Product review: ANCwear Smart Watch Phone

Visually this is not an attractive watch - it has a plastic band and plastic back, but it has a beautiful screen that is crisp and easy to read and that responds well to touch. It is fairly large: 1 1/2" x 1 7/8" and 1/4" thick.

The biggest problem with the watch is that its QR code takes you to Chinese web sight to download the app for connecting your phone to the watch. Don't do that. I am a software engineer with a lot of experience in web security - this is not safe. Only download apps from safe app stores such as GooglePlay, Amazon store, iTunes.

I found an app in GooglePlay "BT notifications" that makes some (but not all) functions work.

BT notifications app
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"BT notifications" allow you to forward calls from the phone to the watch as well place calls from the watch. It sounds pretty good - fairy loud and clear. There are three apps in GooglePlay with the same name all from Chinese companies, I picked the one with the highest rating. To start using the app locate the camera in the phone's Bluetooth connections. The watch appears as NX9. When you connect the watch prompts to confirm the connection. Then the watch prompts you if you want to sync time and when you say yes it does. This apps works well. It has access to your contact list via Bluetooth. It does not download it locally unless you use an option to save a contact to the watch's memory. If you don't save the contacts to the watch and uninstall "BT notifications" there is no personal information left on the watch (good security feature when it will come time to discard the watch).

I wanted an application that does more than notification and tried Fundo Wear app, that works with many smart watches as it uses a standard communication protocol.

Fundo Wear app
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Fundo Wear is used to sync data between the phone and the watch. This app does not work fully with the watch. It can connect, I can control the phone's camera, set time, but the step information does not appear on the phone.

Operation with out the apps
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Even without fully functional syning app the watch is usable. The watch shows time. Pedometer shows the step count, sedentary reminder alerts you if you sit for too long, calculator works well with a touch screen, you also have a calendar and a voice memo recorder.

The pedometer appears to be reasonably accurate. It has an issue that it uses metric units (it shows the distance in meters) and I have not found any way to change the units. However, I mostly care about the step count so this is not a huge problem for me. I am missing seeing the data on my smart phone, but not enough to sacrifice security of my entire network by downloading untrusted app that might work better.

There is one more feature that I really like. This watch can be recharged using a regular micro USB connector. This is much better than a propriety connector I have seen in other smart watches.

Overall, this is watch has a number of flaws and a couple of nice features.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★☆☆☆

Product review: Bounabay Men's Skeleton Automatic Mechanical Wrist Watches with Leather Band

This watch comes in a very plain packaging, just a plastic bag and some bubble wrap.  But what it lacks in presentation it makes up how catchy the watch itself looks. Most of the watch face and back is glass  which reveal the gears of the mechanical watch. Yes, the background of fears makes it a little more difficult to read the time, but chances are if you like mechanical watches this is not a problem.  My husband likes mechanical watches and he loves seeing all the gears moving.

This watch shows only time (no date or any other features).  It does have have three hands, showing seconds as well as hours and minutes.

The band is made out of real leather and fits wrists from 6 1/2" (first hole) to 7 3/4" (last hole).

The face is 1.3" wide, the watch os 0.5" thick.

The watch runs on a combination of manual winding and self winding from the arm swinging. On one full manual rewind (plus whatever little help the watch gets from self-winding). To see how long it would run one full wind my husband wound it on Saturday, did not wind it again and just wore during his regular days until it stopped on Tuesday.  My husband has a desk job, so he does not move his arm too much. Someone who does a lot of activity during the day will get more benefit from the self-winding mechanism.

I received this watch for evaluation and review.  Overall, this is a very attractive mechanical watch.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Product review: Lemfo Bluetooth Smart Watch Phone GSM Pedometer Fitness Tracker

There are a number of things about this watch that I like and a number of things that I do not like. I will try to go through pluses and minuses systematically.

PROS:

1. Easy to read screen - bright colors, large numbers and letters
2. Touch screen - touch screen makes the user interface more intuitive
3. A large number of applications pre-installed on the phone
4. The app that controls the app is available from GoogPlay (no request to load the app directly from untrusted manufacture's web site)
5. Two options for user interface: "Smart" user interface which has one screen with all the apps is the default but is optional. With all apps one screen it is hard to pick the right one even with my small fingers. However, this interface can be changed to 4 per page which is easy to select and get what you want

CONS:
1. "Smart" interface is not good. Even with my small fingers I often touch something else and a wrong app starts executing
2. The pedometer does not seem to be accurate, it does not detect all steps and shows a lower number when compared to another pedometer and just counting a small number of steps out-loud for test purposes
3. The app on the phone has a lot of rough edges, it is not untuitive to use, and needs more work
4. The synch with my phone does not work (I tried on Nexus 5 and Nexus 6p)
5. I was not able to change the face of the watch. I do not like the looks of the default face.
6. The level of the battery is not easy to tell
6. The battery of the watch ran out of juice in 2.5 days. My other watch with similar colorful face and touch screen runs 5 days without needing a recharge. The other has watch face which include battery level - a very good feature which this watch does not have.
7. Every time I use the band I wish I had three hands. I find it fairly difficult to put on and remove.
8. The button cover of the watch (towards my hands) pops off accidentally when I don't expect it.
9. Information is displayed in metric units
10. The charging port has a proprietary connector. If you lose it you will not be able to recharge the watch.

I received this watch for evaluation and review. Getting a free product does not influence what I say, I honestly describe pluses and minuses of every product I review. This watch still needs work to bring in on par with the best of the breed.


You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★☆☆☆

Product review: BSTPOWER Activity Fitness Tracker Smart Wristband Bracelet Bluethooth

There are many things about this wrist tracker than I like, however it is not perfect. I like having the information it shows right on the wrist, I much prefer it to the trackers that only collect and require you to look at the smart watch to show the collected information. However, the display show so many things on one screen that they are hard to read. There are some things in the display that I don't need to see all the time, it would have nice if I could remove them and what is left could be displayed in a larger font.

The app shows the same info as the watch, but also provides historical information for the day, week, and month. It also has social features that allow you to share the stats for those who are interested in doing so.

The watch displays 11 different stats :
The display shows:
~ time
~ steps
~ calories
~ heart rate
~ wrist humidity
~ barometric pressure
~ millage
~ sleep time
~ wrist temperature
~ wrist skin temperature
~ period date reminder

The pedometer appears to be reasonably accurate. The band is comfortable. It is 7/8" wide. The size of the display is 3/4" x 7/8". The font size is slightly smaller than 1/8". The screen has a back light activated by a button below the display.

Another strong point of the watch is the battery life. The display is black and white and is very efficient. I recharge the watch once a week. It take 2 hours to fully charge the battery. I have been using the watch for 3 weeks. The first time I fully charged it and let it run until the battery was exhausted and that took 9+ day.

The charging port is on the side of the watch, and the first time it is a little difficult to open. The port cover swings open to the side (shown in my video).

The default measurements are metric (the watch is made in China and they use metric measures). Even though there is an options under Settings to switch to British measure units the information is displayed in kilometers anyway. I also could not find a way to change the temperature from Celsius to Fahrenheit.

I am using the watch with Android OS. I had no problems connecting via Bluetooth or synching the information.

Overall, I am pleased and I hope the issue with the metric units gets fixed on the future app update.
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★☆