I have an Amazfit smartwatch that gets charged by a simple USB cable with two pins that magnetically attaches to the back of the watch. When I was on vacation and forgot that cable I was able to make my own by cutting a USB cable and attaching the wires to the contacts of the watch with tape. That simplicity is hard to beat. And this watch is water resistant.

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albatrosstrophy 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

The battery is the single reason why I got the Amazfit. I use as a dumb health tracker and occasional GPS running. It easily lasts 4 weeks on a single charge. That's one less proprietary charging cable to bring on a trip.

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1dom 5 days ago | parent [-]

I've been dying to ask about this somewhere where I might get a really informed response:

What's the deal with Amazfit? I have an Amazfit GTR and it's been rock solid for a couple of years. Before that, I had an Amazfit Bip for a few years which was incredible. It did notification, GPS, heart rate tracking, always on display and battery life of 2 - 4 weeks. It did this years and years ago, when the best Android could do was 24 - 48 hours, and it did it for like £60 instead of £200. It still works too!

The Bip in particular seemed so ahead of what the average person expected from a smartwatch due to state of Android and Apple offerings at the time.

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danieldk 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Before that, I had an Amazfit Bip for a few years which was incredible. It did notification, GPS, heart rate tracking, always on display and battery life of 2 - 4 weeks. It did this years and years ago, when the best Android could do was 24 - 48 hours, and it did it for like £60 instead of £200. It still works too!

I don't know about Amazfit, but I have a Garmin that also lasts weeks. There are some differences: WearOS/WatchOS watches essentially use a more power-efficient/less powerful version of a smartphone-class SoC. They have to because they run a full Linux/XNU kernel and a pretty complete userland. Watches with weeks-long battery life typically use something that is more akin to a powerful microcontroller with operating systems tailored to such low-end hardware.

Besides that some watches (like several Garmin models) use transflective displays. They do not have to actively emit light during daytime (in contrast to OLED), sunlight is reflected. In contrast, OLED displays have to be more bright in sunlight to be visible.

	▲	1dom 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Watches with weeks-long battery life typically use something that is more akin to a powerful microcontroller with operating systems tailored to such low-end hardware. This is what I'd assumed. But then I also assumed that's actually an exceptionally expensive and high resource approach to take compared to using higher level smartphone chips. By using lower level hardware, they're having to do more bespoke hardware design, and more bespoke low-level firmware and software creation, and also support all of that extra creation. This seems like the super expensive, heavy, slow way of building a smartwatch. So I guess the "what's the deal" what's trying to understand how some random knockoff looking company ("Amazfit" in 2016) took the super expensive, heavy, slow way of building a smartwatch, and got better results than some of the largest most notorious software/hardware companies on the planet. Ultimately, they took the pebble approach, and pebble also got a huge amount of backing and extra funding, time, support etc. and seemed to commercially fail. But Amazfit is still going strong.

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hopelite 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Your question is “what is the deal with Amazfit?”

There is an implied question there, but you may want to get a bit more specific. The deal seems to be that you get a really good fitness watch for a fraction of the cost of Android and Apple offerings, if your statement and my first review of their website is accurate.

	▲	1dom 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> The deal seems to be that you get a really good fitness watch for a fraction of the cost of Android and Apple offerings Fair point, I elaborated a bit here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44854032 You're right in your assessment. My "what's the deal" was more asking "how did such a small unknown-to-me company do this with similar or better results to the worlds largest hardware/software companies (Apple/Google) in 2015/2016?" It sounds like they did it with even more specific and low level hardware and software, which makes it even more impressive. Like I said, my bip did GPS, bluetooth notifications, hardrate tracking and most of the other things an iWatch did, but it had 20x the battery life and cost 1/5 of the price. I find this an unbelievable achievement that I don't understand, and it's rarely talked about.

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RobotToaster 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The BIP used e-ink, it's a shame they stopped using that IMO.

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feistypharit 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I used to have a bip and loved it. The big thing was battery life and always on screen. It used a reflective LCD screen to do it. No newer amazefits use them.

I’ve since moved to using COROS watches. Not as cheap but really good. Always screen, weeks of battery. Even GPS functions are efficient . Recently did 11 hr hike with GPS and only used about 23% battery.

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johnyzee 5 days ago | parent [-]

I really want a smartwatch with proper always on screen (so memory LCD, like those COROS ones), but I also need LTE so I don't have to bring my phone on short errands. Unfortunately no such product currently exists for some reason.

The Apples, Galaxies and Pixels offer always-on, but they dim down a lot in order to not drain the power, which kind of defeats the purpose. A memory LCD screen on one of these watches would be perfect for me.

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thinkmassive 5 days ago | parent [-]

Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE launched four years ago, and it has LTE plus an always-on screen.

	▲	johnyzee 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		It has LTE but apparently does not support phone calls or SMS, without being paired to a phone. Close, but not quite there.

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fnands 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I had an Amazfit too a while back. Decent watch for the price, but battery life absolutely tanked after a year of use. Went from lasting days to lasting hours after one year.

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ofrzeta 5 days ago | parent [-]

That's strange. I have mine for several years now (I think three) and it still goes at least a week without charging. I can't imagine having to charge my watch ever day.

	▲	ccozan 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I can confirm. Almost 3 years with an GTR 3 and I get 10-14 days, depeding if I do outside activities where GPS draws a bit more then normal. Rock solid and waterproof ( perfect for swimming! )

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__rito__ 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I like Amazfit because it can fully function without sending any data whatsoever to a server. I can export data from the app very easily.

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teekert 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

You mean with GadgetBridge and Android right? The official app does not have nice conditions when I last read through it. Note that I couldn’t find the 1 month battery mode anymore. Just the pro which sadly has a normal lcd screen and max 1 week battery.

	▲	easyKL 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'm sure this is what commenter meant. GadgetBridge even works without the need of accessing the internet, and open source app that gets regular updates and has a nightly build available. I get my wearables and others from their list of supported devices https://gadgetbridge.org/gadgets/

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mac-attack 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I use amazfit w/ gadgetbridge as well

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berkes 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Those proprietary cables are terrible.

USB (abc, micro etc) are everywhere. Any house, hotel, office, glove box, has some lying around.

But when I forgot my Fitbit charger, I couldn't get one anywhere. The only option was a large electronics store where I could buy an entire new Fitbit. I didn't shove out €200 just to get hold of a charging cable.

The EU should quickly impose rules on waterproof chargers like they did with USB chargers. It will settle worldwide just as fast as the USB enforced standard.

	▲	RandomBacon 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Depending on your Fitbit, it can be charged by a Google Pixel Watch 2 or 3 charging cable.

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jkkola 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have one too and I swear by it, but let's face it - it's not £16. But thanks for the tip about the cable!

	▲	ofrzeta 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's not £16 but I got mine (GTS 2 mini) when there was some kind of sale in a huge online warehouse for around 50 Euros. Since then I tried in vain to find it again for that price, until recently someone sold a bunch of new ones on eBay for around 45 Euros. So now I got my spare one in a drawer :) The £16 got no GPS, too.

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chneu 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You can recharge Garmin watches the same way. I've had to do it a few times.