Delivery has been a little fraught, it's running late and the vendor is providing no news but people are receiving their watches in dribs and drabs. The latest update is that I will get an update in a week or so, I would much rather the promised tracking number followed by a delivery.
So imagine my surprise on receiving a package yesterday that I had no idea I was expecting..... Yes the Amazfit X.
Great looking device and some nice, if a little large, packaging that can be used as a stand (not quite a night stand in it's own right but it's trying!
There are plenty of pictures on line.
Instructions, no none of those, I did eventually find a manual buried in the packaging but it says nothing, you have to find the app under your own steam and remember how the reviewers said to display the screen because without that it is a random fumble around. Pairing is fun because the watch will do nothing until paired but only keeps the display on for 5 seconds initially without interaction, so getting a QR code in focus and scanned in 5 seconds takes a couple of tries.
Anyway, the app is very much the same as other similar devices - I have a Mi Band 3 and that app was abandoned very early (try Notify & Fitness as a replacement, awful interface but brilliant content) but had improved by the time my dad got his Mi Band 4.
Are there issues? Yes, which is why I am writing this post because it appears that Amazfit support is quite slow and at the moment there are some basic issues that impact the viability of the product and a couple of niggles so I thought I would make a list here for my own record... Including when I raised the issue with Amazfit via their desired feedback route in the app :
17th Sep : Open : Can I export my data?
17th Sep : Open : WhatsApp notifications get batched into a count rather than individual notifications very quickly so have to refer the phone too often.
18th Sep : Open : Workouts - showstopper for me. The GPS did not work at all on a 1 mile walk. Further, auto pause is excellent, auto un-pause isn't so my 1 mile walk recorded only 0.49 miles.
18th Sep : Closed : The end of workout says that app will have details of the workout.... I could not find that and have asked where it is but about an hour later noticed that the home page on the app had updated and there it was and also confirming the GPS failure and un-pause failure.
18th Sep : Open : There is a schedule function but it is manually entering items so have asked how to Sync with Google Calendar / MS Outlook or the Apple equivalent.
I expect lots of niggles to show up but showstoppers like the GPS not working are a real concern and by next week I expect to figure out if this has to go back or not.
Edit : the app definitely does not update until manually updated and I have now tried two more workouts, one walking and one cycling. The latter follows some sitting in the back garden where I can say that sometimes a GPS signal is picked up when the watch is not on my wrist but when on my wrist almost never gets a signal. I started the search for GPS for the workout while I got my trainers in, helmet, gloves, lights, started the mi band 3 workout, waited a bit, just hopeless but the cycling did pick up a few hundred metres, dropped the signal, picked up for long enough to generate a dot on the map and then nothing. My mi band 3 showed a 5.6 mile route with a clear map, GPS via my phone no problem.
Absolutely no response from Amazfit although during the day the "email us" option has been removed from the site. The warranty information is disappointing be ause it relies on going back to the seller who in this case is Amazfit who appear unresponsive.
Several hours later, the device is excellent, I can live with WhatsApp issue but the GPS not working really hamstrings the smartwatch features.