Amazfit Neo Product Review

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Image courtesy of Amazfit

This product was not provided to me by Amazfit and I have not been requested to make this review by the company. The opinions on this review are my own and I purchased the product with my own money.

I've been using the Amazfit Neo I purchased for almost two months now and had a lot of fun testing the watch out. It's a budget range watch from Amazfit which I was able to purchase for about $35USD off Ali Express.

I purchased the watch because I am thinking about upgrading my Amazfit Stratos 2 to a Stratos 3. I am still not 100% certain about the upgrade but I saw using the Neo as a way to get an in depth look at the health tracking and sleep tracking functionality that comes with the Neo. It seems pretty cool, but know a budget watch like this was not going to be as advanced as what a Stratos 3 would be providing.

The Neo is a retro styled fitness watch with some smart capabilities. The watch is basic but does a good job at providing the following functionality including:

  • Steps take each day
  • Distance travelled
  • Calories
  • Weather
  • Stopwatch
  • PAI
  • Heart rate
  • Battery life
  • Alarms
  • Do Not Disturb

Technical Specifications Listed Below


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Battery Life


The Neo is advertised as having a battery life of between 28 to 37 days depending on the functionality you are using. I am using it for about 15 hours of exercise with the enhanced sleep and health monitoring switched on. I am doing about 15 hours or activity using the watch and I am usually getting about 14 days of use from one charge. I know this is half the amount that is being advertised, but gives you so much more than most other smart watched on the market.

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Sleep And Health Tracking


I have the enhanced health tracking turned on, which means the watch will sense when I am starting to do activity and will gather my heart rate at a more frequent rate. This is really cool but I do wish the watch was able to sense what kind of activity I was doing as well when I started doing activity. I had a basic FitBit almost 5 years ago, which was able to precisely track what activity I was doing without the need for me to tell it, and it would be great for the Neo to do this.

The enhanced health tracking also enhances the sleep tracking which will also track REM sleep and track your overall sleep time better than the default settings. The sleep score provided can then let you compare against different nights sleep and also gives you a comparison against the general population.

The Neo as with newer Amazfit watches also has their PAI(Physiological Activity Indicator) which is an accumulated score from your heart rate, health tracking activity that gives you an overall indicator of health. I wasn't sure this would actually motivate me to exercise more, as Amazfit recommend trying to get your score over 100. Training 10 to 15 hours a week had my score well over 200, so I did try and push my score higher to try and see if I could reach 300. I actually sent the screenshot below to Amazfit telling them I should have gotten a phone call or email from the CEO one I attained this PAI.

The PAI is great as it does also correlate with a "Health Age" but I am not sure why they have not integrated this with blood oxygen monitoring or heart rate variability. From what I remember they have integration with First Beat in other products so unsure why this hasn't happened with the Neo.

I wish that is also did blood oxygen monitoring and not sure why they have not thought of adding Heart Rate Variability.

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Sports Tracking


Like I mentioned earlier, you do need to tell the watch when you are exercising, as it isn't able to tell on its own. GPS monitoring is also controlled from the mobile app, which is a little annoying. The watch is connected to the App all the time via blue tooth and it should really be able to be controlled from the watch without opening the smart phone app. I have also had the connection between the App and watch drop out during a ride or run. This means you are no longer getting notified by the watch on your activity time or distance traveled. Heart rate is still going back to the App from the watch, but not sure why it keeps getting disconnected.

Even though it is water proof to 50m, swimming is not a supported activity mode. I can understand why outdoor swimming is not supported, but indoor swimming is a basic functionality that is already available on other Amazfit watches so, again not sure why this is not provided on the Neo. I also found that switching between my Neo and Stratos 2 on the App was a little cumbersome, but I think this is more to do with the fact that the Stratos is nearly 3 years old now.

The step tracking is really good and gives you a good breakdown of distance traveled with your steps over the day, allowing you to set goals and reminders. I have used the watch on a treadmill quite a bit and the distance traveled is way shorter than what it should be and there is no way to calibrate this using the app.

Conclusion


So, summing up my experience with the Amazfit Neo?

What I liked:

  • The retro styling of the watch.
  • It's light bit still doesn't feel too cheap or tacky.
  • It is cheap, but still has a lot of functionality.
  • Battery life is shorter than predicted but still give me at least 14 days, which is huge compared to a lot of other watches on the market.

What I didn't like:

  • The screen when you are doing activities are not set up very well, so it is difficult to see your heart rate and distance traveled.
  • Why can't you start activity from the watch?
  • I wish switching between watches was more seamless.
  • I wish it was able to track all activities like swimming.

Honestly, there is only one way to explain this but the watch is kinda fun. The retro styling with the long battery life give you something different to the usual square smart watches out in the market place. I do hope there are a lot of extra functionality coming for the Neo, as I would love to see activity being able to be switched on from the watch, and it would also be great if First Beat heart rate tracking was also implemented, just like the Stratos does.

I think it's a great way to get an idea on what the Amazfit eco system delivers and also gives you a basic start in using a watch like this. I think a lot of people will probably want a lot more than what the Neo provides but hopefully the low price point will give them a reason to purchase.

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