands are dirty, I can’t ask it to turn the lights off or open my garage door, and I can’t dictate a reply to an incoming message. How well voice assistants work varies greatly between smartwatches (Siri on the Apple Watch, pretty good! Bixby on a Samsung watch, less so), but OnePlus isn’t even trying here and I’ve missed having one available.

Lastly, even though the OnePlus Watch has an NFC radio, it does not support mobile payments. You can’t tap your wrist to pay for something like you can with an Apple Watch, Samsung watch, or Wear OS smartwatch.

The OnePlus Watch’s fitness tracking features hit the standard beats.
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

OnePlus Watch fitness tracking

The fitness tracking features are quite basic. It will track your steps throughout the day; the watch will nudge you to get up and move when you’ve been sitting for too long; you can choose between 14 different workouts for the watch to track; and if you wear the OnePlus Watch to bed, it will make an attempt to track your sleep.

I’m not a gym rat, but I did wear the OnePlus Watch on my left wrist with a Fitbit Inspire HR on my right wrist throughout this review and the OnePlus counted thousands fewer steps than the Fitbit every day. None of these devices are perfect with their step tracking, but that kind of discrepancy is going to make tracking a longer-distance run or other intense workout inaccurate or just plain hard to do. I asked a few other reviewers I know who are also testing the OnePlus Watch and each one has had the same issues with inaccurate step counting. OnePlus says a bug fix for GPS optimization and to add more workout modes will be available sometime in mid-April.

While the OnePlus Watch frequently undercounted my steps, it overestimated how much I slept each night.

Sleep tracking, oddly enough, has the opposite problem. The OnePlus Watch consistently overestimates how long I slept each night compared to the Fitbit and Google’s Nest Hub. A bug has also prevented the Watch from syncing its sleep data with the OnePlus Health app, even though other activity synced over fine. The company says this bug should also be fixed sometime this month.

As mentioned earlier, you can’t use other fitness apps on the OnePlus Watch. The OnePlus Health app provides syncing with the Google Fit platform, so it’s possible you could cobble together a syncing solution between other apps using Fit as glue, but I did not test this. In general, the OnePlus Watch’s fitness tracking is fine for basic activity trends, but any fitness enthusiasts will want something more capable and reliable.

The OnePlus Watch only comes in one size: a large 46mm face.

OnePlus Watch hardware and design

In terms of design, the OnePlus Watch is generic-looking — it reminds me a lot of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Active line. It’s got a round face, there are two buttons on the side, and the body is made of polished stainless steel, which is nice to see at this price point. It comes in silver, black, or a gold-colored special edition — I’ve got the black model and it’s a little boring to look at. Either way, the hardware is solid and put together well — it’s not creaky or plasticky, and there are no rough edges to worry about.

OnePlus is only offering the watch in one size, 46mm, and frankly, it’s big. It’s bigger than I like watches to be on my wrist, and if you have smaller wrists than me you’re not going to have a fun time with this. On the plus side, it’s not the thickest smartwatch I’ve ever worn. Just one size band comes in the box — OnePlus says that customers who need a shorter band will be able to get one by contacting customer service.

The touchscreen is a 1.39-inch 454 x 454 OLED that’s easy to see both indoors and out. It’s colorful, like you’d expect an OLED to be, but there’s no always-on display option, which nearly every other smartwatch has now. That makes it that much more annoying to check the time, though the wrist turn gesture does work well to wake it up.

On the underside are the sensors for heart rate and blood oxygen. As usual, you should not use these sensors for medical purposes — and blood oxygen monitors on even the best smartwatches notoriously struggle with giving accurate readings. Inside the watch are the accelerometers and gyroscopes necessary to track your activity and workouts, plus GPS and Bluetooth radios. There’s no Wi-Fi or LTE here — if you leave your phone behind, you’re going to miss notifications and alerts until the watch is back in Bluetooth range of your phone.

Also missing from the OnePlus Watch are any rotating bezels or crowns — the only way to interact with it is to tap and swipe on the screen itself or push the buttons on the side.

Even though it doesn’t have a voice assistant, the OnePlus Watch does have a microphone and speaker, so you can answer calls from your wrist via Bluetooth. It worked fine in my tests; callers said I sounded clear to them, but the speaker on the watch is a bit crackly at full volume. It works in a pinch.

The OnePlus Watch has exceptional battery life and charges very quickly on its included charger.

The best thing about the OnePlus Watch is its battery life. OnePlus claims up to 14 days of usage between charges — it lasted about 10 days for me, wearing it day and night. Charging the watch is also quick and easy: just 20 minutes on the charger adds half a charge, which translates to literal days of usage. No Apple, Samsung, or Wear OS watch can last this long or charge this quickly.

But at the same time, the OnePlus Watch has such great battery life because, frankly, it just does less than those other smartwatches. The best comparison I can make is that the OnePlus Watch is a fitness tracker in a smartwatch body, which would be an acceptable premise if it were a better fitness tracker.

There are about 50 different watchfaces to choose from for the OnePlus Watch.

The OnePlus Watch may look like a lot of other smartwatches, but I can’t say it compares well to them. It’s limited in features, only comes in one size, and as I’ve gone over, there are several bugs with it that make it feel like an unfinished product. Aside from its long battery life, the OnePlus Watch’s bestselling point is its low price, which is half that of a Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 and over $100 less than the comparably sized Galaxy Watch Active 2. But if you’re looking for a smartwatch for your Android phone, it’s not that hard to find Wear OS models on sale, often for less than the cost of the OnePlus Watch.

For me, a good smartwatch is a lot like a personal assistant on my wrist. It tells me the time, when my next calendar appointment is, what the weather is like, and how active I’ve been throughout the day. I can quickly ask it to set a timer when I’m making a cup of tea or use it to reply to a message from my spouse when I’m running an errand. It also lets me customize its appearance and capabilities through third-party apps, watchfaces, or both. For others, it’s a way to track workouts and keep on top of their personal health.

In that framing, the OnePlus Watch isn’t really a smartwatch and based on my experience, it isn’t a great fitness tracker either. Instead, it’s just a clever watch, and it can be useful if your expectations of it are low. But if a smartwatch is going to take up real estate on my wrist, it has to be more useful than the OnePlus Watch.

Photography by Dan Seifert / The Verge

hammerhead-karoo-2-review:-all-about-the-updates

Hammerhead Karoo 2 review: All about the updates

(Pocket-lint) – Hammerhead claims that the Karoo 2 is the closest you’ll get to a smartphone. That’s no surprise, because this is a Google Android-based bike computer – the operating system that so many phones run – which is cause for some excitement.

Hammerhead’s pitch with the Karoo 2 is that you’ll get regular updates. And that’s true – indeed, we’ve started to write this review on several occasions, only to find we wanted to explore something more following additional updates. 

As a result of updates, the Karoo 2 has got better over the months we’ve been using it. But is it good enough to tempt you away from the likes of the Garmin Edge?

Design and build

  • Dimensions: 100.6 x 60.8 x 19.3mm / Weight: 131g
  • Handlebar and out-front mounts included
  • IP67 waterproofing

The Hammerhead Karoo 2 has a 3.2-inch display, meaning it sits between the Garmin Edge 530/830 and Edge 1030 sizes, but it’s bigger than the Wahoo bike computers. It’s on the larger size, yes, but that’s good for quick glancing.

The body itself is a glass-filled polycarbonate, with an elastomer bumper. The display is topped with Dragontrail Glass for scratch resistance, while the whole package gets an IP67 rating to keep the water and mud out.

Pocket-lint

On the rear there’s a sealed compartment you can open with a coin that will accept a SIM card, while a USB-C socket on the bottom of the device is used for charging. This has a rubber bung that inserts into it (with a spare in the box), but it’s not attached in any way. We’ve no qualms about losing it on a ride, but we might lose it when we have to take it out for charging.

We’ve used the Karoo 2 in rain and shine, through mud and sleet, and we’ve no worries about the waterproofing of this device. It feels solid, it looks good, and it’s kept on going with all we’ve put it through.



Best Fitbit fitness tracker 2021: Which Fitbit is right for you?


By Britta O’Boyle
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We’re not huge fans of the buttons being on opposite sides of the body, though, because we find it more difficult to press a button than ought to be. Press the bottom button too hard and the device might rotate on the mount – which is how you remove it. But with another button on the other side, gripping to press on one side is a little more difficult. Basically, we’d prefer them to be staggered.

Pocket-lint

It’s something of a moot point, however, given that most cycling gloves these days work with touch displays (or one finger does at least) and there’s touch support for pretty much anything you might want to use a button for – although this is less reliable in the wet, when the buttons come into their own.

Turning to mounting, there’s an out-front mount in the box, which users Hammerhead’s connection system. This will let you slide it into place to lock in securely, with a twist to release and slide forward again to remove. This means you can mount it on busy handlebars without a twist as large as you’d need for a Garmin computer, for example.

The supplied mount is designed to sit out the front of your handlebars and to be aerodynamic. It’s designed for standard 31.8mm bars and there’s no shims supplied for anyone riding a vintage steed or anything smaller.

There is an adapter to switch the Karoo 2 to a Garmin quarter-turn mount, which was bundled with preorders, otherwise available as an accessory (it’s £14 in the UK). That’s a great option as you can switch between bikes using an old mount (which we did), without having to mess around with changing all the mounts on all your bikes.

Display and hardware

  • Sensors: Accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, barometer
  • Display: 3.2in panel, 800 x 480 pixels (292ppi)
  • Connectivity: GPS, ANT+, Bluetooth
  • Connection: Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G
  • 32GB storage

The display is important, because in a world of data, that’s what you spend your time looking at. It’s a good resolution too, with 292 pixels per inch, and while that’s somewhat lower in count than the latest smartphones, it suits the content well enough – which is the important point.

As this is an Android-based system (Android 8, so generations behind current phones), some of the interface and interactions will be familiar. Trying to use the tiny keyboard, however, especially for setup, is a little tedious – and Hammerhead could well do with offloading some of these tasks to a companion app, in the way Garmin does.

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There is plentiful brightness, but it’s not automatic, so you might have to swipe to bump it up when the rain starts falling – or indeed when the sun comes out.

There’s a Qualcomm-supplied quad-core processor, 32GB of storage, and a whole world of connectivity. That includes all the essentials: Bluetooth and ANT+ for accessories; GPS for location tracking; Wi-Fi for syncing and updates; 3G/4G for mobile data connectivity; motion sensors to aid navigation, and so forth.

This being an Android device it’s important that there’s enough power to do what you want. Startup is a little slow, but we’ve got used to starting it on the way to getting changed for a ride. Loading routes and profiles is a little slower than we’d like too, but we’re sure that software updates could fix this.

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It’s easy to manage connected devices, perhaps a little simpler than some other bike computers, especially if you know your way around Android.

We tested the Hammerhead with Garmin ANT+ bike sensors, Scosche Rhythm+ 2.0, and the Polar Verity Sense via Bluetooth – and found no connectivity problems at all.

On to that smartphone-like experience. There’s no call support, because even with the SIM card this isn’t a phone, but the card slot in the back gives the option for a permanent data connection. Otherwise, you can just use a Wi-Fi hotspot from the phone – the one that’s probably in the back pocket of your jersey anyway – to save you needing another SIM.

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However, there’s no data connection between the Karoo 2 and your actual smartphone via Bluetooth – all the syncing that the Karoo 2 does is via its own Wi-Fi or data connection if you’ve given it a SIM card. That’s mostly fine – but does also present some limitations.

You could, of course, ditch your smartphone and just take the connected Karoo 2, knowing that it will give you map searching and other features. But on a display this small, it could end up being just a little too frustrating when you get properly lost.

How Hammerhead handles its data

  • Karoo Companion app
  • Browser-based dashboard
  • Third-party services

You need to make sure the Karoo 2 is connected to Wi-Fi if you want to sync a new route that you’ve made, or to push ride data to a third-party service, because Hammerhead isn’t trying to run its own platform.

This is the fundamental difference between the Karoo 2 and Garmin’s devices: Garmin wants you to be as connected as possible, to feed data into Garmin Connect and drive the data machine. Hammerhead doesn’t offer that, so presenting some services is limited or constricted, while third-party connectivity plays a bigger role.

We hinted before that setup is a little strange. There’s no real smartphone app for starters: there’s the Karoo Companion app, which only handles push notifications; or there’s the web dashboard. This is a weird position for a company developing on Android, as you’d think Hammerhead would focus on being mobile first – but it’s not.

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The notifications you get are a little basic too, missing a huge opportunity: Android quick replies. This is a gem that iPhone won’t know about, but quick replies on Android work really well on Garmin, letting you send a reply to an incoming message or call – really useful when you’re riding. Visually, the Hammerhead notifications are too basic too, so could certainly be presented better.

Instead you need to get yourself onto the browser and setup your Hammerhead account and then sign into your Karoo with that account when it arrives. There’s some downloading and updating that takes place – but syncing, you’ll remember, is via the device to third-party services and the dashboard, rather than within a smartphone app.

Really, your phone plays no part – and we think Hammerhead could make everything smoother with much closer pairing with phones. For example: if you want use the live tracking feature, that data can’t go via your Bluetooth-connected phone, you have to connect the Karoo 2 via Wi-Fi or a data connection and then share a URL to those you want to live track you.

It’s jumping through disconnected hoops and resulted in us using WhatsApp location tracking instead. Bear in mind that Garmin’s livetracking can be set to automatically notify a list of people as soon as you start a ride – and that’s really what Hammerhead needs to offer, rather than relying on people finding a link that was shared with them a few months prior.

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Some might say there aren’t enough partnerships to drive this platformless system. For many, the link with Strava will give them all the data analysis they want, with the reciprocal Strava Segments in place too – which does have some parity to Garmin’s offering, allowing you to have your starred Segments pop up when you get to them.

But there’s a lot that’s not on the list – and while more is likely to come, Hammerhead really needs to cover all cyclists’ needs.

Naturally, without a full platform for data analysis, most will be looking at this on Strava – which you can read about here – with Hammerhead’s dashboard only showing basic time, route, distance and elevation details.

Being Android-based also adds opportunity. Hammerhead mentions sideloading APKs onto the Karoo 2, which might be beyond your average user – but certainly there’s the opportunity for native apps rather than just data syncing. With a little thought, the Karoo 2 could be running its own Strava app or a Komoot app – but with the Karoo 2 running Android 8 (software originally released in 2017), some developers might baulk at the thought of working with that older version.

On the saddle and navigation

  • Profile customisation
  • Offline mapping
  • Rapid rerouting

With all that out of the way and accepted, riding with the Karoo 2 is actually great. The user interface presents a range of profiles, each offering up different data sets. The default selection is a little odd, but you can make a custom profile or edit any of the default profiles to your liking.

It’s worth having a play around with, because once you’ve entered one of these profiles you can’t back out and switch to something else if you find you can’t get to the data you want. But you can customise all the existing profiles, so if you want to add cadence instead of your average heart rate (or whatever) that’s easy enough to do.

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And there are loads of data fields, including shifting information for Shimano Di2, battery life, every variant on time, power, climb, etc., that you can think of. It makes everything super customisable so you’re looking at exactly what you want.

Navigation is good, with the option to create routes on the device, sync routes from other platforms, import GPX files and so forth. Despite the lack of a proper smartphone app, you can download a GPX route and upload it to the Dashboard in your phone browser, to then appear on your Karoo 2 when it syncs.

Hammerhead does have a habit of changing routes – especially offroad routes. Having found and saved a route in Komoot, Hammerhead then imported and reinterpreted it, switching some of the forest paths to roads. Attempting to edit that route created a lot of doglegs, again attempting to avoid some of the paths that are perfectly legitimate to ride on.

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Rerouting is rapid, however, but missing a waypoint can lead to lengthy rerouting instructions – especially if that missed point is the start of the route. You’ll spend the first 10 minutes being directed back to where you came from.

The GPS is accurate and fast to locate, with a good sense of direction. Thankfully it uses arrows on the route and a directional arrow for you, so on circuits or routes that cross themselves, there’s no confusion.

Navigating maps on a ride is easy too, because you can pinch and zoom, or drag around the map, which is far easier than Garmin’s system.

When you’ve planned a route and head out, you’ll be able to see route profile data so you can see how long those climbs are and when they’re coming up, so you can prepare yourself to open the hurt box.

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Once in a route you can browse the maps on the device to make an alteration. For example, if you need to get home, you can zoom out on screen, drop a pin on home, then follow the new route easily enough – which is great for last-minute changes.

There is support for workouts too, which can be imported from TrainingPeaks, so you can directly access them on the Karoo 2. Although as we said previously, there’s room to expand this offering to make it more encompassing.

A lot of what the Karoo 2 offers is about expanding the offering too. As we said in the introduction, the software is always changing. Mostly this adds functionality which is welcomed – but we’ve seen a few rearrangements of the on-screen controls that took us by surprise. You’ll get an email detailing the changes, but Hammerhead also has a changelog here.

Battery life

  • 2500mAh battery
  • 12 hour reliable life

If you’ve used a smartphone you might be concerned about battery life. Having moved to Hammerhead from the capable Garmin Edge 830, we were pleasantly surprised.

You’ll get a reliable 12 hours of battery life from this computer. There are measures you can take to reduce the battery drain – including turning off the display if you just don’t need all those functions – and charging is fairly fast too.

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You’ll get 30 per cent charge from 30 minutes plugged in – but you’ll need 3 hours to fully charge it again. And there’s no charger in the box, but as USB-C is common now you can simply charge it with any existing charger.

But put this in context: most phones will happily charge fully in half this time – with much larger batteries. So this isn’t really that fast in terms of charging speed, not when compared to the phone market. Certainly, we’d love to see faster charging in a future Karoo – just so you can avoid those last-minute delays.

Verdict

The biggest thing about the Karoo 2 is accepting that you might be stepping away from a huge ecosystem to do things a little differently. Unless you’re really committed to specific Garmin features, the mainstay of the Karoo 2’s offering is excellent – the visible and recorded data, the customisation, solid build and good battery life.

For those who live in Strava, rather than something like Garmin Connect, the Karoo 2 will potentially provide you with everything you need, rather than being drawn off into complete lifestyle tracking. But there are areas where the Karoo 2 can get more competitive – and it needs to, given the fairly steep price.

When all is said and done, the Karoo 2 is a great bike computer. It’s getting better all the time and fundamentally it gives everything you’ll need on a ride. Over time it has endeared itself to us.

Alternatives to consider

Pocket-lint

Garmin Edge 830

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A natural rival to the Karoo 2, with a similar asking price. It’s equally ambitious, bettering the Karoo in terms of its smartphone interaction, while playing into a larger ecosystem where Garmin will help track your whole lifestyle – not just your rides.

  • Read our review

Writing by Chris Hall. Editing by Mike Lowe.

oneplus-watch-in-pictures:-is-this-the-wearable-you-want?

OnePlus Watch in pictures: Is this the wearable you want?

(Pocket-lint) – After years of rumours, stop-and-start plans, and official teasers, OnePlus finally announced its first smartwatch. Unsurprisingly it’s called the OnePlus Watch. 

The fact that it’s a round-screen device has surprised no one, but what perhaps came as unexpected is the fact that OnePlus opted not to use Google’s Wear OS platform. 

Like other tech companies, namely Huawei and Samsung, OnePlus has opted to use its own software in order to improve battery life. That means up to 14 days between charges depending on usage. Check out our unboxing above for a more in-depth look.

Design

  • Measures: 46.4 × 46.4mm × 10.9mm
  • Weighs: 76g (including the strap)
  • IP68 water- and dust-resistant
  • Waterproof to 5ATM

The OnePlus Watch Classic editions are made from 316L stainless steel and finished with polished, rounded edges. It’s a simple and effective design and comes in two colours: Midnight Black (pictured) and Moonlight Silver. 



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By Rik Henderson
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Midnight Black features a polished grey case with a black bezel around the watch’s completely round display. The glass on the front is mostly flat, but features shallow, subtle curves towards the edges. 

As well as those two steel models, there’s also a limited edition Cobalt model which has a case made from a cobalt alloy and a gold metallic finish. 

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Size-wise it’s quite a large watch, measuring 46mm across. That makes it similar in size to the Huawei Watch GT 2e and Watch GT 2 Pro. 

For larger wrists the size isn’t a problem at all, especially if you’re used to wearing 44-47mm watches. However, those who need smaller sizes will likely be put off by how much it will dominate their wrist.

All of the OnePlus Watch options feature the same two-button design, where the top button features a raised OnePlus moniker. Both are slim buttons which don’t protrude too far from the side, meaning you’re unlikely to accidentally press them if your wrist is bent backward.

On the underside there’s the optical sensors required for measuring both heart-rate and blood oxygen saturation (SpO2). They’re all arranged neatly and sit just above the two contact points required for charging on its included cradle.

Unusually, this features a USB-A connector on the other side so you can’t plug it into the new Warp Charge adapter that ships with the OnePlus 9 phones. 

The only other thing worth noting from a design perspective is the strap. It feels similar in material and design to Apple Watch’s basic Sport Band.

It’s a fluoroelastomer band, which is really flexible and features a metal pin that pokes through the holes to fix it in place, while the end inserts through a hole and underneath to tuck it out of the way.  

We’ll have a full review in the near future, but on the features side OnePlus is promising a lot. It claims the Watch can last two weeks on a full charge and has the ability to track multiple sports and movements. 

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It has GPS for location, gyroscope and accelerometer for movement, the aforementioned blood oxygen saturation and heart-rate tracking, plus a compass and barometric pressure. You can even use it for tracking swimming. 

Add to that a Bluetooth speaker for receiving calls and storage for offline music playback and there’s a lot going for it. Especially given the price point. 

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First Impressions

The OnePlus Watch is simple but effective. It’s a round, polished watch that will survive being taken for a swim and should keep up with all of your fitness activities – whether you’re getting sweaty on a really hot day or you’re out on a wet and windy hike. 

There are two big attractions: the price and the battery life. It’s more affordable than most other similar alternatives. And the fact you only need to charge it once every two weeks means you needn’t get battery anxiety.

If you’re looking your first smartwatch and don’t want to spend too much then the OnePlus Watch is a clear contender.

Also consider

Pocket-lint

Huawei Watch GT 2e

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Huawei’s Watch GT 2e is similar in a lot of ways. It offers similar tracking capabilites and design, plus it’s also affordable. Huawei has been in the fitness game longer than OnePlus too – and that experience will likely show.

  • Read our review

Writing by Cam Bunton. Editing by Mike Lowe.

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Casio announces first Wear OS smartwatch in iconic G-Shock lineup

Casio has announced the first Wear OS smartwatch in its long-running G-Shock lineup: the GSW-H1000. The watch will retail for $699 in the US or £599 in the UK, and it will be available in red, blue, or black. With shock resistance and water resistance up to a depth of 200 meters, Casio says the GSW-H1000 is a fitness-focused wearable designed for everything from surfing to snowboarding.

The watchmaker has been releasing devices using Google’s smartwatch OS since 2016, when it released the Android Wear-powered Casio Smart Outdoor Watch. But this is the first time Google’s software has appeared on a G-Shock watch. The G-Shock lineup dates back to the 1980s, and the watches have a reputation for being some of the hardest-wearing around.

Its dual-layer display includes one monochrome and one color panel.
Image: Casio

The GSW-H1000 comes with many of the features expected on a fitness-focused smartwatch. There’s an optical heart rate sensor, and Casio’s built-in software supports 15 activities and 24 indoor workout options. The watch supports GPS and has a built-in compass, altitude sensor, accelerometer, and gyrometer. Wear OS means there’s Google Assistant and Google Fit support, and you can download apps from Google Play.

In terms of hardware, the watch has a 1.2-inch 360 x 360 dual-layer display that combines a monochrome always-on LCD display with a color LCD panel. Battery life is rated at around one and a half days if you’re using the color display, extending to up to a month if you only use the watch for timekeeping and sensors. A full charge takes around three hours, according to Casio.

With rumors of an extreme sport-focused Apple Watch on the horizon, Casio and other rugged smartwatch manufacturers could soon be facing a lot more competition. But on paper at least, the GSW-H1000 looks like it could be up to the challenge.

garmin-vivosport-review:-unobtrusive-tracking

Garmin Vivosport review: Unobtrusive tracking

(Pocket-lint) – The Garmin Vivosport is in no ways new – it launched back in 2018 – but it landed in our lap as we wanted an affordable way to track heart-rate from the wrist without the fuss of wearing a chest strap device during exercise.

Since buying the Vivosport on a tame budget, it’s grown to become part of our daily life, an always-on tracker that helps with move motivation, step- and sleep-tracking, among other measures, all while being small and unobtrusive to wear.

If you’re looking for a relatively budget fitness band and aren’t tempted by now-Google-owned Fitbit, does the Garmin Vivosport fit all your needs?

Design & Display

  • Dimensions: 21mm wide by 10.9mm thick
  • Circumference: 122-188mm (large) / 148-215mm (small)
  • Display size: 9.7 x 19.3mm / 72 x 144 pixels resolution
  • Weight: 27g (large) / 24.1g (small)
  • 5ATM water resistance (to 50m)

The Vivosport is in no way watch-like – which, as non-wearers of such a device in the past – is a massive positive for us, because once the band is on you’ll more or less forget it’s there.

Sure, it needs to be reasonably tight in order to get an accurate heart-rate reading, but with multiple openings in the non-removable band – that’s why there are small and large sizes (it’s the large pictured) – you can easily find one that’s most comfortable.

  • Best fitness trackers: The top activity bands to buy today

We’ve even found the Vivosport fine to wear during the night, for sleep tracking, should you so wish. The automated backlight doesn’t constantly come on too easily – as we’ve suffered with some other smartwatches over the years – so there’s not unwarranted extra light during night-time.

Even when the backlight does kick in – giving a sort-of blueish hue to the colour screen – the display is rather small anyway, so not a major distraction. You’ll likely only look at the Vivosport when it vibrates alerting you to something – which can be customised or switched off – or actively want to engage with some data on the panel itself.

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We like that it’s not a distraction: wear the device, forget about it, let it track at all times. In the same breath, however, the display is small to the point that it can be fiddly, while data doesn’t exactly have a lot of room to play with – so you’re best to view the output through Garmin Connect instead.

Fitness Features

  • Tracks: Steps, Calories, Floors Climbed, Distance, Intensity Minutes, Sleep
  • Exercise: Walk, Run, Cycle, Strength Training, Cardio Training, Aerobic
  • Bluetooth Smart and ANT+ connectivity
  • Garmin Elevate heart-rate monitor
  • GPS, Altimeter, Accelerometer
  • VO2 Max (blood oxygen)

For a small band, the Vivosport comes with a fair chunk of features. There’s the daily stuff – step tracking, sleep tracking, stairs climbed, calories burned, stress level – and the active stuff that you’ll need to actively engage with when commencing exercise (an auto mode is available, but it’s hit an miss in our experience).

Pressing-and-holding a finger on the screen will open the swipeable menu, the first graphic being for exercise. Tap this to open the various options, including walking, running, cycling, and more. Some of these will offer outside/inside options for GPS tracking, as relevant, which can sometimes take a little while to grab ahold of a signal – and until it does you can’t commence that exercise.

The Vivosport commences with a default set of goals that auto-adjusts based on your lifestyle. If you walk miles everyday then the 5,000 step goal will automatically increase without you needing to do anything. Or you can set a personal one – whether realistically achievable everyday or not – to give you some added drive.

For us, however, it’s the wider detail of what the Vivosport can do that’s most appealing. We’ve integrated it as part of a Garmin Edge 1030 Plus cycling computer setup – also with Vector 3 power pedals to measure cadence and power – to act as our heart-rate monitor. You’ll need to open a different menu to transmit such live data, but once synched you can let the band do the reading – which will display on the Edge’s screen should you want it to.

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Sure, wrist-based tracking is never going to be as accurate as a chest-based tracking product. But the fact the Vivosport can communicate with a high-end Garmin setup is good enough for us to get reasonably accurate comprehension of our heart-rate zones during cycling sessions. Sometimes it’ll drift off the mark and get stuck at 148bpm whilst we’re going flat out up a hill – knowing it’ll be over 170bpm in reality – but it soon catches back up.

Not only does it perform this real-time tracking, however, but the Vivosport also houses a blood oxygen monitor (VO2) which, in this context, has genuine use: because the Edge 1030 Plus will take a read at the beginning and end of a workout automatically it can assess how well you’re progressing based on previous sessions and advise on recovery time.

Outside of our cycling sessions we’ve been using the Vivosport to track weekend 5-mile walks, with the dedicated GPS tracking proving to be better than our phone-based Strava alternative (which, on some handsets, can time-out mid session). It paints an accurate picture of route, along with base/max/average heart-rate to give a real understanding of low intensity workouts.

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The heart-rate accuracy seems to be on point too – based on our count-it-out fingers-to-neck comparison – and it’s only really sleep tracking that’s a bit over-optimistic, as it’ll base sleep patterns on what you tell the watch and often it’ll think you’re asleep when you’re just being lazy in bed one morning. Still, seeing light/deep/REM sleep is kind of fascinating, whether or not it’s data that you’ll really need.

Oh, lastly, it’s worth pointing out the lack of swim tracking. Which seems like an oddity for a waterproof device that features an accelerometer. If you’re looking for a band to assist with triathlon training then you’ll need to look further afield to a more advanced (and pricier) watch product.

Performance

  • Up to 8 hours non-stop GPS tracking for exercise
  • Smart notifications (iOS & Android app)

For an always-on fitness tracker the Vivosport lasts for a pretty decent length of time too. Garmin quotes up to eight hours of use with GPS tracking, i.e. when engaged in exercise activity. But it’s much longer if you’re not tracking specific exercises.

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In our use that’s equated to charging the Vivosport every three days. In the meantime that provides daily tracking, including an hour of heart-rate data transmission via Bluetooth, an hour of GPS-tracking while walking in the evening, and overnight sleep tracking.



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By Britta O’Boyle
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Our guide to the top fitness trackers available, helping you count steps, track calories, monitor your heart rate, sleep patterns and more.

It does lead to the oddity of knowing when to charge, though, as we’ve ended up with it conking out at 5pm on a Wednesday, or warning of 10 per cent remaining at lunchtime. For us, really, it’s best plugged in overnight, abandoning the sleep tracking, to provide day in day out data without the sleep information.

Plugging it in, however, is based on a proprietary cable and fitting. Lose that cable and you’re stuffed as it’s like nothing else you’ll possess. The cable is also really short, which seems to be an oddity. We’d much rather have a charging cradle or mat instead to work with, which could always be plugged in bedside, with a backup direct charging port on the device itself.

Part of the longevity is down to the screen being dimmed the majority of the time. There’s little need to engage with the panel really, as the captured data is best presented through Garmin Connect – available for Apple iOS and Google Android, or via a web browser – in an easy-to-understand format.

You can engage with a calendar view, select specific exercise activities to gain greater understanding of your efforts, view bigger picture month-long summaries, or a comprehensive breakdown in My Day – which, as you probably guessed, collates all the data throughout a given day (from the Vivosport and other connected Garmin devices, as applicable).

Garmin Connect is best in app form, but can be accessed via a browser if you wish, and can also be setup to automatically push exercise data to third-party solutions, such as Strava. It’s a robust platform with enough flexibility to allow you to go light or dig deeper.

Verdict

The Garmin Vivosport is a small, comfortable-to-wear and capable fitness tracker that lasts a long time and avoids the over-complexity of a watch-like product.

We’d rather it had a non-proprietary cable for charging, the lack of swim tracking might seem odd for a waterproof device, while the small screen can be a little fiddly.

But the fact the Vivosport can communicate with our Gamin Edge cycling computer for comprehensive sessions and is always tracking our daily output in the interim has made it a daily driver with much wider appeal.

Sure, it might not be brand new – indeed it’s a couple of years old at the time of writing – but that’s an extra bonus in its appeal: as it’s available at some great price points right now (we found ours new for £69/$89).

Also consider

Pocket-lint

Fitbit Charge 4

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Perhaps the most obvious comparison, the lifestyle nature of its tracking features makes it an attractive wrist-wearable proposition for anyone looking to increase their activity and monitor their progress, with the new Active Zone Minutes being a lot more useful than step counting. 

  • Read our review
Pocket-lint

Garmin Forerunner 45

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Looking for something with a larger screen that’s a little more comprehensive as a result? Garmin’s affordable watch ought to be a good shout.

  • Read our review

Writing by Mike Lowe.

samsung-galaxy-z-fold-2-vs-xiaomi-mi-mix-fold-vs-huawei-mate-x2:-what’s-the-difference?

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 vs Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold vs Huawei Mate X2: What’s the difference?

(Pocket-lint) – Huawei’s second generation of its foldable smartphone comes in the form of the Mate X2, while Xiaomi’s foldable phone is called the Mi Mix Fold.

Both follow a similar design to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold series after Huawei changed the format of the folding device from its predecessor – the Mate X and Xs- moving from a foldable display on the outside, to an inward folding display. 

If you’re in the market for a vertically folding smartphone, here is how the Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold, Huawei Mate X2 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 compare.

Design

  • Mi Mix Fold: 173.3 x 133.4 x 7.6mm unfolded / 173.3 x 69.8mm x 17.2mm folded / 317g (Black) 332g (ceramic)
  • Mate X2: 161.8 x 145.8 x 4.4-8.2mm unfolded / 161.8 x 74.6 x 13.6-14.7mm folded / 295g
  • Z Fold 2: 159.2 x 128.2 x 6.9mm unfolded / 159.2 x 68 x 16.8mm folded / 282g

The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold has a vertical folding display in a book-style design, like the Huawei Mate X2 and Galaxy Z Fold 2. It comes with a glass or special edition ceramic back and there is a prominent camera housing in the top left corner. There’s a metal frame, large display and a single punch hole camera in the top right corner when folded.

When unfolded, the Mi Mix Fold has an 8.01-inch display and a precision based hinge. There is a small gap when folded though, like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2. It comes in Black or Special Edition Ceramic finishes.

The Huawei Mate X2 meanwhile, also features a vertical folding display. There’s a glass rear with a prominent rectangular camera housing in the top left corner, a metal frame and a full display with dual cut-out cameras on the front when folded. 

When unfolded, the Mate X2 has a large 8-inch screen. The hinge is multi-dimensional, creating a water dropped-shaped cavity for the display when the phone is folded, allowing for no gap at all when shut, resulting in a different design to the Mi Mix Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 2. There’s also a wedge-like design that is just 4.4mm at the slimmest point. It comes in White, Black, Crystal Blue and Crystal Pink colours.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 has a similar form to the Huawei Mate X2 and Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold in that it offers a vertical fold in a book-style design. It too has a glass rear, with a rectangular camera housing in the top left corner, as well as a metal frame. Like the Mi Mix Fold, it has a single, punch hole camera on the front when folded but it is centralised rather than positioned to the right.

When unfolded, the Galaxy Z Fold 2 has a slightly smaller 7.6-inch display than the Huawei Mate X2 and Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold. It’s hinge allows for multiple viewing angles but there is a slight gap at the fold of the device when folded. It comes in Mystic Bronze and Mystic Black colours.

Display

  • Mi Mix Fold: 8.01-inch unfolded, 6.5-inch folded, OLED, 90Hz refresh rate
  • Mate X2: 8-inch unfolded, 6.45-inch folded, 8-inch unfolded, OLED, 90Hz refresh rate
  • Z Fold 2: 7.6-inch unfolded, 6.23-inch folded, OLED, 120Hz refresh rate

The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold has a 6.5-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2520 x 840 resolution and a pixel density of 409ppi on the front when folded. It has a 27:9 screen ratio and a 90Hz refresh rate. There’s a punch hole camera in the top right, and the bezels are slightly larger than the Huawei and Samsung alternatives. 

When unfolded, the Mi Mix Fold has a 8.01-inch display WQHD+ resolution, 1 billion colours and a 4:3 aspect ratio. It has a 60Hz refresh rate.

The Huawei Mate X2 has a 6.45-inch OLED display with resolution of 2700 x 1160 and a pixel density of 456ppi on the front when folded, making it fractionally smaller than the Mi Mix Fold, though with slimmer bezels. It features a 21:9 aspect ratio and a 90Hz refresh rate. As mentioned above, the X2 has dual punch-hole front cameras in the top left of the display.

When unfolded, the Mate X2 has an 8-inch OLED display with a 2480 x 2200 resolution, which results in a pixel density of 413ppi. The unfolded display has a ratio of 8:7.1. It too has a 90Hz refresh rate.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 has a 6.23-inch external display, making it slightly smaller than the Mate X2 and Mi Mix Fold. It too is an AMOLED panel and it offers a resolution of 2260 x 816 pixels and an aspect ratio of 25:9. 

When unfolded, the Galaxy Z Fold 2 has an internal display of 7.6-inches – which is the smallest of the three devices being compared here. It’s Dynamic AMOLED and it has a 2208 x 1768 pixel resolution, resulting in a pixel density of 372ppi. It also has a 120Hz refresh rate and supports HDR10+.

Cameras

  • Mi Mix Fold: Triple rear camera (108MP + Liquid Lens 8MP + 13MP), 20MP front
  • Mate X2: Quad rear camera (50MP+16MP+12MP+8MP), 16MP front
  • Z Fold 2: Triple rear (12MP+12MP+12MP), 10MP front

The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold has three lenses on its rear, with a 108-megapixel main sensor with 2.1µm pixels and a 7P lens, along with a 13-megapixel ultra wide angle lens with a 123-degree field of view.

There is also an 8-megapixel liquid lens on the rear that uses the principle of human eye bionics and a special chip created by Xiaomi to change the radius of curvature of the spherical surface. It allows the one lens to cover two functions, enabling 3x optical zoom, up to 30x digital and a minimum focus distance of 3cm. The front camera on the Mix Mix Fold is a 20-megapixel snapper. 

The Huawei Mate X2 has a quad camera on the rear, which features Leica technology, like Huawei’s other flagship smartphones. The camera setup includes a 50-megapixel main sensor, 16-megapixel ultra-wide angle sensor, 12-megapixel telephoto sensor, and an 8-megapixel SuperZoom sensor.

The main sensor has a f/1.9 aperture and OIS, the Ultra-wide sensor has a f/2.2 aperture, the telephoto sensor has a f/2.4 aperture and OIS with 3x optical zoom, while the SuperZoom sensor has a f/4.4 aperture, OIS and 10x optical zoom. The front camera is 16-megapixels wide angle with a f/2.2 aperture.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 has a triple rear camera, comprised of a 12-megapixel main camera, 12-megapixel telephoto sensor and 12-megapixel Ultra-wide sensor.

The main camera has an f/1.6 aperture, dual pixel phase-detection autofocus and OIS, the telephoto lens has an aperture of f/2.4 and OIS and the ultra-wide sensor has an aperture of f/2.2. There is also a 10-megapixel front camera.

Hardware and specs

  • Mi Mix Fold: Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, 5G, 12/16GB RAM, 256/512GB storage, 5020mAh
  • Mate X2: Kirin 9000, 5G, 8GB RAM, 256/512GB storage, 4500mAh
  • Z Fold 2: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+, 5G, 12GB RAM, 256/512GB storage, 4500mAh

The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 chipset. It’s a 5G handset and it comes with 12GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage. The Special Edition Ceramic model has 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage though.

There’s a 5020mAh battery under its hood that supports Xiaomi’s 67W fast charging. The software is MIUI 12, based on Android 10 and there features like a one click option to close down things like GPS for security, as well as a Desktop Mode with a three-finger swipe.

The Huawei Mate X2 runs on Huawei’s own 5nm Kirin 9000 platform. It too is a 5G device. It is supported by 8GB of RAM and it comes in 256GB and 512GB storage variants.

It has a 4500mAh battery under the hood that supports Huawei’s 25W SuperCharge. Huawei’s own Harmony OS can be installed over the company’s usual EMUI interface running on top of Android.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 Plus chipset, supported by 12GB of RAM and it comes in 256GB and 512GB storage options.

There’s a 4500mAh battery running the Fold 2, which supports 25W wired charging, 11W wireless charging and 4.5W reverse wireless charging. It runs Android with Samsung’s One UI over the top and there are some great multi-tasking features that make great use of the screen when unfolded. 

Price

  • Mi Mix Fold: Equivalent of £1105/$1550, China
  • Mate X2: Equivalent of £1985/$2785, China
  • Z Fold 2: £1799, $1999

The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold costs RMB 9999, 10,999 or 12,999, starting at the equivalent of $1550 or £1105. It will be available in China from 15 April.

The Huawei Mate X2 costs RMB 17,999 or 18,999, starting at the equivalent of $2785 or £1985. It is available in China only for now. 

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 costs £1799 in the UK and $1999 in the US. 

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Conclusion

The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold and Huawei Mate X2 is only available in the Chinese market at the moment but while the Mate X2 is a little more expensive than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2, the M Mix Fold is cheaper.

On a spec-by-spec comparison, these three devices are similar and while the Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold tips the scales in several areas, the other two devices have their fair share of wins too.

The Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold has larger displays both interior and exterior than both the Huawei and Samsung. It also offers the most advanced Qualcomm chipset, the largest battery of the three devices, the fastest wired charging capabilities and it has an interesting camera setup with its liquid lens.

The Mate X2 arguably has a more streamlined design, an extra camera on the rear and a wide-angle front camera. It also has only fractionally smaller displays than the Mi Mix Fold.

The Galaxy Z Fold 2 has more RAM than the Mate X2 but the same as the Mi Mix Fold. It also has a higher refresh rate on the internal display though and it offers a more user-friendly software experience, as well as supporting Google services – the latter of which the Mate X2 does not offer. The Z Fold 2 has less cameras than Huawei but the triple rear camera does offer great results.

The Samsung is more widely available than both the Mate X2 and the Mi Mix Fold so while the Mi Mix 2 and Mate X2 might win on some specification areas, you’ll need to live in China to get your hands on them for now. It’s also worth remembering the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is tipped for a July 2021 launch.

Writing by Britta O’Boyle.

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Garmin Enduro review: Superior stamina

(Pocket-lint) – The Garmin Enduro is a brand new watch range with one goal in mind: to give the biggest battery life you’ll find on any multisports watch when you put GPS tracking to work. 

It’s also looking to appeal to endurance athletes offering that big battery in a lighter watch design than other battery powerhouses in its range – like the Garmin Fenix 6 and the Forerunner 945.

There’s some new features on the software front too, including as VO2 Max scores for trail running and an advanced ClimbPro feature that will now help you better strategise tackling hilly routes and courses.

That big battery life unsurprisingly comes with a big price tag though. So does the Enduro deliver the goods to make it worth spending on?

Design & Display

  • Weighs: 58g (titanium), 72g (stainless steel)
  • Measures: 51 x 51 x 14.9mm
  • 1.4-inch 280 x 280 display
  • Size options: 51mm only
  • 10ATM waterproofing

If you like small watches, then the Enduro is not for you. It’s got a 51mm case size to give it a stature similar to Garmin’s Fenix 6X and it’s the same thickness as the biggest model option in the latest Fenix range.

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You’ve got your pick of titanium and or stainless steel polymer cases – with the former offering a significantly lighter build to keep on your wrist day and night. It means it’s almost as light as Garmin’s Forerunner 945 watch.

It’s been partnered up with one of Garmin’s UltraFit nylon straps, both ends of which are adjustable with a Velcro strap to secure it in place. It’s interchangeable, so you can swap it for a range of different straps including leather, silicone or metal bands.  

Partnered up with the titanium case option, this nylon strap helps to make this big watch an easier one to live with when you’re tracking or just using it day in, day out.

In typical Garmin fashion, there’s an array of five physical buttons to navigate a display. This isn’t a touchscreen or full colour panel. Instead it’s a 1.4-inch, 280 x 280 transflective display, matching the one on the Fenix 6X for size and resolution. It’s nice and big, so it’s easy to see in all conditions with a backlight in tow for nighttime or early morning sessions.

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The neon ring around the display is an indication that Garmin’s Polar Glass lens is included, giving you solar charging powers to offer an additional battery boost. As a package, you’re getting a watch that’s been slapped with a 10ATM waterproof rating that does make it safe for a swim and leaving it on in the shower. Well, and the rest: 10ATM means it’s actually good for depths of 100m, so it could survive some diving too.

The Enduro gives off serious Fenix vibes, and while it’s definitely a bulky beast, grabbing it in titanium and pairing it up with a lighter feeling strap means you can enjoy that big screen without it weighing heavy on your wrist.

Fitness & Features

  • Built-in heart rate monitor
  • GPS, GLONASS, Galileo
  • Pulse oximeter sensor
  • 24/7 fitness tracking
  • Advanced ClimbPro
  • Trail VO2 Max

The Enduro gives you pretty much all you could want and most of what Garmin has to offer on the fitness, health monitoring and smartwatch front.

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All the key outdoor and indoor sensors are in place, including a barometric altimeter and its Pulse Ox blood oxygen saturation monitor – although the latter that will sap up battery life if you have it in use 24/7. You’ve also got the main satellite players covered and once the Enduro recognised our running terrain, it picked up a signal nice and quick. 

One surprising feature that doesn’t make the cut is topographic maps, which you will find on the Fenix 6 Pro series and the Forerunner 945. This feature has apparently been left out to preserve battery life and does still offer real-time breadcrumb navigation and the ability to upload routes to the watch. 

It seems like a strange one to not include on a watch built for spending a lot of time outdoors and we have to take Garmin’s word that it would have such a noticeable impact on its big battery numbers.

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As a fitness tracker, it’s a lot of what we’ve already seen on Garmin’s other watches. Features like adaptive step tracking and the inactivity ‘move bar’ are present, as is the sleep monitoring (which still can feel a little heavy handed on the amount of sleep it tracks and pales in comparison to Fitbit or Polar’s more reliable sleep tracking features).

When you switch to sports tracking mode, you’re getting pretty much everything you’d find on a Fenix 6 series watch. A multitude of sports modes covering core sports like running, swimming and cycling indoors and outdoors. There’s hiking, climbing, skiing and and a whole lot more besides.

Garmin has introduced a new ultra running mode that adds a rest timer to take in consideration of stopping at aid stations, cutting off the GPS, so you have a more accurate representation of your finish time. This is no longer unique to the Enduro, though, as Garmin has since rolled out the mode to its latest Fenix and Forerunner 945 watches.

It’s the same story with the new advanced ClimbPro and Trail VO2 Max. We’ll start with ClimbPro, which has been on Garmin watches for a while and is a feature designed with helping wearers to better strategise for hilly routes or races by giving a heads-up about big ascents. It’s a feature where you need to upload routes to the watch so it can give you that information in real time. Now it will also factor the descent and flat sections, giving you more information to form how you tackle the terrain.



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The other new feature is VO2 max for trail running, which is a feature unsurprisingly designed for spending time off-road and will factor in the more challenging terrain to generate a score to gauge of your current state of fitness. We ran with a Fenix 6 without that VO2 Max trail option and there was a 1-2 point score difference. Theoretically, it shouldn’t greatly differ, but if you spend more time on the trails than the road, it’s a nice little extra to have.

Other features of note including new mountain biking specific metrics, along with the ability to generate flow and grit measurements, to offer an insight into the level of difficulty of the trail you’ve been riding on.

Garmin has also included the heat and altitude acclimation and advanced training metrics introduced on its top-end Forerunner and Fenix watches. It’s also brought over its recovery advisor and suggested workouts features that debuted on the Forerunner 745 and are useful to have if you want to add structure to running or cycling or have a better idea of when you should take on a heavy training session or take a rest day.

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As a smartwatch, you don’t get a built-in music player here, which would be a noticeable drain on battery life based on our experiences with Garmin watches that do support it. You do still get notification support (for Android and iPhones), Garmin Pay for contactless payments, and access to Garmin’s Connect IQ Store to top-up on apps, watch faces, widgets and extra data fields.

Performance & Battery Life

  • 70 hours GPS battery life
  • 80 hours with solar power
  • Up to 65 days in smartwatch mode

Battery life is the headline draw of the Enduro and Garmin talks some pretty big numbers as for how far the Enduro is capable of going.

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In smartwatch mode, it will deliver up to 50 days or 65 days when you factor in solar charging. There’s some other impressive numbers like lasting a year in basic battery saver watch mode, or the 65-95 days in expedition GPS mode, when you choose to sacrifice some GPS accuracy.

It’s when you don’t sacrifice that GPS accuracy and opt for the most accurate tracking where the Enduro continues to impresses. Garmin states it can last 70 hours in full GPS mode or 80 hours with solar charging. We should clarify that those solar numbers are based on spending three hours a day outside and exposing the screen to 50,000 lux conditions. 

To put those numbers into context, Polar’s Grit X outdoor watch offers 40 hours in full GPS tracking mode, while the Coros Vertix outdoor watch goes bigger with 60 hours when putting that GPS to use.

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What we can say about those battery numbers in full GPS mode, is that they appear to hold up. A few hours of running saw the battery life drop by three per cent. That was a similar battery dent we saw with the Polar Grit X and the Coros Vertix.

At the time of writing this review we haven’t needed to touch the charger for about three weeks – and that’s when putting this watch to regularly GPS use, monitoring sleep, heart rate, and receiving smartphone notifications. That tells you everything about this watch performs. 

There’s very little battery drain in-between those tracking times too. On most days it was a couple of per cent – and that was with a tracked activity or two as well.

If you really feel the need to optimise the battery usage further, there’s also the Power Manager features that were introduced on the Fenix 6 to disable features that could be a drain on that battery.

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Outside of meeting those big battery claims, this operates much like the Garmin watches that sit around it. It performed well for tracking activities like running and trail running and the heart rate monitor held up for HIIT home workouts as well. Though to make the most of the heart rate based analytics and insights, we’d recommend grabbing a heart rate monitor chest strap to get more useful information.

Verdict

If you crave big battery life, then that’s exactly what the Enduro offers. It holds up well when GPS is in use and doesn’t horribly drain in-between those times either.

The lighter titanium version is comfortable to wear and the nylon strap helps to keep the weight down if every gramme matters.

Software extras are no longer unique to the Enduro and that missing topographic maps support is more disappointing than the lack of music features. 

The Enduro also doesn’t come cheap, but if having bucketloads of battery life and having most of the great features from the Fenix appeals to you, you might just break the bank for it.

Also consider

Pocket-lint

Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar 

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If you want maps, music and battery life that should still be good to last a big day out on your legs or bike, you can cast your eyes over at the Fenix Six with solar powers.

  • Read our review
Pocket-lint

Polar Grit X

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Polar’s first outdoor watch offers sizable battery life and some useful features like smart refuelling that will have endurance athlete appeal and you won’t find on the Enduro.

  • Read our review

Writing by Michael Sawh. Editing by Mike Lowe.