Amazfit X Issues Update

26  days in.

Huami have now responded with an update saying that my issues cannot be resolved and that the watch needs returning "for further investigation". My suspicion is that they simply don't know, I think every issue I am seeing has been reported by others and it still seems a mixed bag on which delivery gives a good result.

I have heard that Huami charge for returns which is disappointing but I have invited that they send me a replacement with reply paid packaging, refund or just reply paid document I can print. 

I do have concerns regarding how long the return will take to turnaround and how much I will get messed about, after all it seems that Huami are struggling to deliver existing orders and they have not yet managed to sell the entire list of perks on the campaign which I think is a shame, the concept and product should be good if the manufacturing issues can be resolved promptly - I'm not sure what problem Huami have, I guess they must be using a different facility to normal due to the curved glass screen because their other products don't seem to have such a high proportion of failures.

Anyway, I thought that I would rehash my list of issues to just have the Amazfit list for a reference point to summarise everything I have outstanding.

I will start by flagging that the Notify & Fitness for Amazfit app is excellent, of all the things it does it allows use of the phone GPS which means exercise can get tracked, unfortunately it does not handle goals that are not simply steps but it more than makes up for that by really top notch notification handling and pulling in Google Calendar which actually pops the reminder up too so not just a static list which I am really impressed with because it works so smoothly (but reminds me to tidy the dumping group of my calendar). I really hope that Amazfit learn from this guy - I don't want to be disloyal to him and don't begrudge the money I have handed him even though I am about to lose the watch possibly to never see it again but Zepp could be so much better, just pay the man and buy his product and integrate it all together neatly - that really is a win for everyone.

1. Amazfit X : GPS does not work - if it gets a lock it does not do so quickly enough and does not retain it reliably and what it does track is often wildly different from reality so routes are often absent, random or incomplete. 
2. Amazfit X : Auto pause of exercise works, I really rather like that feature but auto-unpause doesn't and is entirely random if that, I have to assume that the issue is the GPS failing. 
3. Battery life, on my initial attempts was just about making 6 days but after the latest firmware has dropped to 4 days at best and with the sensitive setting for the lift wrist functionality that drops to 2 days and that is without any GPS use. The campaign does repeatedly reiterate 7 day battery life & "all day every day". Let's be honest 7 day battery life is not much to write home about and even when I placed the initial order it was my one doubt as the only devices that don't manage 7 days are Wear Os and that Apple thing but I assumed that the claim would be eaaily achieved but now looking at Huami's method of calculating battery life I would suggest it is optimistic in the extreme. Take a look, let me remind that the campaign stresses the workout credentials of the device whilst Huami assume that 15 minute every other day is a reasonable basis from which to work, a detail now visible on the support site but not noted on the campaign.
4. Zepp, currently I am unable to download my data, this may not be helped that each of my calls has been closed and the answer rolled into one call which means outstanding items will get lost but the service desk can report lots of calls closed.

I know for sure that items 1 & 3 are being reported by plenty of other people and are the big ticket items for rectification from my perspective.

Features to improve :

1. The list of workouts available on the watch need to be editable or reorderable so that I can place the workouts I use at the top of the list, meaning they are easier to find without having to lift my glasses up to look closer.
2. SP02 measurement, I know this requires stillness but regular automatic sampling would be useful given it might be a useful health indicator. I know this could be a challenge but the stress and heart monitor both purport to want stillness from the interface and still operate.
3. UK style data, I do like having a 2 day weekend at the end of the week not a day off at either end of the week. But seriously on a Sunday I expect a week of data to be Monday to Sunday, what is traditionally a week with Sunday off as a rest day (for those who don't work every hour to keep afloat). That also has implications for design of watch faces as there is no good reason why watch faces with days should not pick up the phone's language, likewise dates.
4. Watch faces, we need more, the default selection are ok but given the number of people having serious problems I haven't really experimented with many, personally I would like a classic black display with white hands, nothing else, and I would like to be able to save 2 watch faces to hand on the device day / evening or work / play) rather than being stuck with the default design + 1 of my choice.
5. Notifications, stop batching notification together into a count, what is the point of collapsing notifications forcing reference to the phone.
6. The schedule function needs to integrate with the standard calendar apps, as a standalone item it is a gimmick.
7. Zepp sleep analysis could do with integrating with Sleep As Android, likewise Smart alarms would are useful.
8. Zepp has far too much noise relating to self advertisement and features that are not available-at the very least the main screen should be tailorable to hide features I cannot use.
9. Zepp was not synchronising with Google Fit.