Original Coupon Deal pretty sure not $280 off current price but pretty competitive for waterproof smart watch with nfc, hr and gps. I’m not an Android ware fan but I’m sure this will help someone.
I linked this one as I think it’s a nice looking watch but plenty of other models at same price:
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/collections/misfit-vapor-2-smart-w…
yes, on youtube.
I have one. It looks really nice and the watch faces are sleek. However performance is a problem - it's so slow to respond. Battery drains within a day as well or less. I also have a Skagen Falster 2 and for some reason, Falster 2 is a lot more snappy than Vapor 2 even if they have the same processor. Probably since Vapor has a bigger screen which uses more CPU power.
I have this watch. Wouldn't recommend buying one.
All the Fossil Gen 4's (Falster 2, Fossil Explorist HR, Vapor 2 etc) only have a 45Hz screen - so the lag you see on 512MB RAM devices is accentuated even more. The screen does go quite choppy when swiping, because the OS is rendered at 60Hz and the screen isn't capable of keeping up, with the bottlenecked RAM.
Add to that, the lack of optimisation by Misfit for the watchfaces and you have lag central.
Still it's a wearOS watch for under a hundred bucks and isn't made of plastic. Been looking out since the OG LG G watch was 99 bucks and never seen one this cheap. Not everyone is unhappy with their fossil gen 4.
I got the gen4 explorist for 150 but hadn't started using it yet,if this is identical I might pick this up and offload the explorist (although the grey looks nicer)
@Jackson: True but I've also had the Explorist HR as well and the Gen 4s are the only ones that made me want to tear my hair out. I've currently got seven WearOS watches and pretty much cycle thru all the generations.
That being said, if that lag don't bother you and the price is decent on this watch as you say. Just for folks to be aware of what they may potentially get themselves into.
I wasn’t aware this watch was the same as the Fossil Gen 4, thanks for pointing that out. I bought a Gen 4 recently and returned it, really can’t recommend it to anyone.
“Standalone music player” only works with Google Play Music (not Spotify) and even if you download music it lags and skips during playback.
Forgot about untethered GPS for activity tracking, it will drain the battery completely in about 2 hours, especially if playing music in the background. I was hoping on using the watch to listen to music and track walks without taking my phone, but given the above it can’t be used for this purpose.
The real kicker is the lag on the UI. Every interaction leaves you waiting and staring at your wrist like a dork waiting for the watch to respond, and that is if the action hasn’t already taken so long that the screen timeout has kicked in. Most interactions don’t have a busy indicator or progress bar, the screen just goes blank so you are left with no idea what is going on.
A potentially cool feature is the ability to mirror Google Maps navigation from your phone (e.g, for directions while cycling), but given the tiny screen and UI lag it is pretty much unusable.
Heart rate sensor is sometimes completely erratic. If you click the widget for an “on demand” heart rate reading the screen will often timeout and switch off before the reading is obtained.
TLDR; It seems like a good deal but make sure your expectations are set right before purchasing. The only thing this watch is really good for is tracking your steps throughout the day and checking notifications.
I also forgot to mention that NFC payments fail most of the time too. Out of about the 10 payments I tried, only 2 were successful.
It's the RAM. RAM has a huge impact on the speed of WearOS. Anything with 1GB will feel way faster. It's one of those things, when you've used a watch with 1GB of memory vs the 512MB you can never go back to 512.
True and even the 768Mb ram watches worked well with minimal lag like the 1GB RAM ones.
It is a perfect shit-storm of factors though as I have a few 512mb watches such as Ticwatch S2 and Movado Connect, and those are quite zippy compared to Gen 4s. This comes down to their own optimisations and making their watchfaces quite optimised as well, to reduce the lag.
Any recommendations for watches with minimum 768mb, hr and waterproof?
Ive been meaning to replace my vivoactive hr and the lag on this thing hhas become the norm for me
@dsp26: I think the Ticwatch C2 plus - they just released a 1GB update may fit the bill of what you're after and Ticwatch is generally quite well priced. It's IP68 rated, not sure if that meets your needs, but by all accounts seems to be a real nice watch.
@bunnybash: Thanks just looked into it and saw the Pro also.. and past deals here that didn't seem to take off.. they look real well spec'd contrary to the "cheap chinese" sentiment here:
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/540590
Now have to wait and see if the store rep comes back with a deal
Works with iPhones but more limited functionality and from the Android ware watches I’ve owned the connection can be a bit dodgy with iPhones. review for vapor 2 https://www.wareable.com/android-wear/misfit-vapor-2-review-…
I’d recommend for android phones only.
+1, Mi Bands work better on iPhones than Android Wear. Simply unusable.
JB HIFI reviews are not very promising
All reviews say looks great but battery life is charge twice per day :(
Once per day here.
So it's similar to an iWatch in term of battery then
Apple Watch doesn’t need to be charged twice a day.
thats definitely a deal breaker for me
reviews are all pretty negative. probably not worth getting
11 months ago at 250$ already people complaining… Please… Save your $94
Review on ProductReview.com.au too.
It's an okay watch. There is a lag. My first WearOS so can't compare. Charge it once daily. Looks good, big screen (The larger version has a larger battery)
Can you turn off GPS and heart rate monitoring to get more battery life? I would like the smart features like notifications/nfc but I'm not interested in the sports stuff.
U might be able to my disabling the sensor permissions.
Seems like you can, this person has had encouraging results on XDA. Makes me somewhat tempted but still not sure how much better it will be.
Is it WearOS so I can pay for things with it; like a boss?
Looks like the Fossil Q Venture Gen 2
At this price Huawei watch gt is your best bet, doesn't have Android wear but has enough functions and 7 day battery life
That does sound better, any idea where you could get one for around $95? Thanks
I think lowest price was in the 120 to 130 range
Around 120 on Amazon. Cheaper for the smaller version
or a BIP S
Huawei gt is a pretty decent smart watch for its price.
Great battery life. Lasts me over a week for everyday wear with 2 jogs totalling around 20kms.
Also get my phone notifications.
Any suggestions as to the best cheapo Smart watch if all I want is notifications, step counter and long battery life? Not sure if there are really any other things I should be looking for…don't need HR for instance, HFC for Google pay would be handy but not essential(something minimalist) - I run android (Redmi note 8).
If you can live without NFC pay function then the Amazfit Bip gets like 30-40 days battery life. I had one for a year and it was great, I upgraded to a Garmin Vivoactive 3 because I got in to running and its a watch with the next longest battery life but has better fitness tracking.
Thanks for the suggestion. Any idea what this would Do compared to something like a Xiaomi mi band 4/5?
Maybe you could consider a hybrid such as fossil with up to 1 yr battery https://www.fossil.com/en-au/products/hybrid-smartwatch-comm…
Was hoping for something under $100 but that's pretty cool
I have a fossil hybrid watch and I love it. Looks really sleek. I was never too concerned with how much functionality it has though, basically only smart feature I use on it is just to get a little vibration alert when I get a notification on my phone, and it's really great for that.
I think the battery lasted nearly a year.
@matictac: So do a it actually allow you to read the SMS or email or just alerts you? I want to avoid getting my phone out of my pocket as much as possible
@JuryWheel: No you still need to look at your phone.
On the Fossil Hybrid I have you basically set a app to an hour (12, 3, 7 etc), and the hands move to that hour for like 10 seconds or so when that app gets a notification. Otherwise it's just a totally standard watch face.
So it's not all that smart at all, but does the job for me. :)
Lol 'all day' battery life.
Any ideas on the best smart watch for my 85 year old Dad who needs good heart rate monitoring,and NFC pay function ?
apple watch
Android wear and samsung Gear are miles behind.
My Samsung galaxy active 2 is really good. 2 days battery life, good heart rate sensor, zero lag performance, good activity tracking, nfc payment works all the time, no complaint and regret after 6 months.
On a lighter note, you would think they would choose a better name than "Misfit" for a watch 😂
Picked one up this morning and am quite happy with it. On track to get at least a day out of the battery with AOD (even after a software update on batt) and performance seems fine outside of launching Google Assistant which takes a couple of seconds. Looks and feels very premium!
Which one you get?
41mm black (silicone band). I have small (not tiny) wrists and it looks great - slightly big if anything.
Good to hear, I had the 44mm and bought this because I felt it was a bit big, so good to hear the battery is decent as somewhere above it was mentioned the 44 has a bigger battery
@Jackson: Only a 10% larger battery in the 46 (330 vs 300mAh), but the 46mm has a 1.4 vs 1.2" display which will take up some of that extra capacity.
Update: 11 hours on battery and still at 25%. Started on full charge and did a full software update (took ~15+ minutes), installed a few apps and AOD the entire time using the Google Fit watch face. So I'd expect to comfortably get a day with AOD with headroom (to cover some battery degradation).
The battery is inevitably going to wear out charging everyday though, but the 2-year warranty should cover that.
Haven't noticed any frustrating slowdowns yet as far as notifications/responding to them, so I'm impressed.
Performance and battery life are far off my Galaxy Watch active (gen 1) though, as with most Wear OS watches (especially with this having an older chipset and 512MB RAM).
Got this today. Can confirm it's very slow and can be frustrating to use when its downloading things in the background. However took it for a run with my garmin on the other wrist; distance, pace and HR were all pretty much spot on and I'm impressed with the fitness accuracy.
Thanks for the post. Picked up yesterday, its my 1st smart watch. Looks good. Only issue is that could not use with Huevai health app as its not listed.
I've been using this watch for a couple of weeks and it is good value for $100. My quick thoughts:
I agree with all those and I've had the watch for a few weeks also.
What I can add is:
-personally has no lag with assistant really except for the first time using it once watch has been on. Well that's not entirely true there is generally 1-1.5 seconds of lag but it's bearable.
-i find general lag about the same, actually quite good for what it is but probably not as fast as the more premium or better watches
-watch is literally unstable for first 5 mins while booting up. It at least displays the time during this so that's okay
-only really usable for watch + notifications and light app usage. Using fitness tracking even for half an hour is guaranteed to suck at least 30% (Google fit and for strength training/ walking is what I've used it with)
-overall VERY premium design (depending on which model you get. I have the smaller size one - 41mm I believe in all gold with gold metal band and I'm still impressed by it every time I look down at it)
-im also using elements digital I believe (if that's the analog one with the next appointment complication under the middle one.
TLDR: verdict is very premium and nice business dress watch, but don't expect it to be super usable for all the smart features. Good for notifications and weather etc.
Any reviews? Is it compatible with iPhones?