There’s loads of alternative in case you are searching for a smartwatch for health monitoring priced at or under Rs. 15,000. Whereas most smartwatches and health trackers at this value degree will not supply Google’s Put on OS ecosystem, you’ll find merchandise that ship a variety of worth by way of {hardware}, options, and extra importantly, battery life.
With that in thoughts, Amazfit’s GTS 3 is a really succesful health tracker. There is a new show, new software program, a refreshed design, and a digital crown for navigation, however all of those appear to have come at a price. The tiny bounce in battery capability signifies that this mannequin is positioned under the GTR 3 and GTR 3 Professional. The GTS 3 additionally lacks Bluetooth calling and inside storage, which have been accessible on the GTS 2 (Review). Contemplating these minor updates and the lacking options, do you have to select the Amazfit GTS 3, or are there higher health trackers at this value?
The Amazfit GTS 3 incorporates a 42mm watch case that is product of aluminium alloy
Amazfit GTS 3 value in India
The Amazfit GTS 3 is priced at Rs. 13,999 in India. It is accessible in a single model, and has no user-accessible inside storage. There are three finishes to select from: Graphite Black, Ivory White, and Terra Rosa. I obtained a Terra Rosa GTS 3 unit for evaluation. It comes with a silicon strap and a magnetic charging base within the field.
Amazfit GTS 3 design and specs
The Amazfit GTS 3 appears similar to the GTS 2. The only pusher on the correct facet of the GTS 2 has now been upgraded to a navigation crown, which can be utilized as a house button when pressed and launched shortly, and exhibits you a listing of apps with a second press. Its major function is to allow you to scroll by lists and pages, and it generates haptic suggestions as you do this. Lengthy-pressing the crown allows you to entry any operate of your selecting. I set it to tug up Amazon Alexa’s voice interface.
The navigation crown supplies haptic suggestions whereas scrolling by lists
The navigation crown works very like the one on Apple Watches, however it’s not as refined from a software program perspective. Twisting the crown with the watch unlocked ends in haptic suggestions with the linear vibration motor, however this feels extra like vibrations than mechanical clicks. Scrolling feels responsive, however the crown may be very delicate, which makes it a bit annoying to scroll to a precise merchandise in a listing or a web page in an app. There’s at all times a little bit of adjustment required to succeed in a spot. Because the UI doesn’t have a variety system or a spotlight to point out chosen gadgets in a listing or in an app, you need to take your finger off the crown and faucet on the show to pick one thing, which I discovered counterintuitive. After just a few days of use, I ended up utilizing the touchscreen show for navigation more often than not, as all apps and capabilities work effectively with gestures. You’ll solely actually need the navigation crown to entry the record of apps if you end up on the watch face.
The Amazfit GTS 3 incorporates a 1.75-inch OLED show with a decision of 390×450 pixels. It has a slim bezel throughout. The entrance glass is tempered for cover and likewise has an anti-fingerprint coating, which labored effectively all through the evaluation interval.
The smartwatch comes with a silicon strap which is sort of comfy
The 42mm watch case is rectangular with rounded corners and is product of aluminium alloy. At simply 24.4g (with out straps) it feels very gentle and nearly like a sensible band. The gadget is water resistant as much as 5ATM, so it is possible for you to to take it for a swim. There is no such thing as a speaker however you do get a mic that can be utilized for voice instructions for the built-in voice assistant or Amazon’s Alexa.
The underside of the case is product of plastic and has the sensors for coronary heart price and SpO2 monitoring. Above and under them are two metallic contacts that hook up with the magnetic charging base. The watch comes with a silicon strap that may be connected and eliminated simply with quick-release pins. The strap feels tender and has a traditional pin buckle that remained safe and by no means got here off unintentionally through the evaluation interval. I had no hassle carrying the GTS 3 all day and even sleeping whereas carrying it.
The Amazfit GTS 3 communicates with its cellphone app, referred to as Zepp, through Bluetooth. The watch doesn’t have built-in Wi-Fi so it can’t straight hook up with the Web. There is no native storage like on the GTS 2, so storing music on the watch will not be doable. Due to its slim total design (8.8mm thick), Amazfit engineers solely managed to squeeze in a 250mAh battery. That is nonetheless a minor improve over the 246mAh battery on the GTS 2, however it’s solely near half the capacities that the GTR 3 and the GTR 3 Professional fashions have.
Amazfit GTS 3 software program
Amazfit, with its new GTS 3 and GTR 3 fashions, has upgraded to a brand new software program platform referred to as Zepp OS. It is a customized working system and communicates with the Zepp app on an Android or iOS smartphone. I examined the GTS 3 with a Google Pixel 4a, and proper off the bat, I observed that I used to be not capable of obtain any app notifications. The answer was to show off battery optimisations for the Zepp companion app. This mainly makes the Zepp app stay in reminiscence and run within the background indefinitely (good or dangerous, you determine). Put up this, I needed to choose all of the apps I wished to obtain notifications from, after which I used to be good to go.
The underside of the case is product of plastic and has two metallic contacts for charging along with the well being monitoring sensors
The UI is sort of fundamental, and navigating by it on the GTS 3 is pretty straightforward to know. From the watch face, you’ll be able to swipe proper to open Shortcut Playing cards, swipe left to entry preselected widgets (which Amazfit calls Fast Entry Apps), swipe as much as see your notifications, and swipe right down to entry essential settings. There are buttons right here to allow you to shortly toggle DND and Theatre modes, modify the show brightness, and extra.
The Shortcut Playing cards part is a customisable record of apps that present related data and actions. I may work together with these, for instance to take a fast coronary heart price studying or look by a climate forecast. A faucet on each will open its respective app. The Fast Entry Apps (or widgets) then again relay data from the built-in apps in a visually interesting method. Certainly, each these sections ended up exhibiting the identical data in several methods, so selecting which approach to go from the watch face is principally about the way you wish to view such data.
There are many built-in apps, and Amazfit has an App Retailer within the Zepp companion app that allows you to obtain some extra mini apps. These vary from extraordinarily helpful, such because the Watch Storage Area app, to one thing as ineffective because the Brush Tooth app that tells you tips on how to brush your enamel. The apps on this mini retailer do not come from third-party builders, so all of them look constant and stick with the general design and theme of the Zepp OS interface.
The watch does have a little bit of inside storage, however it’s not accessible to the person
The Storage Area app let me know that I had about 3GB of inside storage, of which I had used about 784MB after two weeks. It’s kind of odd that Amazfit doesn’t let customers do something with the opposite 2GB of native storage, akin to storing music.
The watch has two voice assistants. There’s one that’s developed by Amazfit and the opposite which is by Amazon. Amazfit’s personal voice assistant works offline (and is even referred to as Offline Voice Management) however may be very restricted by way of capabilities and requires very particular instructions. More often than not it opened the improper app as a result of it couldn’t perceive my instructions appropriately. In distinction, Amazon’s Alexa is lots smarter, however must be related to the web to function.
Positives apart, there are some things that I didn’t like in regards to the Amazfit GTS 3. The built-in watch faces (and people from the Zepp retailer) do present problems (information from apps) and even allow you to customise what information you wish to see in them. Nevertheless, tapping on these problems won’t take you to their respective apps. Clearing notifications from the notifications tray will not be a very good expertise. As a substitute of having the ability to merely swipe away a specific notification, I needed to open each, faucet on a delete button (situated on the finish of the message), after which swipe proper to get again to the notifications tray. This needs to be completed for every notification individually. Notifications from some apps akin to WhatsApp don’t present up with an icon, so it is onerous to inform which app or service they got here from.
The Amazfit GTS 3’s Zepp OS interface is pretty fundamental and straightforward to know
There are different fundamental UI flaws too, like the shortcoming to shortly entry instruments or apps which can be lively within the background. For instance, if I begin the stopwatch after which view a notification or open one other app, I’ve to return again to the watch face, press the crown to point out the app drawer, scroll right down to the stopwatch app, open it, after which hit cease. An identical drawback happens when a exercise is lively – all different capabilities of the watch stay blocked (save for the drop-down notifications shade and music controls). You must end a exercise with a purpose to entry different capabilities or instruments. Whereas this does not matter in case you are in the midst of an intense exercise session, I couldn’t entry the watch throughout my day by day stroll or whereas jogging, forcing me to tug out my cellphone.
Amazfit GTS 3 efficiency and battery life
The entire OS seems to run easily, which makes it fairly responsive, whether or not you’re interacting with it utilizing the navigation crown or the touchscreen. The AMOLED show received fairly vibrant even in direct daylight, and the black background that is all around the UI helps textual content and graphics stand out.
For those who do purchase an Amazfit GTS 3, do keep in mind to replace it to the most recent software program model (7.23.5.2 on the time of this evaluation), which ran easily and was largely bug-free, in comparison with the expertise I had with the software program that it got here with out of the field.
Sleep monitoring on the Amazfit GTS 3 was removed from correct
A lot of the health monitoring options have been fairly correct, save for sleep monitoring. The SpO2 studying was spot on compared that of to a blood oximeter, and the watch was additionally fairly fast to take measurements and show a studying. Coronary heart price readings have been additionally fairly correct. There is a good One-tap Measuring function that conducts a lot of assessments in a single go. This takes about 45 seconds, so you’ll have to stay immobile for that lengthy.
As for exercises, step monitoring was impressively correct. I counted 1,000 steps manually throughout my day by day stroll and the watch confirmed precisely 1,000 steps. This was with 2D monitoring switched on; there’s additionally a 3D monitoring mode that takes elevation into consideration. GPS monitoring was additionally nearly good, though my route had a variety of bushes and loads of buildings.
Whereas many of the monitoring options have been on level, sleep monitoring was not. There are a few floor guidelines you want to bear in mind when studying sleep information. Daytime naps of lower than 20 minutes don’t get recorded. Sleep time between 10:00pm and eight:00am will solely be counted as night time sleep, together with quick naps.
I wore the watch to mattress for just a few nights and located that it was inaccurate for probably the most half, apart from cases once I awakened through the night time, which it detected precisely. The GTS 3 for some motive determined that I used to be in a lightweight sleep state from 9:00pm to once I truly referred to as it a day and shut my eyes at 12:30am. It even marked me as awake for a very good 45 minutes earlier than deep sleep and REM sleep started. My greatest guess is that it assumed that I used to be asleep when mendacity comparatively immobile whereas watching motion pictures. Regardless, it was nonetheless inaccurate.
Notifications from some apps akin to WhatsApp don’t present up with an icon
As for the Amazfit GTS 3’s 250mAh battery, I examined this in two methods. With the All the time-On Show (AOD) enabled plus common coronary heart price, blood O2, and stress monitoring, all notifications switched on, and sleep monitoring with theatre mode turned on at night time, this gadget lasted 3 days on a single cost. With no auto monitoring of any kind turned on, AOD switched off, and with all notifications enabled, a full cost stretched for about 5 days. Whereas these numbers do sound spectacular in comparison with an Apple Watch or a WearOS gadget which must be charged each night time, Amazfit’s GTR 3 (which is priced the identical because the GTS 3) and GTR 3 Professional (priced greater) have a lot greater batteries and will final lots longer. As for charging, the watch touched 53 % in half-hour and took about 1 hour and 19 minutes to get to one hundred pc, which isn’t dangerous.
Verdict
The Amazfit GTS 3 is a minor replace over the GTS 2 (Review), and is okay in case you are available in the market for a slim smartwatch that weighs solely as a lot as a health band. Zepp OS is a clean and fluid expertise (with just a few bugs), however the digital crown may be very restricted by way of operate. Health and well being monitoring is sort of good save for sleep monitoring, which was simply not up to speed. There is no native storage (for music information or Bluetooth calling like on the GTS 2, which some may discover to be a deal breaker. Briefly, should you personal a GTS 2 (which at present retails at Rs. 11,999) there isn’t any motive to improve to the GTS 3.
If you’re searching for a budget-friendly smartwatch, there are a number of choices to select from at this value degree. There’s Amazfit’s GTR 3, which gives an even bigger battery and the identical set of options on the similar value. If you’re searching for storage and an even bigger battery, there’s the OnePlus Watch (Review) at Rs. 14,999. And if Put on OS is in your thoughts, then the Oppo Watch (41mm) (Rs. 14,999) won’t be a nasty thought.
