Amazfit : Day 63

Yesterday afternoon I received my replacement watch, it's battery was on 0% charge so I had to wait.

Fully charged at 3pm which on the 19th November which I can use as my "how long does the battery last line".

I have installed Zepp again but this time I am on a different phone, everything is new so I can rule out if any issues were related to my old phone (which did have flakey bluetooth for certain).

I am not seeing any notable improvements in Zepp since my last use and on the watch I see no new watches faces which is a shame, the schedule still doesn't connect to any standard calendar software and the notifications from applications receiving messages close together is still unusual (what good is a count, show me the messages). This time while I decide if the watch is viable I am sticking with just Zepp, the time and effort required to get Notify & Fitness working in a sensible manner is too much hassle - it's great when you get there but I'll wait.

This morning I set up a work out for the morning dog walk, approx 1 mile in a circle...I already know that there are 3 issues to consider from my last Amazfit X :

1) The GPS doesn't get a lock (especially when the device is worn) & when it does it doesn't last

2) When GPS is working the route reported is only loosely based on reality

3) Zepp's software representation further smooths the route like an over aggressive compression algorithm (I know this because in Notfiy & Fitness that same data is represented in more detail).

So first walk......

1) GPS got a lock within 2 minutes, while that is slow it did get there and when I checked about a minute later it was still there, I then forgot to check again.

2) The route, oh the route, foolishly I choose to strap my watch to my tame squirrel for the walk and he visited the pub some 100 metres away from where I went and was dashing around to the side of where I went as we walked, wait, oh yes, if I zoom out from a google maps level view to google earth level view the route does represent where I went, for any sort of fitness tracking or recording of where I went it is useless still and  yet even with all the extra bits it added it was reported as under a mile, not a million miles out but not the sort of accuracy we would expect from a positioning system.

I have reported this back on my ticket and on the feedback in the App because it is simply untenable as a solution.

Huami Amazfit X

I have a new smartwatch, the Amazfit X. I was an early backer on Indiegogo and this was my first experience of the platform. 

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.