This Xiaomi-backed smartwatch has incredible battery life

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I must admit that the fact that this watch is called the “Amazfit T-Rex” was a reasonably major factor in my deciding to check on it out. Who doesn’t want to say they have a T-Rex on the wrist? A bigger factor, though, was its manufacturer’s claims about the watch’s battery life, and I’m surprised to verify that the T-Rex didn't disappoint.

Amazfit watches and fitness trackers are made by Huami, that is a public company funded by Xiaomi within its broad ecosystem. Huami is also the manufacturer for Xiaomi-branded products like the Mi Band.

We’ve covered a few Amazfit products before, including one that looks exactly like an Apple Watch and another called the Verge which has no relation to us. The T-Rex is the company’s first rugged smartwatch, and at under $140 it’s designed to significantly undercut opponents from the likes of Garmin, albeit without advanced functions like blood oxygen tracking.

As you’d expect from the purchase price, this isn’t the most premium device in the world, but it does feel pretty chunky and pulls off a reasonable G-Shock imitation. Huami says it has 12 military-grade certifications that let it be operated in temperatures between minus 40 to 70 degrees Celsius (minus 40 to 158 Fahrenheit) and underwater up to 50 meters (164 feet). The cheapest-feeling thing about it is the vibration motor, which doesn’t provide much in the form of satisfying haptic feedback.

You’re here to listen to about the battery life; Huami promises 20 days of use with heart rate monitoring and sleep tracking always on. Does it achieve that? Well, I didn’t wear the T-Rex for quite that long, but I can believe it. Your day it arrived, I charged it to 100 percent and wear it my wrist. Seven days later, it hadn’t left my wrist but was at 64 percent charge. Weekly after that, it had been at 30 percent.

To be clear, this isn’t a simple fitness tracker or a hybrid watch - it’s a full-on smartwatch with a nice 1.3-inch OLED screen that I actually kept at just a little higher than standard brightness because I came across the auto setting too aggressive. (There can be an always-on option that presents analog or digital time, though it’s off by default and unsurprisingly Huami says it’ll reduce battery life significantly.) It has GPS, an optical heart rate sensor, and just about everything you’d expect from a regular smartwatch. The battery capacity of 390mAh isn’t unusual, and it charges with a magnetic pogo-pin cable like a great many other watches.

I’ve previously never been too worried about smartwatch battery life provided that it gets me through the day. After all, if I have to charge it several times a week, I would aswell just charge it every night - it’s nothing like I’ll utilize it for sleep tracking are just some of enough time. But battery real life this completely changes the equation. You merely start thinking about the T-Rex as a regular watch that you’ll have to charge maybe a few times a month. You hardly ever have to take it off. It’s great.

So, how did Huami accomplish that? Well, assuming no mysterious price-efficiency breakthrough on the processor - which isn’t listed on the spec sheet - I figure it should be down to the program. Huami uses its Amazfit operating-system here instead of the notoriously power-thirsty Wear OS, and just how much of a tradeoff that's for you will rely upon what kind of a smartwatch user you are.


There is absolutely no third-party app ecosystem, to begin with. That doesn’t bother me an excessive amount of except for the fact that you’re also stuck with the 30 preloaded watch faces, none which are customizable and only a few which include useful things such as weather data. If you just want a couple of G-Shock-inspired designs, that’s what you’ll find here. But from the Apple Watch or Wear OS, your options are pretty limited.

Elsewhere, the program itself is basic but functional. There are 13 trackable activities including swimming, cycling, climbing, elliptical, and so forth. You can access things such as workouts easily enough, nonetheless it takes a lot of swiping and button presses. Simple things such as automatically showing playback controls when listening to music are missing. Notifications display just fine, nevertheless, you don’t really have in any manner of getting together with them. The T-Rex leans heavily on the iOS or Android companion iphone app for configuration; you can’t configure much on the watch itself.

I would not describe the Amazfit software as a sophisticated smartwatch OS, but it does the job sufficiently that the battery life tradeoff will probably be worth it for a few people with an increase of passive use cases like fitness tracking and notification. Power users of more advanced smartwatches from famous brands Samsung or Apple will see it a clear step down.

But I’d rather wear this (or a less rugged version of it) when compared to a Wear OS watch, honestly - the program isn’t that a lot more limited, and the energy efficiency is an enormous advantage. I’m uncertain exactly how Huami is making its watches last this long, but if you need an inexpensive smartwatch with long battery life and don’t need particularly complex functionality, that one is worthy of consideration.

Having said that, the T-Rex seems to be hard to get in the US at this time. It had been on sale on Amazon previously, however the page currently lists it as unavailable. A Huami representative tells The Verge that it’ll return “in the coming months roughly.”
Source: https://www.theverge.com

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