7.8

Design 8.5/10

Health and recovery 7.5/10

Fitness tracking 7.5/10

Speediance app 7.0/10

Value for money 8.5/10

Pros

• – Very light and comfortable
• – Excellent heart-rate accuracy in testing
• – Useful core temperature and thermal features
• – Strong battery life
• – Good value for money

Cons

• – Syncing can be slow
• – Software still feels early in places
• – Connected GPS accuracy issues

The regular Strap and Strap Pro are pretty much the same thing day to day. They track the identical health, sleep, recovery, workouts and estimated core body temperature.

The Pro just feels like the nicer version. You get titanium instead of steel, it is noticeably lighter at 21g, it adds the EDA sensor and you get the upper-arm band in the box.

Design and comfort

The Speediance Strap Pro is basically a put-it-on-and-forget-about-it kind of wearable. I have been testing it on my upper arm rather than my wrist, so that is what this review is based on. And in that position, it has been very easy to live with.

The whole thing feels really light. The Pro weighs 21g with the band, and on the upper arm I barely notice it is there. It sits flat against the skin, stays firmly in place and does not bounce around during exercise. I have not had any gaps in the data from poor skin contact either, which is always one of the things I watch for with this kind of device.

Sleep has been just as easy. No pressure points or digging in and no need to loosen it before bed. I can wear it all night without thinking about it, which is exactly what you want from something that is supposed to collect recovery and sleep data around the clock.

The general design is quite similar to WHOOP. There is no screen, buttons or LEDs flashing away at you. I have worn WHOOP for years, and more recently Fitbit Air, so this feels very familiar. You put it on and leave it alone.

The titanium body helps give the Pro a more premium feel than you might expect from a screenless band. I’d say, the whole thing feels nicely put together.

The strap itself also feels good. With the Pro you get both a wrist and upper arm band. The only difference between them is the length. But the quality of the strap is good. It handles sweat well, feels secure and is easy to put on and take off.

So what you get essentially is your run-of-the-mill screenless band. A perfectly nice design. The look and feel is slightly different than the other options I have tried. But the idea is the same. Wear it, forget about it, check the app later.

The Speediance app and everyday use

The Speediance Strap has only just launched, so this is very much first-generation software. At first glance, though, the app does not really feel that way. It looks polished and there is a lot going on. Spend more time with it and a few rough edges start to show, but most of these feel like the sort of things Speediance should be able to sort out with updates.

First off, the app itself is nicely designed. You get all the usual stuff, heart rate, resting heart rate, HRV, SpO2, respiratory rate, stress, steps, sleep, recovery and more. There are also a few less common metrics thrown in that I have not really come across elsewhere. But more about these alter.

Speediance Strap

Available in standard and Strap Pro versions.

View on Speediance website

The good news is that the sensor side seems solid. The readings I have been getting look very much in line with my other devices, and nothing has jumped out as obviously wrong with heart rate, HRV or steps. There are small differences, of course, but nothing wildly different from the WHOOP and Fitbit Air I have also been wearing.

The home screen gives you the big-picture scores, while the Wellness Monitor lets you dig into the individual readings. There is plenty of data here, but it is laid out well and does not feel overwhelming. You can open the app and pretty quickly see if something looks out of whack.

There is also a Wellness Age, which estimates whether your fitness age is older or younger than your actual age. It takes things like VO2 max, sleep, resting heart rate and activity data into account, and there is also a pace-of-aging chart. It is nice to be told I am nine years younger than my actual age. But I have seen enough of these metrics over the years to take them with a fairly large pinch of salt.

Recovery is handled in a pretty familiar way. You get a daily score built around sleep, HRV, resting heart rate, stress and recent training load. Cardio Load sits alongside that to show how much strain you have been putting on yourself, and there is also a Load Balance view comparing your 7-day and 28-day cardio load. So Speediance gives you quite a bit more than just a single green or red number each morning.

Sleep is where I have had more problems. On some nights, the Strap has decided I went to sleep an hour or two before I actually did. That would not be a huge problem if you could simply correct it afterwards, but right now there is no option to edit the sleep start or wake time. It also does not always pick up naps, so once the algorithm gets something wrong, you are basically stuck with it.

To be fair, I do run into similar sleep issues with WHOOP from time to time. The difference is that WHOOP lets you edit the data afterwards. A simple edit option in the Speediance app would fix a lot of this.

Syncing can also be pretty slow at times. Sometimes you open the app and just have to wait while everything catches up. It is not a deal-breaker, but it does add to the feeling that some parts of the software are still a little early.

Now don’t get me wrong. The hardware and sensors seem good, and Speediance is collecting a lot of useful data. The app is ambitious too, with recovery, stress, cardio load, sleep scoring, Wellness Age and plenty more packed in. But it still needs a bit more polish.

I would much rather have a wearable that occasionally gets sleep wrong but lets me fix it than one that simply locks the result in place. Speediance already seems to have the harder part sorted, which is a solid sensor package and plenty of useful metrics. Now the software just needs to catch up a little.

Core temperature and thermal features

As mentioned, there are a few more unusual metrics that can be found here. And this is probably my favourite part of the Speediance experience.

The Strap does not just track skin temperature and leave it at that. It also estimates core body temperature by combining skin temperature with heat-flow sensing, ambient conditions and physiological modelling. That extra heat-flow sensor is the key difference, because skin temperature alone is too easily affected by things like room temperature, sweat and blood flow to reliably estimate what is happening deeper inside the body.

The number itself is less interesting than what Speediance does with it. You can see how your core temperature is moving relative to your normal range, and the app also folds that data into things like sleep timing and daily guidance. I like that approach because it feels like the temperature sensor is there for a reason, rather than just adding another graph to scroll through.

Then you get Peak Window, Warm-Up Readiness and Heat Load Monitoring.

Peak Window tries to identify the part of the day when your circadian rhythm and temperature trend may line up better with harder training. For me, it’s usually between 5 and 8pm.

Warm-Up Readiness is also very useful. Just before you start an exercise, it looks at your reading. If it is too low, it tells you that you need to warm up more. I am guilty of almost never warming up properly before running – so something like this is great.

And finally, once you start exercising you get Heat Load Monitoring. This watches how much thermal strain is building up during a session.

I have not personally come across another wearable that packages temperature data in quite this way. Plenty of devices track skin temperature overnight, but Speediance is trying to turn thermal data into something you can actually use around training and recovery. That makes it feel a bit fresher than the usual sleep score, recovery score and HRV combination.

You also see some of this spill over into sleep. The app plots your sleep timing alongside your lowest core temperature point and uses that to help build a suggested bedtime window. Again, I would not treat any of this as gospel, but I like the direction Speediance is taking here.

EDA and stress tracking

Both the Pro and non-Pro models track stress, using heart rate and HRV as part of the picture. The Pro goes a step further with a real-time Stress Score dashboard and minute-by-minute tracking, and it also has the extra EDA sensor. This sensor is still unusual in the screenless band market, and most of Speediance’s direct rivals do not currently offer it.

Speediance does not show you raw EDA data, though. It sits in the background rather than giving you another graph to obsess over. So far, the stress readings have looked sensible enough, but I see this more as a trend to follow than something to take too literally.

Exercise and heart-rate accuracy

Exercise tracking has been a bit of a mixed bag, but the heart-rate side has impressed me. A good example is a 10K outdoor run where I wore the Speediance Strap Pro on my upper arm and used a Garmin paired with a Frontier X2 chest strap as the reference. The numbers were extremely close.

Speediance recorded an average heart rate of 136 bpm and a maximum of 155 bpm. The Frontier X2 came in at 138 bpm average and 156 bpm max. That is about as close as I could reasonably expect from an optical sensor, particularly over a run lasting close to an hour.

The heart-rate graph looks good too. Wearing it on the upper arm probably helps here, as that position tends to give optical sensors an easier time than the wrist.

Some of the running dynamics lined up well too. Both systems recorded an average cadence of 175 spm and a maximum of 186 spm. Speediance estimated average stride length at 91cm, compared with 98cm from Garmin, so there was a bit more difference there.

GPS is where things went off track. Garmin recorded 10.01km in 58:05 at an average pace of 5:48/km. Speediance recorded 9.38km in 58:28, giving me an average pace of 6:13/km. That is roughly a 6% difference in distance, which is too large to ignore.

The explanation is likely the GPS setup. Speediance does not have GPS built into the band, so outdoor tracking relies on connected GPS from your phone. Garmin was using its own GPS hardware. And this result is consistent with other runs I tracked – for the most part the Speediance Strap underestimated the distance.

The workout reports gives you plenty to look through afterwards. Along with heart rate, pace and cadence, Speediance estimates VO2 max and provides cardio load and other training metrics. My latest VO2 max estimate was 38.7 ml/kg/min. However it did swing wildly in the space of one week. Most wearables give you the estimate after a few weeks of testing – Speediance does this much earlier which may be part of the problem.

So there are still some software rough edges around workouts as well. But purely on heart-rate accuracy, my testing was very encouraging.

Battery life

Battery life has been pretty much as advertised. You can easily get more than a week with everything switched on. I have been wearing the Strap Pro 24/7, including overnight and during workouts, and I have not had to think about charging at all.

In practice, I have just been topping it up every few days, usually whenever it is convenient. It has never been close to empty when I have done that, so I have not really had the chance to push it all the way to zero. Based on what I have seen so far, though, the quoted battery life looks realistic.

Charging is simple and pretty quick. The charger needs to be plugged in, then you just rest the Strap Pro on top and leave it there. I have not had any charging glitches, strange battery drops or percentage readings that looked obviously wrong.

The biggest difference compared with WHOOP is the charging setup. WHOOP uses its portable battery pack, so you can charge the device while still wearing it. Speediance is more conventional. You have to take the Strap Pro off and put it on the charger.

That has not really bothered me. The battery lasts long enough that charging feels occasional rather than something you need to plan around. And in my use so far, battery life itself actually feels better than WHOOP.

Subscription and what you get for free

One of the best things about the Speediance Strap is that you can just buy it and use it. There is no mandatory subscription sitting in the background waiting for you.

Speediance Strap

Available in standard and Strap Pro versions.

View on Speediance website

The main stuff stays available without paying extra. That includes sleep tracking, recovery, heart rate, HRV, stress, workouts and the temperature features. So you are not buying the hardware and then finding out a few months later that half the useful data lives behind another paywall.

Speediance does include a year of Wellness Go, which adds more personalised guidance and coaching on top. But that is the extra layer, not the basic wearable experience. If you decide not to continue with it, the Strap still keeps doing the things you bought it for.

That is a pretty big difference compared with WHOOP. WHOOP is built around the membership, while Speediance feels much more like buying a normal wearable and getting on with it.

The only slightly confusing part is the naming around Wellness Go and Wellness+. Speediance has a few different services in the mix, and it could explain the whole thing more clearly. But the important bit is simple enough. You do not need an ongoing subscription to keep using the core Strap features.

The post Speediance Strap Pro review: A fresh take on temperature and recovery appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

7.5

Design 7.5/10

Blood pressure monitoring 8.5/10

Health and fitness tracking 7.0/10

Ease of use 7.0/10

Value for money 7.5/10

Pros

• – Inflatable cuff works well
• – Consistent blood pressure readings in my testing
• – Surprisingly slim and comfortable
• – Tracks all the usuals
• – Easily lasts a week between charges

Cons

• – Blood pressure readings cannot be scheduled automatically
• – No GPS or connected GPS
• – Very basic workout analysis

Design and comfort

The thing that surprised me most about the BP Doctor Fit is just how normal it feels on the wrist. I was expecting something noticeably bulkier because of the inflatable cuff, but that really isn’t the case. At first glance it looks much like a regular smartwatch, and there is even a bit of an Apple Watch feel to the rectangular case and rounded corners.

The clever part is all hidden in the strap. It is a little wider than what you would normally get on a smartwatch, but not by much, and I never found it awkward or cumbersome. Considering there is an actual inflatable cuff built into it, YHE has done an excellent job of keeping the whole thing slim.

It is also very easy to wear. The strap is simple to fasten, getting the right fit takes very little effort, and it feels comfortable.

The 1.9-inch AMOLED display is fine as well. There is nothing particularly special about it, but it is bright, clear and easy to read in all conditions. Touch response is good and the interface is simple enough to get around. When exercising, I would tighten the strap slightly so the sensors stay firmly against the wrist.

As far as build quality, I would say – it sits somewhere in the middle. It doesn’t look or feel especially premium, but it doesn’t come across as cheap either. Everything feels solid and functional, which is probably exactly where a watch like this needs to be. The bigger achievement is that you can wear something with a working inflatable blood pressure cuff and, most of the time, completely forget that it is there.

Blood pressure tracking

Blood pressure is really what the BP Doctor Fit is all about. The watch does plenty of other things, but it feels pretty obvious that most of the work has gone into getting this part right. And that is probably a good thing, because this is the feature that makes the watch interesting in the first place.

The thing to know here is – rather than trying to estimate blood pressure using optical sensors, the Fit has an actual inflatable cuff built into the strap. A bit like a traditional upper arm blood pressure monitor, only this one works from your wrist.

Start a measurement and the strap slowly begins to tighten. It inflates very gradually and is surprisingly quiet, so the whole process feels a lot less dramatic than you might expect.

A reading takes around 30 seconds. You do need to sit still and hold your wrist at roughly heart level while it is doing its thing to ensure accuracy. If you move around the watch will refuse to take a reading. But the whole process is quite easy, and after a reading or two it becomes second nature. I found myself taking readings quite regularly simply because there is no need to dig out a separate blood pressure monitor.

I compared the BP Doctor Fit against my Withings blood pressure monitor and the results were pretty close. The Fit was sometimes a little lower, usually by around three or four points, but I didn’t see anything that looked wildly off. Repeated readings were also consistent, which is probably the most important thing for me. Getting one close measurement is nice, but getting similar numbers when you repeat the test gives you much more confidence in what the watch is showing.

Plus this works out of the box. With watches that estimate blood pressure via a heart rate sensor, you need to do regular calibration with a traditional blood pressure monitor. Here there is none of that non-sense.

The one thing I would really like to see is automatic scheduled measurements. At the moment, every blood pressure reading has to be started manually. It would be much more useful if you could tell the watch to take a reading every hour, or perhaps at a few set times during the day. That would give you a much better picture of how your blood pressure changes without having to remember to keep checking it yourself.

Even without that, blood pressure monitoring is easily the strongest part of the BP Doctor Fit. The measurements have been consistent in my testing, and taking a reading takes very little effort.

Health and fitness tracking

Everything else on the watch feels secondary to the blood pressure feature, so it is easy to see where YHE put the most focus. But you do get other health and fitness data.

For general health tracking, the BP Doctor Fit spits out the usuals. Heart rate monitoring has been good during the day and overnight. You also get the usual basic activity information, including steps, calories and general daily movement.

Sleep tracking is also part of the package and generally does a decent job, although I found that it tends to overestimate how much sleep I get. I am a light sleeper and often sleep with headphones, and the watch seems to count some of those awake periods as light sleep instead.

There is nothing especially advanced here, as far as health and fitness data. But it is useful enough if you mainly want a general picture of your activity, heart rate and sleep rather than detailed analysis.

Exercise tracking is similar. Heart rate during workouts has been quite temperamental in my testing. On some runs it tracked reasonably well, but on others it was clearly off, so I wouldn’t rely on it if you care about accurate training data.

There is also no built-in GPS and no connected GPS through your phone. That means the watch has to estimate running distance from your movement instead of actually tracking where you went. Unsurprisingly, that isn’t particularly accurate. In my case it mostly underestimated the distance I had actually run.

The post-workout analysis is also extremely basic. You get enough information to know that you exercised, but not if you want to analyse a run or track training properly over time.

So I wouldn’t consider the BP Doctor Fit an exercise watch in any meaningful sense. For everyday heart rate, sleep and basic activity tracking, it does a decent job. But if running, cycling or structured training is important to you, you will want something else on your wrist.

The app and smartwatch features

The smartwatch side of the BP Doctor Fit covers the essentials. You get call and message notifications, alarms, weather, a timer, stopwatch, calculator, always-on display and a selection of watch faces. There are also brightness controls, mute settings and the usual raise-to-wake behaviour.

Notifications work as you would expect. Calls, texts and alerts appear on your wrist, but interaction is limited. You are mostly just seeing that something has arrived rather than doing much with it.

The interface itself is straightforward. Swiping around the watch is easy enough, menus are simple, and I never found myself getting lost trying to find a setting or feature. It is functional rather than polished, which pretty much sums up the smartwatch experience here.

The companion app follows the same pattern. It syncs data from the watch, keeps a history of your health and workout information, and lets you manage things such as reminders and notifications. It works, but the design feels fairly plain and there isn’t the same depth or polish you get from the apps made by the larger smartwatch brands.

That is probably the main limitation of the BP Doctor Fit as a smartwatch. It has enough everyday features to be useful, but not much beyond that. If you are used to something like an Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch or a higher-end Garmin, this side of the experience will feel quite stripped back.

Battery life

Battery life is one of the easier parts of the BP Doctor Fit to live with. You don’t need to think about charging it very often, and in my use I could comfortably get around a week between charges.

That includes normal everyday wear and regular blood pressure measurements, so there is no need to baby the battery or avoid using the main feature. For a watch that is meant to stay on your wrist most of the time, that is exactly what you want.

Charging is quick enough when you do eventually need it, but the bigger advantage is simply how rarely that happens. A week of real-world use feels like a good fit for this type of device.

Who this watch is for

The BP Doctor Fit makes the most sense for someone who wants an easy way to check blood pressure throughout the day without carrying around a separate monitor. That is really the reason to buy it. The cuff works well, measurements are quick, and having the whole thing sitting on your wrist makes regular checks much easier.

It also works well enough as a general health watch. Heart rate, sleep and basic activity tracking are decent, battery life is good, and the smartwatch features cover the essentials. So if your priorities are blood pressure first and everyday health tracking second, the overall package makes sense.

The post BP Doctor Fit review: Putting a real blood pressure cuff on your wrist appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

8.5

Design 8.0/10

Ease of use 9.0/10

On-court performance 8.5/10

Value for money 8.5/10

Pros

• – Exceptionally portable for a tennis ball machine
• – On-court takes around a minute to set up
• – Wristband voice control works really well
• – Consistent feeds with plenty of pace
• – Excellent battery life
• – Quiet and hassle-free in use

Cons

• – Spin could be stronger
• – Firmware updates were a little temperamental

“`

Design and setup

The first thing that surprised me about the Lumistar Tero was how light it felt. I have used the Slinger Bag, PongBot Pace S Pro and Acemate tennis robot S10, and Tero is comfortably the lightest of the lot. It is still a proper ball machine, so you are not exactly swinging it around with one hand, but it is easily the most portable one I have tested.

That makes a real difference if you have to walk to the court. I live about 2 km away from mine and taking Tero there on foot has been no problem at all. Once folded, you just pull it behind you on the wheels. It feels much more like dragging a lightweight suitcase than hauling a tennis machine.

The folding design is clever too. The hopper collapses down neatly, so the whole thing does not take up much space. Open it up, though, and it holds a surprising number of balls. I put around 80 in and there was still room for more.

Setup on court is just as easy. Apart from opening the hopper, there is really nothing to assemble. From arriving at the court to being ready to hit takes me about a minute.

Lumistar Tero

Smart tennis ball machine with app and wristband voice control.

View at Lumistar US View at Lumistar EU

Affiliate links

It is probably not the most premium-looking machine I have used, but I actually trust the build more than the styling might suggest. It feels solid, there are no obviously flimsy bits hanging off it, and nothing looks like it is waiting to snap if you knock it the wrong way. It also keeps a very low profile. Nobody really pays attention to it, which is actually quite nice.

The same simple approach carries over to the controls. The only physical control on the machine itself is the power button. Everything else is done through the Lumistar app or the little wristband controller that comes with Tero. In practice, I ended up using the wristband most of the time because it is just much easier than reaching for your phone between drills.

There is hardly any setup with the wristband. It pairs quickly and that is pretty much it. The only thing you need to learn is the voice commands. For the first few sessions I kept checking the app because it takes a while to remember the exact wording.

After a while it starts to feel quite natural. You tell it you want to work on backhands, hit for a bit, then tell it to switch to something else. It is obviously not the same as talking to a real hitting partner, but the interaction gets pretty close to that kind of back-and-forth.

The initial software setup was also pretty painless. I did have to update the firmware on both Tero and the wristband before getting started, and that was the one place where I hit a small glitch. The update failed a couple of times before finally going through.

After that, though, everything was simple. And that is probably one of the things I like most about Tero. There is very little hassle between deciding you want to hit and actually starting the session.

Battery life and noise

Battery life has been another strong point in my testing. Lumistar rates Tero for up to four hours, and based on what I have seen so far that figure looks realistic.

After around an hour and a half on court, the main unit uses only about 20% of its battery. Admittedly, that was not 90 minutes of continuous ball feeding because there are always pauses to collect balls, change drills and take a break, but even allowing for that, battery life looks really excellent.

The wristband, however, drains more quickly. After the same session mine was sitting at around 50%, but that has not caused any problems because you can place it on the Tero itself to recharge while you are collecting balls. Even a few minutes makes a noticeable difference, with roughly 10% added during a short ball-collection break.

In practical terms, I cannot see battery life being a limitation for a normal training session. You could spend several hours on court without worrying about the main machine running flat, and the ability to top up the wristband as you go makes its shorter battery life largely irrelevant.

Tero is also surprisingly quiet. There is very little mechanical noise while it is operating, and it never feels intrusive when you are standing on the other side of the court.

You mostly hear the ball being launched rather than the machine itself. I would have no hesitation using Tero next to other players.

How the Lumistar Tero works

Like everything else about it, Tero is pretty simple to operate. You put it in the middle of the baseline, switch it on and then control everything from either the app or the wristband. There is no need for messing around before you can start hitting.

From there, you can change the usual stuff such as speed, spin, placement and feed pattern. You can also pick one of the preset drills or build your own sequence, which is what I ended up doing most of the time.

The app gives you loads of options and lets you fine-tune drills in quite a bit of detail. But once I was actually on court, I barely wanted to touch my phone. The wristband is simply much easier.

You can stand on the other side of the net and tell Tero what you want to do. Start a drill, stop it, change something, then carry on. There is no need to keep walking back to the machine or digging your phone out between points.

The voice control worked better than I expected. Most of the time it understood me straight away. Occasionally I had to repeat myself or speak a little more slowly, but it never became annoying.

Some of the commands are a bit odd. To start and stop a session, for example, you say “start serve” and “end serve”. Once you learn the wording, though, it becomes second nature. And if you forget, the app has a list of commands you can quickly check.

Tero is also very quick to react. Change the speed, placement or drill and it responds almost immediately. That is important because the whole idea falls apart if you spend half the session waiting for the machine to catch up.

There is plenty of control over the feeds too. Pace is strong, and you can dial in topspin or slice, although I did not find the maximum spin especially heavy. You definitely get some, but players looking for really aggressive topspin may want more.

What I like most is that you stop thinking about the machine pretty quickly. Tell it what you want, hit some balls, change things when you feel like it and carry on. There is very little getting in the way.

That really sums up Tero for me. It takes the normal ball-machine idea and makes it easier to control, easier to customise and much less of a hassle to use.

Training modes & custom drills

Tero gives you plenty to work with before you ever need to start building your own drills. There is a big library of presets covering forehands, backhands, movement patterns and combinations, with different difficulty levels on top. For probably 95% of players, that will be more than enough.

You are not stuck with those presets, though. Pretty much everything can be tweaked, including speed, spin, placement, feed interval and repetitions. So if you like a drill but want it faster, wider or a little less predictable, it only takes a few changes.

You can also build your own shot sequences from scratch. That is useful if there is something specific in your game you want to work on. You might want two deep balls, then a short one, then something wide. Set it up in the app, save it, and it is there the next time you go to the court.

I actually like the balance here. You can completely ignore all the customisation and just pick a drill in a few seconds. Or, if you want to play around with things, there is enough control to make the session very specific.

Lumistar Tero

Smart tennis ball machine with app and wristband voice control.

View at Lumistar US View at Lumistar EU

Affiliate links

There are also some smarter training modes, although I would not pay too much attention to the AI label. Regular Tero does not have cameras watching your returns, so it is not analysing every shot and deciding what to send back. The machine is still working from programmed patterns and the information available through the wristband.

After a while, I stopped caring about the huge number of drill combinations Lumistar advertises. What counts is that there is enough variety to stop things getting boring, and enough control to change things when you want to work on something specific.

You can also use Tero like a normal ball machine. Keep it in one position, choose the direction, pace, spin and time between feeds, and just hammer away at the same stroke. Sometimes that is all you need, and it is nice that Tero does the simple stuff just as easily as the more elaborate drills.

The on-court experience

After a few minutes with Tero, I pretty much stopped thinking about the machine. The feeds are consistent, changes happen quickly and there is very little standing around messing with settings. Pick a drill, start hitting and you can just get on with it.

Feed reliability has been excellent too. I have put a lot of balls through Tero and have not had a single jam. The rhythm stays steady and I have not noticed it becoming less consistent as a session goes on.

There was one strange moment when it suddenly started firing balls one after another at very short intervals. I may have accidentally triggered something with a voice command, I am not really sure. Either way, it happened once and I could not get it to happen again.

Tero is also quick to react when you change something. Ask for more pace, move the placement or switch drills and it responds almost straight away. There is very little lag, which helps keep the session flowing.

There is plenty of speed available, too. I have not measured whether it genuinely reaches Lumistar’s quoted 87 mph maximum, but it can definitely send balls across the court quickly enough to make things uncomfortable. For most recreational and intermediate players, I think there is more than enough pace here.

As mentioned, spin is a bit less impressive. You can add topspin or slice and you can definitely feel the difference, but I would not call it heavy. If you want to practise against really aggressive topspin or a nasty kick, Tero does not quite get there. Pace is much more convincing than the spin.

Placement has been dependable as well. Set up a repeating drill and Tero does a good job of putting the ball back into the same general area rather than slowly wandering all over the court. That sounds basic, but it is pretty important when you are trying to groove a particular shot.

It is also easy to change the whole feel of a session. One minute you can be hitting comfortable balls down the middle, then a few seconds later you are doing a faster side-to-side drill or something that has you moving forwards and backwards. With the voice controls, those changes take hardly any effort.

Tero is still a ball machine, and it feels like one. It is not watching your return, judging how well you hit it or trying to catch you out. But I do not really see that as a problem. You tell it what you want to work on, it sends the balls, and it generally stays out of the way.

After several sessions, “no hassle” is still the phrase that fits best. There are more sophisticated machines out there, but Tero is very easy to live with. It feeds reliably, reacts quickly and lets you spend most of your time actually hitting balls rather than dealing with the machine.

App & training analysis

The app keeps a record of your sessions, with things like duration, total hits, calories, movement distance and a few charts showing swing counts, movement speed and ball placement. There is also a weekly activity view, so you can quickly see how much time you have spent using Tero.

I did not find this part especially useful, though. Regular Tero does not have cameras, so it is not actually watching your shots or seeing where the ball goes after you hit it. The wristband tracks your position and movement, while some of the other stats appear to be based on the machine’s own feeds and software estimates.

That means some of the charts look more impressive than they really are. They can give you a rough idea of what sort of session you had, but I would not use them as serious tennis analysis.

Price and value, comparison vs Tero Pro

If you are choosing between Tero and Tero Pro, the actual ball-feeding hardware is very similar. The jump with the Pro is everything happening around it.

The Pro’s dual 4K 60 fps cameras can watch your returns, track the ball and player, and adjust the next ball based on what is actually happening on court. It also adds automatic court calibration, gesture control and extra training modes such as Rank Up and All-star Game.

Lumistar Tero Pro

Advanced smart tennis ball machine with app and wristband voice control.

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The stats are much more useful too. Pro can track ball speed, trajectory and landing position, keep a much better record of your swings and movement, and save 4K video locally. Lumistar is also promising AI coaching reports with suggestions on what to work on, although that bit is still listed as coming soon.

Regular Tero skips all of that, but you still get the same basic serving power, plenty of drills, custom workouts, app control and the wristband voice commands. For me, that simpler setup is part of the appeal. It is quick to get going and there is very little fuss.

Price is a big part of the decision. Tero costs $1,099, which I think is excellent value for a machine this portable and capable. Tero Pro is currently up for pre-order at $1,699, with shipping due in September.

If you want proper shot tracking, more reactive sessions and much better training data, the Pro starts to make sense. If you mainly want a very good ball machine that is easy to live with, I still think regular Tero is the better value.

Who is Lumistar Tero for?

Tero makes the most sense for players who want a serious ball machine without turning every session into a technology project. It is easy to carry, quick to set up and simple enough that you can get onto court and start hitting within a couple of minutes.

I think it is particularly well suited to intermediate players who train on their own regularly. There is enough pace to make drills demanding, plenty of control over placement and timing, and enough customisation to work on specific patterns rather than just hitting the same ball over and over again.

It is also a very good option if portability matters. If you have to walk to the courts, carry the machine up stairs or fit it into a smaller car, Tero has a clear advantage over some of the heavier machines out there. That sounds like a small thing until you are doing it several times a week.

Lumistar Tero

Smart tennis ball machine with app and wristband voice control.

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The wristband will appeal to anyone who hates constantly reaching for a phone between drills. Once you remember the commands, changing things by voice becomes second nature. It keeps the session moving and is one of those features that feels more useful in practice than it sounds on a spec sheet.

More advanced competitive players may want heavier spin or the reactive camera-based features you get with more sophisticated machines. If your main goal is to recreate unpredictable rallies or analyse every shot, Tero is probably not the obvious choice.

But if you want something reliable, flexible and easy to live with, Tero gets a lot right. It is less about showing off what a tennis robot can do and more about making solo practice simple enough that you actually use it regularly.

If you are weighing up the alternatives, I have also put together a full tennis ball machine comparison covering the Slinger, Tero, Pongbot Pace S Pro and Acemate S10.

The post Lumistar Tero review: The no-fuss tennis ball machine appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

8.0

Massage 7.5/10

Heat 8.0/10

Ease of use 9.0/10

Value for money 8.0/10

Pros

• – Six vibration motors cover the back and thighs
• – Four intensity levels and five massage patterns
• – Individual massage areas can be switched on or off
• – Heat works independently of the vibration massage
• – Simple controller and long timer options

Cons

• – Vibration only, with no Shiatsu rollers or physical kneading
• – Corded rather than battery powered
• – The “Kneading” mode is simply continuous vibration

Design and setup

There is almost nothing to set up here, which is exactly how it should be. You put the Snailax Massage Cushion on a chair, plug it into the wall and start using it. The controller is permanently attached, so there is no pairing, charging or messing around with batteries. Two straps can be adjusted to hold the Snailax in place – and it takes all of about 30 seconds to set it up.

I have mostly used it on my computer chair, and it sits there surprisingly well. The elastic strap holds the back section securely, while the perforated anti-slip material on the rear helps keep everything from sliding around. It feels like Snailax has designed it to work with most normal chairs rather than expecting you to find the perfect fit.

The cushion itself is comfortable enough to leave in place for long periods. It adds a couple of centimetres to your sitting height, but I did not find that it pushed me forward or changed my normal position. The padding is soft, but not so soft that you sink into it, and overall it looks perfectly decent for something that is basically a massage mat with motors built into it.

I also ended up using it away from the desk quite a bit. When I wanted something a bit more relaxing, I would stretch it out on the sofa or bed and use it there instead. Lying against it lets you put more body weight into the cushion, which makes the vibration feel noticeably stronger than when you are sitting upright.

The wired controller is the one part of the design I am still a little undecided about. On the plus side, you cannot lose it, it never needs charging and it is always ready to go. On the other hand, you do have a cable permanently running from the controller to the cushion, and that can get annoying depending on how you are sitting. A wireless remote would look tidier, but then you would probably end up searching for it between the sofa cushions.

Overall, the physical design gets most of the basics right. It is light, easy to move around, comfortable to sit on and stays where you put it. More importantly, there is basically zero friction between deciding you want to use it and actually starting a massage, and that is probably one of the better things about the SL-262P.

Controls and massage options

The controller looks a bit busy when you first pick it up, but it is actually pretty straightforward. You can choose which part of the cushion you want running, change the vibration pattern, adjust the strength and switch the heat on or off. After a couple of minutes, you pretty much know where everything is.

There are six vibration motors spread across the cushion, and you can target different parts of the body rather than having the whole thing buzzing away every time. You can focus on the upper, middle or lower back, as well as the thigh area, or just switch everything on at once. That last option is what I usually go for, although being able to isolate one area is handy if that is where you are feeling particularly tight.

You also get five vibration patterns and four intensity levels. The patterns mostly change the rhythm of the vibration, so some pulse, some alternate and others feel more constant. But in all honesty, there is not a huge amount of difference between them.

There is even a mode called Kneading, although that name is a bit generous. There are no rollers moving around inside the cushion, so it is still vibration rather than anything that genuinely feels like someone kneading your muscles.

Snailax SL-262P

Vibration massage seat cushion with heat.

View at Amazon

I usually leave the intensity on the strongest setting. The lower levels are fine if you just want a gentle buzz in the background while you are working, but personally I want to actually feel that something is happening. Even at full strength, though, this is not going to fool you into thinking a pair of hands is working on your back. It is much more of a steady vibration massage.

The timer can be set to 15, 30 or 60 minutes, which I like. A lot of massage products cut you off after 10 or 15 minutes, whereas here you can leave it running while working, watching TV or just lying down. There is enough adjustment to play around with, but not so much that using it turns into a project.

What the massage feels like

The main thing to know is that this does not feel anything like a pair of hands working on your back. There are no rollers or moving massage heads inside. It is vibration, pure and simple, just spread across different parts of the cushion.

As mentioned, I usually keep it on the strongest setting. At that level it has enough kick to feel worthwhile. Sitting on it at my desk gives you a fairly steady background massage, while lying on it on the sofa or bed feels noticeably stronger because your body weight presses you harder into the motors. I actually prefer using it that way when I want to properly relax.

The different patterns mostly change the rhythm of the vibration rather than the feel of the massage itself. I played around with all of them at first, but pretty quickly found myself sticking with the stronger and more continuous options.

What I like is that you can just leave it running and forget about it. After 20 or 30 minutes, your back does feel more relaxed, especially after spending a long time sitting at a desk. The thigh motors are a nice extra too, although for me the back section is still where most of the benefit comes from.

Just do not buy it expecting some deep tissue experience. It is not going to dig into a knot or work a particular muscle the way an actual massage would. But as a strong vibration cushion that you can use while working, watching TV or lying down, it does a decent job and is pretty easy to get used to.

Heat performance

Testing the heat function in the middle of an unusually hot UK summer has not exactly been ideal timing. Most of the time I actually found myself using the Massage Cushion with the heat switched off. When the room is already warm, deliberately heating your back and backside is not particularly appealing.

Still, I did give it a proper try, and the heating works well enough. There are heating areas across both the back and seat, so the warmth is spread over a decent portion of your body rather than concentrated in one small spot. It takes a few minutes to get going, then gradually builds into a fairly noticeable warmth.

I would not describe it as scorching hot, which is probably a good thing considering you could be sitting on it for half an hour or more. It feels more like the steady warmth of a heated seat than a hot water bottle pressed against your back. You can also use the heat without having the vibration motors running, which makes the SL-262P useful as a heated seat cushion in its own right.

For me, though, this is probably a feature that will get much more use once autumn and winter arrive. During testing I generally preferred the massage on its own, particularly when using it at my desk. Come January, I suspect that preference could flip pretty quickly.

Who its for

The Massage Cushion makes most sense for someone who spends a lot of time sitting and wants something they can use without stopping whatever else they are doing. I can see it working particularly well on a desk chair, where you can leave it running while you work rather than setting aside time for a dedicated massage session.

It is also a good fit if you prefer vibration to aggressive kneading. Some massage cushions really dig into your back with hard rollers, whereas this is much gentler and easier to live with for longer periods. You still get plenty of strength on the highest setting, but it never reaches the point where it feels like the cushion is trying to rearrange your spine.

Snailax SL-262P

Vibration massage seat cushion with heat.

View at Amazon

The flexibility helps too. You can keep it on a chair for everyday use, then move it onto the sofa or bed when you want something more relaxing. Add the heating function and I can see it being particularly appealing during the colder months, even if I barely wanted to touch that button during a hot UK summer.

Other products in the range

The SL-262P sits at the simpler end of Snailax’s massage cushion range because it relies entirely on vibration. If you want something that actually kneads your back with moving massage heads, Snailax has several Shiatsu models that take things quite a bit further.

The SL-256 is probably the obvious next step. It has four massage nodes that physically travel up and down your back, with full, upper and lower back zones plus a Spot mode for concentrating on one area. You still get vibration through the seat, but the back massage is a very different experience from the SL-262P because there is actual pressure and movement rather than just vibration.

Move further up and there is the SL-233, which adds dedicated neck and shoulder kneading as well as the travelling back rollers. You can adjust the neck position and roller width, choose between different back zones and use heat and seat vibration alongside the Shiatsu massage. Snailax also sells an app-controlled version, although I am not convinced controlling a massage cushion from a phone is something I particularly need.

The SL-234 follows a similar idea, with four Shiatsu nodes around the neck and shoulders and another four working on the back. Then there is the SL-236, which starts getting much closer to a compact massage-chair setup. Along with neck and back Shiatsu, it adds three-level compression around the seat plus adjustable vibration.

At the top end, models such as the SL-229 and SL-248 add even more elaborate kneading and compression systems. They are also considerably larger and more expensive, so you start losing some of the simplicity that makes the SL-262P appealing in the first place. If you mainly want something light that you can throw onto an office chair or stretch out on the sofa, the SL-262P makes sense. If you want something that feels closer to an actual pair of hands working on your back, one of the other Shiatsu models is the direction I would go.

See Snailax massage cushions on Amazon

The post Snailax Massage Cushion review: Can this replace a massage chair? appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

8.1

Design 8.0/10

Ease of use 8.0/10

Use of information 8.5/10

Value for money 8.0/10

Pros

• – Continuous ECG recording during exercise
• – Detailed heart rate, HRV and breathing data
• – Up to 30 days of battery life
• – Useful vibration alerts during training
• – More affordable than earlier Frontier devices

Cons

• – Several useful features require Frontier Premium
• – No ANT+ connectivity
• – No built-in GPS

Frontier X review: Design & hardware

If you have seen the Frontier X or X2, there are no surprises here. The Frontier Zone looks virtually identical. The pod is the same size and shape, the button is in the same place and it attaches to the elastic chest strap in exactly the same way. Even the section on the front where the display used to sit is still there. The difference is that it no longer lights up.

Personally, I think that was the right thing to remove. When I reviewed the original Frontier X, I found the display useful for checking things such as battery life and recording status, but not much else. By the time I tested the Frontier X2, I was questioning why it was there at all. Once the device is strapped across your chest, usually underneath a shirt, you cannot really see it while exercising anyway.

So the Zone keeps the same basic design but simplifies it. That works for me. I would much rather Fourth Frontier put the emphasis on battery life and the app than a tiny screen that I rarely looked at.

Wearing it is much like wearing any other heart rate chest strap. The pod snaps firmly onto the two connectors and the elastic band can be tightened or loosened to get the fit right. It needs to sit snugly around the chest for the electrodes to maintain good contact, but I have found the Zone very comfortable. Once I start running, I quickly forget it is there.

That was also one of the strengths of the earlier devices. The pod is a little bigger than what you get with a basic Polar or Garmin chest strap, but the difference feels much less significant when it is actually being worn. It does not bounce around, it’s lightweight and the strap keeps it firmly in position even when the pace picks up.

One thing to watch is the orientation of the pod. The button needs to face down when you are wearing it. It is easy enough once you know, but because the design is fairly symmetrical I can see someone getting this wrong at first.

Build quality feels good. The casing is plastic and very functional looking, rather than something designed to win beauty contests, but it feels tough. My old Frontier devices have taken plenty of use over the years, and there is nothing about the Zone that makes me think this one will be any different.

Control is still handled by the single physical button on the underside. That keeps things simple. You can switch the device on, start and stop recordings and mark events without reaching for your phone. The button is perhaps not as responsive as I would like it to be, so you have to make sure to press hard. There are also LED indicators and vibration feedback to tell you what is happening.

Water resistance remains at IP67. That is more than enough for sweat, rain and everyday training, and Fourth Frontier also lists swimming among the activities the Zone can track. For swimming, the company recommends wearing it under something tight fitting to keep the pod firmly against the chest.

Overall, Fourth Frontier has mostly stuck with a design that already worked well. The Zone stays firmly in place, it is very comfortable to wear and the controls are simple enough to get used to quickly.

If I could change one thing, I would have liked Fourth Frontier to make the pod a little smaller now that the screen has gone. The current size is not a problem and I barely notice it once I start exercising, but a slightly more compact body would have made the redesign feel a bit more complete.

Setup and everyday use

Getting started with the Frontier Zone is very easy. Pairing it with the Fourth Frontier app takes only a few minutes, and after that I have found daily use simple and seamless.

As before, there are several ways to use it. You can pair the Zone with the iOS or Android app and control your workouts from there, or leave the phone behind and let the device record everything to its onboard memory. Once you are finished, the session syncs back to the app.

My favourite option remains using it as an external heart rate monitor. The Zone can broadcast heart rate over Bluetooth to compatible watches, bike computers and other fitness equipment, while continuing to record its own more detailed data in the background. This means you can see your heart rate on a Garmin or another device during the workout, then open the Fourth Frontier app afterwards for the ECG and other analysis.

You can connect the Zone to a smartphone and up to two other devices at the same time. That is probably more than most people will ever need, but it gives you plenty of flexibility if you use a watch alongside other training equipment.

Frontier Zone

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View on Fourth Frontier

There is still no ANT+ support, so everything runs through Bluetooth. That is unlikely to cause problems for most newer watches and fitness equipment, although ANT+ would still be useful for cyclists and anyone with older training gear.

Also there’s no built-in GPS. But the device can piggy back on a connected watch’s GPS, or use the smartphone signal.

Battery life

Battery life is one of the areas where the Frontier Zone has taken a proper step forward. Fourth Frontier rates it for up to 30 days with typical use, compared with around 14 days for the Frontier X2. It also says a full charge can last up to seven days if the device is recording continuously.

In the month or so of use, my experience has been excellent. The long runtime means charging is something I rarely have to think about, which is exactly what you want from a chest strap. You can use it for multiple workouts, throw it back in your sports bag and not immediately wonder whether there will be enough battery left for the next session.

Of course, getting anywhere near the quoted 30 days will depend on how often and how long you record. Someone using it for an hour a few times per week will see very different results from someone recording long endurance sessions every day. Even so, the improvement over the previous generation is noticeable.

The move to USB-C also makes charging less of a hassle when you eventually need to do it. For me, the combination of much longer runtime and a more convenient charging connection is one of the most useful hardware upgrades on the Zone.

How it compares with a normal chest strap

If all you want is accurate heart rate during exercise, there is no real reason to buy the Frontier Zone. A good Polar, Garmin or other chest strap will give you very accurate heart rate for considerably less money, and some also give you ANT+ alongside Bluetooth.

The Zone earns its higher price by doing something quite different. As I found with the original Frontier X and later the Frontier X2, the interesting part is not really heart rate at all.

What makes the Zone unusual is that it continuously records your ECG while you exercise. From that signal, Fourth Frontier produces data you simply do not get from a normal chest strap. That includes Cardiac Strain, Cardiac Rhythm, breathing rate, HRV, Body Shock and Training Load.

Cardiac Strain is probably the standout. It looks at changes in the ST segment of your ECG during exercise and can alert you with a vibration when the reading crosses a threshold you have set. In other words, the Zone is looking at how your heart is responding to the workload, rather than simply telling you that it is beating at 160 bpm. That remains one of the most interesting things about Fourth Frontier’s approach.

Frontier Zone

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View on Fourth Frontier

Cardiac Rhythm adds another layer. After a session, you can go through your ECG and see sections classified as normal sinus rhythm or other rhythm. If something catches your attention, you can zoom into the ECG trace and look at what was happening at that point in the workout.

There is also a completely different way to use the Zone. You can start a long continuous ECG recording outside of exercise and capture up to 24 hours of data. If you feel something unusual during that period, pressing the button places a marker in the recording so you can find that moment later. ECG recordings can also be exported as PDFs, which makes them much easier to share with a doctor if there is something you want checked.

That is quite different from the ECG feature on most smartwatches. An Apple Watch, Garmin or Samsung watch typically asks you to sit still and deliberately take a short ECG reading. The Zone can simply keep recording in the background. If something happens unexpectedly, there is at least a chance it has already been captured rather than you trying to take a reading after the event has passed.

Body Shock is another metric I have always liked on Fourth Frontier devices. It measures the impact from each foot strike and plots how that changes during a run. If the numbers start climbing as you tire, it can be a useful indication that your form is beginning to deteriorate. Again, that is not something you are going to get from an ordinary heart rate strap.

That is really the buying decision. If you just want reliable heart rate on your Garmin, Polar or bike computer, save your money and buy a normal chest strap. If you want to dig much deeper into what is happening with your heart and body during exercise, the Zone offers a level of information that ordinary chest straps simply do not provide.

Other training insights and Zone 2

The clue is in the name. Fourth Frontier is putting much more emphasis on training zones with the Zone, and this is probably the biggest change in how the company is positioning the device. 

This training feature is one of the things I have enjoyed most about using the Frontier Zone. You are not limited to Zone 2 either. The same system can be used to keep you within other training zones, but Zone 2 is where I found it particularly useful.

In my case, my Zone 2 range was roughly 119 to 131 bpm. If my heart rate dropped below 119, the device would give me an occasional vibration, roughly every 30 seconds or so, reminding me to pick up my running pace. If I went above 131 and crossed into Zone 3, I would get two vibrations instead.

It sounds simple, but it works surprisingly well. After a while you stop thinking about pace or constantly checking your watch. One vibration and I would instinctively speed up. Two vibrations and I would ease off. It becomes almost automatic.

That was particularly useful for me because I am not naturally very good at Zone 2 training. I tend to start slowly and then gradually push the pace until I am running harder than I intended. With the Zone, I could concentrate on the run rather than repeatedly looking at my wrist and trying to keep my heart rate inside a narrow range.

Fourth Frontier is also doing more here than simply taking a percentage of your maximum heart rate and calling it Zone 2. Heart rate can gradually drift upwards even when your actual effort has not changed much, particularly during long runs or rides.

With Frontier Premium, the company estimates VT1 and VT2, the first and second ventilatory thresholds, using breathing information collected during exercise. Those thresholds can then be used to create more personalised training zones.

Beyond that, there is another way to use the alerts. Instead of keeping you inside a training zone, you can set them to warn you about unusual cardiac strain or breathing rate.

Cardiac Strain is particularly interesting. Fourth Frontier bases this on changes in the ST segment of the ECG, which can be associated with the heart working under increased strain and, in some circumstances, reduced oxygen supply to the heart muscle. The Zone can vibrate when the reading moves beyond a threshold you have set, giving you a real-time warning to ease off rather than only discovering it afterwards in the app.

There are other training features too, including VO₂ Max, readiness and oxygen-uptake analysis through Frontier Premium. Those are useful additions, but for me the vibration-based zone guidance is much more interesting. Plenty of watches can estimate VO₂ Max. Far fewer can quietly keep you inside a training zone without forcing you to keep looking at a screen.

Heart rate and ECG accuracy

Heart rate accuracy was one of the strongest points of the previous Fourth Frontier devices, and my experience with the Zone has been much the same. I compared the device with Polar OH1 and found very little difference between the two. Maximum heart rate was usually identical or within 1 bpm, while the average on the Frontier tended to come out only 2 to 3 bpm lower over a 5K run.

That is not particularly surprising. Unlike the optical sensor on the back of a watch, the Zone measures the electrical activity of the heart directly from the chest, which tends to hold up much better when intensity changes quickly or there is a lot of movement.

That contact point is worth keeping in mind. As with most electrical chest straps, I find it best to slightly dampen the electrodes before putting the Zone on, particularly if I am starting an easy session where it might take a while to work up a sweat. So that’s something to keep in mind.

The more interesting part, though, is ECG accuracy. The Zone records a single-lead ECG from the chest and Fourth Frontier says the signal resembles the V5 position of a conventional 12-lead ECG. That is a very different setup from the short ECG spot checks you get from most watches, because the Zone can continue recording while you run, cycle, sleep or simply go about your day.

I cannot independently verify the ECG against hospital equipment, and I said the same thing in my earlier reviews. What I can say is that I have compared the traces with other ECG-capable devices I own and the waveforms have always looked convincing and consistent. More importantly, the signal remains usable while exercising, which is where wrist-based ECG devices are of little help because they generally require you to stop moving and touch the watch with your other hand.

There is some useful outside evidence here, although it needs to be put in context. A published study on home-based exercise for people with pulmonary hypertension used the original Frontier X to continuously monitor single-lead ECG, heart rate and respiratory rate during remotely supervised exercise. Another published case report described a young competitive runner whose episodes of rapid heart rhythm were captured using a Frontier X after conventional assessments had failed to catch them.

IIt is also worth noting what has not been established. A 2024 expert consensus statement in Sports Medicine discussed the Frontier X2 as a potentially useful sports ECG recorder but said the authors could not find published studies confirming the reliability of its ECG recordings at the time. So while Fourth Frontier has done validation work elsewhere in its product range, I would not describe the consumer Zone as a replacement for a clinical ECG or Holter monitor. Fourth Frontier itself sells the Zone as a health and fitness device rather than a diagnostic product.

For normal training, though, I have a lot of confidence in the heart rate data. And the real advantage remains the same as it was with the other Fourth Frontier device: accurate heart rate is only the starting point. The ability to record the underlying ECG continuously while exercising is what makes the Zone interesting.

Frontier Premium, the app, web dashboard

The Fourth Frontier app remains a comprehensive part of the experience. There is a large amount of information available after a workout, including detailed charts, alerts, ECG data and workout summaries. You can also compare sessions and get plain-English feedback on how the workout went.

For me, though, the web dashboard is still the better place to dig into the data.There is simply more room to work with, particularly when looking through ECG traces and detailed charts.

Frontier Zone

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View on Fourth Frontier

The dashboard also gives you tools such as zooming and the caliper, along with the Health Trends section that starts to become more useful once you have accumulated a few weeks of data. The phone app is great for quick checks, but if you enjoy digging into numbers, the web dashboard is where the Frontier platform really comes into its own.

The lower price of the Frontier Zone comes with an important catch. Fourth Frontier has moved some functionality that was included with the earlier devices behind its Frontier Premium subscription. In the US, this currently costs $14.99 per month or $119.99 per year, with a seven-day trial.

The basic Zone still gives you plenty without paying anything extra. Continuous ECG recording, heart rate, breathing rate, HRV, Training Load and Cardiac Strain are all there. So this is not a case where the hardware becomes severely limited if you decide not to subscribe.

Premium is where the newer training features come in. It adds VO₂ Max, Readiness Score, oxygen uptake analysis, VT1 and VT2 zones and sleep-stage analysis.

There is an important difference compared with the Frontier X2, though. Live ECG streaming, downloading and sharing ECG reports, and Garmin Connect integration were standard features on the X2. With the Frontier Zone, you need Premium to access them.

I am a little less enthusiastic about that part of the subscription. When I reviewed the original Frontier X, being able to share an ECG recording or have someone monitor it remotely was one of the more unusual features of the device. Garmin integration is also genuinely useful if, like me, you already do most of your training with a Garmin watch.

On the other hand, the Zone costs considerably less to buy than the earlier Frontier hardware, so there is a trade-off here. You can buy the device and use all the core heart-monitoring features without a subscription, then add Premium if you want the more advanced training and sharing features.

If continuous ECG is more than you need, a conventional chest strap will cost less. I’ve compared the main options in my guide to the best heart rate chest straps.

The post Frontier Zone review: ECG training without the premium price appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

8.7

Design 8.5/10

Ease of use 9.0/10

Use of information 9.0/10

Value for money 8.0/10

Pros

• – Moves around the court
• – Reactive timing creates more natural rallies
• – Much more engaging than a conventional ball machine
• – Extensive control over placement, speed, spin and height
• – Useful shot maps and training statistics
• – Can also work as a stationary ball machine

Cons

• – Slightly awkward to transport over longer distances
• – Pricey

Design and setup

The Acemate S10 does not look like a normal ball machine. It looks more like a small tennis robot, complete with two camera “eyes” at the front and four chunky wheels underneath. The frog comparison is hard to avoid, although the design makes more sense once you see it sliding sideways across the court.

I have used quite a few ball machines over the years, including the Slinger Bag for a couple of years and, more recently, the PongBot Pace S Pro. The S10 is easily the most ambitious of them in terms of what it tries to do on court.

At 17.8 kg, the S10 is actually lighter than many other ball machines. If you are taking it to the court by car or another mode of transport, it will be an easy job. It is compact enough to lift in and out without too much trouble.

Where it gets a little awkward is moving it any real distance on foot. There is no telescopic handle, so I usually extend the poles slightly and pull it along that way. It works, but a proper suitcase-style handle would make life easier. You can also drive it using the app, although that is more useful for moving it around the court than getting it from A to B.

Once it is on court, the four Mecanum wheels come into their own. The S10 can move sideways, diagonally and forwards without first turning its body. Watching it in action for the first time is slightly surreal, particularly when it starts tracking a return and positioning itself behind the incoming ball.

The main unit feels very solid, although a few areas are less convincing. The removable hopper clips onto the sides and is easy enough to fit, but it does not feel quite as robust as the rest of the machine.

Then there is the optional catching net. Putting it together for the first time takes some patience. The telescopic poles also feel noticeably more delicate than the main machine, and this is one part of the S10 I would be careful with. I quickly learned to hold each section near the bottom while extending or collapsing it rather than simply pulling from the top.

The good news is that you do not need to dismantle the entire structure after every session. The poles retract, and the frame folds down into something much easier to transport. Once I had done it a couple of times, setting up the net took less than a minute.

Acemate tennis robot S10

At checkout use code “G&W01” for a $50 discount.

View at Acemate

With the net extended, the S10 becomes a fairly substantial presence on court. It also attracts attention. I have had people on neighbouring courts looking over to see what it is doing, which is hardly surprising when a tennis robot suddenly starts racing sideways across the baseline. I have even seen passers-by stop to take photos. People tend to look slightly mesmerised by it.

That said, you can use the S10 without the net. In that configuration it is much more low-key and looks closer to a conventional ball machine.

As far as the device itself – there are very few built-in controls. There’s a power-on button, LED indicator and below it a little display that shows the battery life. That’s pretty much it. So you need the smartphone app while on court in order to communicate with the device.

The software setup is straightforward. You need to download the Acemate app, connect it to the robot and install any available firmware updates before getting started. That was pretty seamless for me.

Unboxing and attaching everything for the first time takes a bit of effort, especially if you try to work it out without help. The official Acemate setup video on YouTube makes the process much easier. With that playing beside me, I had the S10 assembled, connected and ready to use in around 15 minutes.

Battery life, noise

Official specs rate battery life at around 90 minutes in rally mode and up to two hours when the S10 is used more like a conventional ball machine. Which does not sound like very much.

But in practice I found the S10 used roughly 40% of its battery per hour. That is because you are not hitting continuously. There are pauses to collect stray balls, change drills, adjust settings and take a breather.

Based on my testing, I think you could get around two and a half hours of practice without much trouble. Which is plenty. In the month or so that I have been testing the robot, I never felt constrained by battery life.

Charging can be done by plugging the charging cord into the port in the machine. The other option is to open the hatch and remove the battery and plug it into the charging cord. Once refuelled, simply return the battery to its home.

When you power it on, one of the first things you notice is how quiet the S10 is. The motor makes almost no noise, and I could barely hear it while it was feeding balls. You mainly hear a slight whooshing sound as the balls come out, which is far less intrusive than I expected from something this large and mechanically complex.

The wheels are a little louder once the S10 starts moving around the court. The sound is similar to pulling a suitcase on wheels, especially when it slides sideways or accelerates towards a return. Even then, though, it is not particularly loud. I would have no concerns using it on a court next to other players.

How the Acemate S10 works

So what makes the Acemate S10 different from other machines? Plenty.

The basic idea is quite simple. Instead of standing in one place and firing balls at fixed intervals, the S10 watches where the ball goes, moves across the court and sends the next one back at a more natural moment.

There are two 4K cameras on the front of the robot. These track the ball, recognise the court and work out where your shots are heading. The four Mecanum wheels then allow the S10 to slide sideways or diagonally, and it is surprisingly quick once it is moving.

Before starting a session, you place it around the middle of the opposite baseline and let the app check its position. This only takes a few moments, and I found the cameras are very quick to recognise the court and confirm that everything is lined up correctly.

The clever part is the timing. The robot does not immediately fire another ball as soon as yours crosses the net. It waits until roughly the point where another player would make contact. A slower return gives you more time, while a harder shot brings the next ball back sooner.

That might sound like a small detail, but it changes the whole feel of the session. With a normal ball machine, you quickly fall into a fixed rhythm because you know when the next ball is coming and exactly where it is coming from. It can get repetitive pretty quickly.

With the S10, I found myself recovering, split-stepping and preparing for the next shot in a much more natural way. And because the device itself moves, the next ball is not always coming from exactly the same position on the other side of the court.

Most importantly, with stationary tennis machines it feels like work after a while. Here it feels like fun. And that is perhaps the most important difference.

As an added bonus, when the catching net is attached and the feature is enabled in the app, the robot tries to collect your return and feed it back into the system. Which is interesting in itself.

It still does not feel exactly like playing another person. The shots are generated by software, and there is no disguise or improvisation. Even so, the combination of movement and reactive timing makes it feel far less mechanical than what you get with a traditional ball machine.

Training modes and custom drills

The S10 gives you three main ways to train. There is a drill mode for working on specific shot patterns, a rally mode where the robot tries to keep the point going, and a conventional ball-machine mode where it stays in one place and feeds balls at fixed intervals.

I spent most of my time in drill and rally modes because those are what separate the S10 from a normal ball machine. In drill mode, I could choose where the robot sent the ball and define the area I was supposed to hit in return. The app then scored the session based on how accurately I found that target. This was particularly addictive. I found it pushed me to repeat the same drill in order to try and improve the score.

Rally mode feels less structured. Instead of repeating a fixed pattern, the S10 moves around its selected area and reacts to where I hit the ball. It tries to keep the rally going.

Acemate tennis robot S10

At checkout use code “G&W01” for a $50 discount.

View at Acemate

The standard ball-machine mode is more familiar. The S10 stays in one position, and you can set the direction, pace, spin, height and time between feeds. It is useful for working on one stroke repeatedly, and it also gives the robot a fallback role when I do not need the cameras or movement.

There are around 50 pre-installed drills in the app, covering forehands, backhands, volleys, baseline patterns and changes of depth. They are fine for getting started. The default feeds are also mostly flat, so I quickly moved on to creating my own drills.

The customisation is one of the stronger parts of the S10. You can build a sequence of up to 10 different balls, then adjust the landing position, speed, spin and height for each one. It takes a little trial and error because a setting that looks right in the app does not always produce the exact ball you expect on court.

You might find it easier to create the basic drill at home, then fine-tune it once you are actually playing. A ball might arrive too high, land too short or carry more than expected, so you can stop the session, adjust the individual feed and try again. Once saved, the drill is ready for future sessions.

The on-court experience

What surprised me most was how quickly the S10 stopped feeling like a gadget I was testing. After a few minutes, I was simply playing tennis and trying to keep the rally going.

The timing makes a bigger difference than I expected. Because the next feed reacts to my return rather than following a fixed interval, I had time to recover, split-step and prepare properly. With a conventional ball machine, it is easy to fall into an artificial rhythm. The S10 felt much closer to the timing of hitting with another player.

Once the novelty wore off, I found myself concentrating less on the robot and more on my footwork, recovery and shot placement. That is probably the biggest compliment I can give it. The S10 soon felt like part of the session rather than a device sitting at the other end of the court.

As a mid-intermediate player, I found the pace more than adequate. It could give me comfortable warm-up balls and then make things much harder once I increased the speed, depth and spin. The heaviest settings still do not reproduce the weight of shot from a strong tournament player, and the differences between some spin levels are not always dramatic, but there was more than enough variety for my level.

The sessions were also far more engaging than working through a hopper of identical feeds. I spent more time trying to build longer rallies, recover into position and find specific areas of the court. The target zones and scores added a competitive element, which is hard to get when training with a traditional ball machine.

Another thing I noticed is that I did not experience a single ball jam with the S10. That has happened occasionally with other machines I have used, so it was good to see.

What did happen, perhaps once an hour, was the S10 stopping because it thought there was an obstacle on the court. I play in the middle of a park where leaves regularly fall onto the surface, so my guess is that these occasionally triggered the warning. Fortunately, it did not happen often and was more of a minor interruption than a real problem.

Does the ball-catching system work?

What about the ball catching system? I think you should look at it as a bonus rather than the reason to buy this robot.

It works, but don’t buy this device expecting it will capture 100% of your returns. When the feature is enabled in the app, the S10 moves towards the incoming ball and tries to collect it in the net before feeding it back into the hopper.

The success rate of this depends heavily on the pace, height and direction of returns, as well as the type of drill you are using. For me it was anywhere between 30% and 50%, depending on the training mode and playing conditions.

Alternating between backhand and forehand crosscourt shots resulted in very few balls being caught because the robot had much more ground to cover. It performed better when I was hitting repeatedly towards one area, such as a forehand or backhand target near the centre. Wider shots, deep topspin balls and harder returns often passed beside the S10, bounced into its body or flew over the net.

If you start off with 80 balls in the hopper, you should get the equivalent of more than 100 balls when you factor in the caught balls. Which means you will spend a bit less time walking around the court collecting balls. Which is always a good thing.

Make no mistake, you will still need to pick up plenty of balls – just not quite as often. For me, the big selling point of the robot is that it moves around the court and has the built-in cameras which follow the ball, react to where you are hitting and help create a much more natural rally. The catching net is useful, but it is really just a bonus on top of that.

App and training analysis

As mentioned, there are almost no controls on the robot itself. Which means you need to use the Acemate smartphone app. Which is easy enough, and the connection to the S10 was stable during my sessions. The main screens cover training, saved data, device settings and firmware updates without burying everything in complicated menus.

After each drill, the app saves a surprisingly detailed breakdown of what happened. I could see where my shots landed, how many stayed in bounds, my longest streak, average and maximum ball speed, and how high the ball cleared the net. There is also an overall score out of 100, which gave me something simple to compare between sessions.

The court map was the part I found most useful. It quickly showed whether I was consistently finding the intended area or spraying balls across the court. I would not treat every plotted position as perfectly precise, but it was accurate enough to reveal obvious patterns in my play.

AI analysis is also there. It produces a long assessment of the session, along with recommendations and suggested follow-up drills, but much of it feels fairly generic. Running the analysis again can also produce slightly different conclusions, which makes it slightly difficult to take the player-level assessment too seriously. But it is useful in providing a direction of what needs work in your game.

For me, most of the analysis value lies in the recorded numbers and shot map rather than the AI coaching. The app gives me useful evidence of how a session went, but I still trust my own feel, and the view of an actual coach, more than its automated conclusions.

One feature I would like to see added in a future firmware update is session recording. The S10 already has two cameras watching the court. Being able to download the footage after a session would make it much easier to review technique alongside the shot data. Perhaps an idea for the next version of this robot?

Who is the Acemate S10 for?

I think the S10 makes the most sense for recreational and intermediate players who want solo practice to feel less repetitive. That is where its movement, reactive timing and scoring features add the most value. As an intermediate player, I found it challenging enough without feeling overwhelming.

Beginners should also get plenty from it, especially through the simpler drills and target-based sessions. The app makes practice feel more structured, and the scoring adds a useful sense of progress even when there is no coach on court.

Acemate tennis robot S10

At checkout use code “G&W01” for a $50 discount.

View at Acemate

It could also work well for coaches who want to add something different to individual lessons. The S10 is engaging, easy to customise and gives students immediate feedback after a drill. I would be less convinced about using it for back-to-back sessions all day, mainly because of the setup, transport and battery demands.

Advanced tournament players may find the maximum pace and spin less demanding than they need. Anyone who only wants repeatable feeds from one position can also spend less on a conventional ball machine. The S10 is for players who value realistic rally timing and a more interactive training experience, rather than raw speed alone.

Price and value

The S10 has an MSRP of $2,499 in the US, although Acemate normally sells it for $2,199 rather than at full list price. The current promotion takes another $200 off, bringing it down to $1,999. At checkout, you can then use code “G&W01” for an additional $50 discount, reducing the final price to $1,949.

Slinger Bag typically costs $749, while the Pongbot Pace S Pro comes in at around $2,270. Granted, these are full prices and the Pongbot can often be purchased with discounts. Proton sells for $1,695.

Then you have the Lobster Elite Grand Four which is currently $1,999, while the Grand Five costs $2,249 and the Grand Five LE reaches $2,499. Those machines offer more raw speed, larger ball capacities and longer quoted battery life, but they remain stationary feeders. 

That is why I do not think the S10 should be judged purely against a feature checklist. You are paying for a tennis robot that reacts to your shots, moves around the court, catches some of your balls, keeps rallies going and records what happened afterwards. None of the conventional alternatives offer that same experience.

You can find more detail on how it stacks up against the competition in my Slinger vs Tero vs Pongbot vs Acemate comparison.

FAQ

Does the Acemate S10 return the same ball?

No. Its cameras track your return, while the launcher sends a different ball from the hopper. With the catching net enabled, it attempts to collect your return and recycle it into the machine.

How often does the Acemate S10 catch the ball?

As an intermediate player, I found that it caught somewhere between 30% and 50% of my returns. The success rate depends heavily on the speed, height and placement of the shot. Sometimes it was more than that range, sometimes less.

Can the Acemate S10 work like a normal ball machine?

Yes. Its standard ball-machine mode keeps it in one position and feeds balls at fixed intervals. You can adjust the speed, spin, height and landing position.

How long does the Acemate S10 battery last?

During my testing, it used roughly 40% of its battery during an hour of normal practice. Allowing for stops to change drills and collect balls, around two and a half hours should be realistic.

Is the Acemate S10 suitable for advanced players?

It is best suited to recreational and intermediate players. Very advanced players can still use its custom drills, but some may want greater top-end pace and heavier spin.

The post Acemate tennis robot S10 review: As close as it gets to a real hitting partner appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

7.8

Design 8.5/10

Ease of use 8.0/10

Use of information 7.5/10

Value for money 7.5/10

Pros

• – One of the better-looking watches I have tested
• – Bright and easy-to-read AMOLED display
• – Responsive crown, button and touchscreen
• – Good everyday health and fitness tracking
• – Strong accuracy in running comparisons

Cons

• – GPS can be slow to connect in built-up areas
• – No third-party app store

Design and comfort

The Honor Watch 6 is a big watch, but it does not feel especially bulky on the wrist. The 46.5mm case sounds huge on paper, yet the relatively slim 10.8mm body helps keep it under control.

Honor sells it in two versions. Shadow Black comes with a black fluoroelastomer strap, while Twilight Brown pairs a silver case with a brown leather strap. I have the Twilight Brown model, and it is one of the better-looking watches I have worn recently. The silver case and brown strap work well together.

Using it is straightforward. The rotating crown lets you move quickly through menus, while the flat button underneath takes you straight into workouts. Both respond instantly, and the touchscreen feels just as quick. I never found myself waiting for the interface to catch up.

The 1.46-inch AMOLED screen is another strong point. It is bright, sharp and easy to read outside thanks to a peak 3000 nits of brightness. I normally need glasses, but I could still check my running stats mid-run without them. The large display helps, but Honor also makes good use of the space.

The screen also stays cleaner than most. Some watches pick up fingerprints almost as soon as you touch them, but that has not been much of an issue here. It sounds like a small thing, but it helps the watch keep its good looks.

The leather strap is soft enough for all-day and overnight wear, although I am not convinced it feels quite as high-end as the rest of the watch. I tighten it for runs so the watch stays put, although silicone is the better option for running and swimming. The quick-release pins make changing straps easy.

Worth noting – there is only one case size, but I would not automatically rule it out if you have a smaller wrist. It works fine on mine, and the slim profile keeps it from feeling awkward. Overall, the Watch 6 has been comfortable to wear and is easily one of the nicer-looking models I have tested lately.

Under the hood

Under the hood, Honor has focused on the parts that affect everyday use. But it’s not trying to turn the Watch 6 into a miniature phone.

The dual-band GPS is important for anyone planning to use the watch for running or cycling. It supports both L1 and L5 frequencies, along with GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou, QZSS and NavIC. That gives it the right tools for dealing with tree cover, tall buildings and other places where cheaper GPS setups often start to wander.

Honor does not reveal the processor or memory, but the watch never feels underpowered. Menus open quickly, scrolling is smooth and moving between widgets or workout screens does not bring any obvious hesitation. That matters more here than a processor name most buyers would never recognise.

The sensor lineup covers optical heart rate, blood oxygen, movement, direction, altitude and ambient light. These feed into the usual mix of sleep, stress, activity and workout tracking. There is no ECG or temperature sensor, so the Watch 6 does not try to compete with more expensive health-focused models on every front.

You also get a microphone and speaker for Bluetooth calls, NFC, Bluetooth 5.4 and 4GB of storage. Music can be stored locally, but there is no streaming support or proper third-party app store. Android and iPhone compatibility is broad, although features such as payments and notification replies can still vary by region and handset.

Battery life

Battery life is one of the main reasons to consider the Honor Watch 6. Honor has managed to squeeze a 980mAh battery into a relatively slim case, which gives the watch far more breathing room than most mainstream smartwatches.

The headline figure is up to 35 days, but that comes from Honor’s stripped-back long-endurance mode. The more relevant claim is up to 17 days with standard use, while continuous outdoor GPS tracking is rated at up to 42 hours. As always, features such as the always-on display, continuous health monitoring, calls and regular GPS workouts will pull that figure down.

I have been using the watch with all the bells and whistles switched on, along with regular notifications and workout tracking. It has been 10 days since my initial charge and the watch is still going strong. So the battery claims seem reasonable.

What is clear is that the Watch 6 does not create the usual battery anxiety. You can wear it overnight, track several workouts and leave the charger behind for a trip without watching the percentage every few hours.

Health and fitness features

Honor covers the basics well. Heart rate, blood oxygen, stress, HRV, steps and sleep are all tracked, and there is a quick health scan when you want several readings in one go. You also get a morning report that pulls together the previous day and night without making you dig through the app.

The Honor Health app is easy to get around. The main Health screen gives you a quick look at your latest numbers, and tapping on any of them opens the longer-term view. You can switch between daily, weekly, monthly and yearly data.

Accuracy has been reasonable in my testing. Nothing jumped out as obviously wrong, and the results were consistent enough for keeping an eye on general trends. Other reviewers have had more mixed results, particularly with the step counter, which sometimes ran high.

The watch also turns some of that data into broader fitness estimates. My VO2 max came out at 45 ml/kg/min, while Honor put my fitness age at 47, nine years below my actual age. The app even labelled both results as “Professional”, which is flattering, although probably best taken with a pinch of salt.

Body Energy works along similar lines, combining heart rate, HRV, sleep and stress into a single estimate of how much you have in the tank. It is a handy number to glance at, although Honor does not make it the centre of the experience.

The watch does track HRV, but there is no separate screen where you can view the readings. Instead, Honor folds the data into the Body Energy score, which feels like a missed opportunity if you like keeping an eye on HRV trends.

Sleep tracking covers overall duration, deep sleep, light sleep, REM and time awake. I found it easy to wear the watch overnight, and the results looked reasonable. Nap detection can be a bit hit and miss, though.

There are limits. The Watch 6 does not have ECG or skin temperature tracking, while the blood pressure trend feature available in some regions is not offered in Europe. I would have liked to see that included.

Still, the everyday health package does not feel stripped back. The main features are here, the app is simple to use and the accuracy has been good enough for day-to-day tracking.

Sports tracking

There are 122 sports modes, so finding the activity you want is not a problem. Starting a workout is quick too, especially with the lower button taking you straight to the exercise menu. The large screen also helps while you are moving, as the key numbers are easy to read at a glance.

Not every mode goes particularly deep. Running gets far more attention, while plenty of the others mainly track time, heart rate and calories. Once you finish, the Honor Health app does a good job of laying everything out without making it feel messy. It is more than enough for everyday exercise, although serious training tools are not really what this watch is about.

I did several runs with the Honor Watch 6 on one wrist and a Garmin on the other in Central London. This 29 minute 49 second run is a good example of the results I was seeing.

Honor measured 5.09km, while Garmin came in at 5.01km. That gave me an average pace of 5:51 per kilometre on the Honor and 5:57 on the Garmin. The Honor was around 1.6% longer, which is a small enough difference for general running through a heavily built-up area.

The other basic numbers lined up very well. Both watches recorded an average heart rate of 133 bpm, with maximum readings of 155 bpm on Honor and 154 bpm on Garmin. This was in line with a Frontier X chest strap I wore for the same run.

Average cadence was identical at 176 steps per minute, while the maximum was 186 on Honor and 189 on Garmin. Stride length was also close at 97cm versus 95cm, with the small difference matching Honor’s slightly longer distance.

Calories were reasonably close too. Honor estimated 403 calories, compared with 375 total calories from Garmin. The altitude readings were less convincing. Honor showed a range from 9.5 to 14.4 metres, while Garmin ranged from minus 11 to 14 metres and calculated 33 metres of ascent. This was a fairly flat London run, so I would not put much weight on either watch’s elevation totals here.

Both apps provide plenty of extra information after a run. Honor gave me aerobic training stress, recovery time, heart-rate and pace zones, kilometre splits and running-form estimates such as ground contact time, left-right balance and vertical movement. Garmin goes further with power, stamina, training load and more established running dynamics, but Honor still gives casual runners plenty to look through.

The training estimates did not match particularly closely. Honor rated the session at 2.1 for aerobic stress and suggested 14 hours of recovery, while Garmin gave it a 3.4 aerobic training effect and classified it as a base run. That is not necessarily a problem, as the two companies use different algorithms, but it shows why these scores are better used for trends within one platform rather than compared directly.

The bigger issue is getting started. Garmin usually found GPS first, while the Honor could take noticeably longer. In built-up parts of London, it occasionally needed a few minutes to lock on. Once connected, though, the Honor Watch 6 produced distance, pace, heart-rate and cadence figures that were impressively close to the Garmin.

Smartwatch features

The Watch 6 runs Honor’s MagicOS, but it feels more like a fitness watch with a few smart extras than a full smartwatch platform. There is no app store, so you cannot add Spotify, Google Maps or other third-party services later. What you get out of the box is broadly what you are going to have.

That did not bother me much in everyday use. The interface is quick, the rotating crown makes getting around easy and notifications are clear on the large screen. They are grouped by app and show enough of each message to tell whether it is worth reaching for the phone.

Calls have also worked well. The speaker is surprisingly loud, and voices come through clearly at both ends, even in noisier surroundings. You can also control music and use the usual alarms, timers and weather tools.

I noticed some rough edges, though, when the watch starts talking to the phone. I tested it with an iPhone and the Honor Health app would occasionally lose its connection. The watch was still listed in Bluetooth, but I had to open the iPhone settings and tap it before the app would reconnect. It did not happen constantly, but it happened often enough to become annoying.

Honor Health was also very persistent about getting access to my contacts. I did not want to allow it, but the request kept returning and there was no obvious way to dismiss it permanently. These feel more like annoying software quirks than major problems, and hopefully Honor will clear them up in future updates.

All things considered, for everyday use, the Watch 6 still covers the main smartwatch features well. The interface is quick, notifications are easy to read and calls work directly from the wrist. It does not offer the same app selection as an Apple Watch or Wear OS model, but not everyone needs that level of depth.

View Honor Watch 6 on Honor’s website.

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8

Design 8.0/10

Ease of use 8.0/10

Use of information 8.0/10

Value for money 8.0/10

Pros

• – Large display makes data easy to read
• – Useful three-button and crown controls
• – Thin despite its size
• – Strong dual-band GPS battery life
• – Built-in flashlight is genuinely practical

Cons

• – Large case size may not suit everyone
• – Controls take time to learn

Design, hardware

Look & feel

The Amazfit Balance 3 is a large watch. There’s no denying that. But it is a good-looking one.

The 51.4mm case gives it real wrist presence, especially if you are coming from an earlier Balance model or a smaller Garmin. You buy it because you want a big, readable screen in a more premium case. So yes, the size will not be to everyone’s taste. If you have small wrists, you might want to look elsewhere.

I was worried it might look awkward. But the Balance 3 case is quite thin, so it spreads across the wrist rather than sitting like a tall block on top of it. That makes a bigger difference than the case diameter suggests. The low profile also helps the watch stay planted during exercise, which can only help with optical heart rate tracking. It does not feel heavy on the wrist either. So I was pleasantly surprised.

The 1.5-inch AMOLED panel sits under sapphire glass and reaches up to 3,000 nits of peak brightness. Which is a boost from the previous generation.

That brightness means workout data stays readable even in strong sunlight. The extra screen space also makes pace, heart rate, distance and lap information easier to glance at while moving. Maps benefit from the larger panel too, since route lines and surrounding detail have more room to breathe.

The build moves the Balance line away from its old lifestyle watch image. The sapphire glass helps, and the case has a more robust feel than previous Balance models without going full chunky outdoor T-Rex.

The updated button and crown layout is one of the biggest changes in daily use. It is three buttons plus a fully functioning rotating crown, an upgrade from the previous crown and one-button layout. The physical controls work well and it’s good to be able to choose between the crown, physical buttons and touch-screen.

Many people have become fans of the LED smartwatch flashlights. So it is no surprise Zepp Health has decided to include it on Balance 3. It offers different intensities of white light for early starts, plus a red light that does not blast your eyes at night. There is also an SOS option. This is one of those features you do not miss until you have tried it, then suddenly it makes obvious sense.

Rounding everything off is the standard 22mm silicone strap. It keeps things comfortable enough for workouts, and because it is a standard size, swapping it out is easy.

Worth mentioning, I am reviewing the Stainless Steel version of Balance 3. Zepp Health has also announced a Titanium Black edition. But at the time of writing this review, that one is still not available for purchase.

Under the hood

Amazfit Balance 3 does not bring a major internal reset over Balance 2. The core sensor and GPS setup are familiar, so the hardware difference is not very exciting.

The watch uses BioTracker 6.0 for heart rate, blood oxygen, stress, HRV, skin temperature and sleep tracking. That is the same sensor generation used on Balance 2, and I did not see anything that made this feel like a big sensor upgrade.

GPS is familiar too. Balance 3 sticks with dual-band positioning across six satellite systems and a circularly polarised antenna. That was already one of the stronger parts of Balance 2, so any difference in real-world tracking is more likely to come from firmware tuning than a completely new GPS setup.

The one clear internal upgrade is storage. Balance 3 moves to 64GB, giving it more room for offline maps, music and local files. That is useful if you plan to use maps and keep media on the watch.

Connectivity is where you would expect it to be. There is Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, microphone and speaker support, plus compatibility with external accessories such as heart rate belts, running power meters, cycling power meters, speed sensors and cadence sensors.

Battery life

Real-world battery drain depends entirely on how often you activate the bright 1.5-inch screen and the dual-band GPS. Enabling the always-on display, tracking outdoor workouts, and keeping continuous health metrics active will naturally pull the runtime below the headline three-week mark.

The most important metrics center on GPS tracking endurance. Balance 3 offers up to 41 hours in accuracy GPS mode and hits up to 84 hours in the power-saving configuration. This provides enough headroom for long trail runs, weekend hikes, and travel without constant charging anxiety.

Amazfit Balance 3*

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This longevity ensures you can utilize the tracking features without daily trips to the power outlet. Continuous sleep tracking, recovery statistics, and training history remain useful because the watch stays on your wrist rather than sitting on a charger every night.

Compared to the Balance 2, the standard daily battery figures remain relatively similar. The tangible upgrade shows up in active GPS tracking longevity, aligning with the shift toward detailed mapping and longer outdoor sessions.

Tech specs

Health & fitness tracking

Health tracking on the Balance 3 feels familiar if you have used any recent Amazfit watch. There is no big shake-up here, and honestly that is fine. You get heart rate, blood oxygen, stress, HRV, skin temperature, sleep, breathing quality and the usual one-tap health check.

For everyday use, it just works. Resting heart rate, HRV, sleep duration and stress trends are all easy to glance at in the Zepp Health app. I would still treat trends as more useful than any single score on any given day. That is not really an Amazfit thing either. It is true of pretty much every wrist wearable out there.

Sleep tracking is part of the same familiar package. The Balance 3 is a big watch, but the case is thin enough that it does not get in the way overnight. The app breaks down sleep stages, breathing quality, heart rate and HRV, while also giving you some recovery-style feedback. It gives you enough to work with without turning your sleep into a spreadsheet project.

Zepp OS 6 does not change the health tracking itself, but it does change how some of this information is reached on the watch. BioCharge, movement, heart rate and other daily stats now live in the swipe-up card stack from the watch face. I found the change easy enough to adjust to, but not a dramatic upgrade.

That is probably the right way to look at the health side too. Balance 3 is not throwing a new set of health metrics at you. It is taking the familiar Amazfit package and moving some daily data into the new card layout. That makes the watch feel reorganised rather than completely different.

The broader recovery picture comes from BioCharge, LifeLoad and HybridCharge. These are meant to pull sleep, stress, recovery and daily effort into something more connected. I still treat that kind of guidance as a nudge rather than gospel, but it is more useful than another isolated score.

The Zepp Health app still has its rough edges. There is a lot going on in there, and some of it could use a cleaner layout. The data is useful, but the presentation still needs polish, especially now that Zepp Health is asking users to pay attention to more recovery, readiness and daily load signals.

Sports tracking

The big screen of Balance 3 makes a difference for sports tracking. Workout fields are easy to read on the move, and maps actually feel usable instead of squinting at a tiny display.

HYROX is not just another of the 180+ workout modes here. Balance 3 arrived alongside Zepp Health’s bigger HYROX push in Stockholm, where the company showed how the watch, Zepp Health app and hybrid training tools fit together. The watch supports HYROX Training and HYROX Race modes, plus race strategy features such as Virtual Pace, so you can see whether you are ahead or behind your target during each run and station.

I mostly ran with it, and the GPS held up well. On my 7.5km run against a Garmin watch, the Balance 3 tracked pretty closely overall. All in all, there was around a 30 meter difference in the total distance tracked.

Heart rate surprised me too, in a good way. The first kilometre was a bit off, though that was partly me still fumbling with the controls at the start, but after that the track looked solid enough for normal training runs. Overall, the Forerunner recorded an average heart rate of 146 bpm and a max of 162 bpm. The Amazfit recorded 144 bpm average and the same 162 bpm max.

I still would not call wrist-based optical heart rate perfect, especially during intervals or anything with sharp changes in effort. But for steady running, the Balance 3 gave me numbers close enough to trust. If I wanted tighter data for harder sessions, I would just pair a chest strap or arm strap and not think twice about it.

Just to make sure, I did a second 7.5K run. This time in more challenging conditions – half the run was done in a heavily wooded area. The GPS tracking difference was 40 meters – still close enough. As far as heart rate, Garmin clocked me at an average of 133bpm and a max of 147. The Amazfit came in at 132bpm and 147 bpm – so remarkably close.

As far as the new button setup, it makes way more sense once you are actually working out than it does poking around the menus. As most things that change – it takes a bit of getting used to. Touchscreens are great until your hands get sweaty, it starts raining, or you just need to pause a workout in a hurry. That is where this setup earns its sports watch label.

Maps and navigation are a big part of the appeal here too. The Balance 3 has enough screen real estate to keep routes readable, and the extra storage means more room for offline maps and music.

One thing I am keeping an eye on is altitude data. Zepp Health recently pushed an update claiming it optimized the accuracy of workout altitude data, which caught my attention because I did notice an altitude discrepancy comparing the Balance 3 with my Garmin. It was not enough to throw off the test, but it is exactly the kind of thing that can bite you on a hilly route.

The sports mode list is enormous, but honestly the useful stuff is a lot more specific than that. Running, cycling, swimming, strength training, HYROX tools, external sensor support and structured training features are what actually move the needle. I would rather have those working properly than another endless list of niche modes I am never going to open.

Smartwatch features

I see Amazfit Balance 3 as a fitness watch first and a smartwatch second. That works for me. I get notifications, calls, voice control and everyday tools, but without turning it into another device that needs charging every night.

Notifications are easy to read on the large display. Bluetooth calls are supported, although I only really see myself using them for quick chats. Zepp Flow is more useful day to day. It lets me handle basic commands and replies without digging through menus, even if it is not something I would call essential.

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The usual tools are here too. I used alarms, timers, weather, music controls, voice memo and find my phone. iPhone users get camera control, while Android users get quick replies, so the experience is slightly better on Android.

The LED flashlight is just as useful as I expected. It has white and red light modes, and I used it around the house, at night and on early starts. Now when I test a watch without this feature, I do miss it.

The main limitation is app depth. I would not buy Balance 3 expecting an Apple Watch or Wear OS experience. It handles the useful smartwatch stuff well enough, but the real reason to buy it is still the fitness package, battery life and large screen.

Amazfit Balance 3 can be purchased from Zepp Health or Amazon*

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8.1

Design 8.5/10

Functionality 8.5/10

Ease of use 7.0/10

Value for money 8.5/10

Pros

• – Low-profile, lightweight design that works well for side sleeping
• – Also useful during the day for casual listening
• – ANC plus passive isolation helps reduce noise
• – Useful Bluetooth, Sleep and Auto modes
• – Phone-free sleep sounds stored on the earbuds

Cons

• – App can feel a bit busy for bedtime use
• – Modes take some learning
• – No custom offline sound imports

Design, fit and comfort

SomniPods 3 are clearly built around side sleeping. Each bud weighs just 3.3 grams and the body sits low in the ear, so they feel closer to a shaped sleep plug than a normal wireless earbud. Plus they are made of very soft material.

That makes a real difference once your head is on the pillow. They are not invisible, and you can still feel that something is in your ear, but the shape avoids the bulky pressure point you get from most everyday earbuds. So they are very comfortable.

Fitnexa says you need to insert them at a slight angle, rotate them into place and keep the logo horizontal, with the charging contacts facing downward. I would not skip that step, because the position changes how securely they sit and how much they press against the outer ear. Also make sure you put them in the right way around, one of them is marked with L, the other R.

The tips and wings give you enough room to experiment, which is important. A poor fit makes them feel more intrusive and also weakens the passive noise isolation.

I started with the tips that came fitted on the earbuds, which I think were size M. They felt fine at first, but after a night or two I kept waking up to find the buds lying next to me. Switching to the larger tips and wings, both size L, fixed that for me, and after that they stayed put overnight. These larger ones sit really flush in my ears.

In the box you’ll find a whole bunch of different sized tips and wings to play with. Mind you, they are not the easiest things to change – so it takes a bit of patience, but it is worth the effort. With sleep earbuds, the right fit is not just about comfort. It also affects how well they stay in place and how much outside noise they block.

Beyond sleep, I found that the design also works for daytime use. They can pass as compact Bluetooth earbuds, plus you get the benefit of noise isolation.

My impression is that Fitnexa has the hardware direction right. The small shell and low profile felt more comfortable for sleep than most other options I have tried. Once the fit is sorted, the next question is what you actually listen to through them.

Setup and app

Setup runs through the Fitnexa app, which is available for iPhone and Android. You create an account, pair the earbuds and then manage the main features from the device dashboard. The process is straightforward, so it’s pretty much a basic Bluetooth earbud setup.

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The firmware update is the one step worth doing before any serious testing. Fitnexa specifically recommends updating the earbuds before use, and that makes sense here. Firmware can affect battery life, connection stability, mode switching and sleep tracking.

The app acts as the control centre for SomniPods 3. It handles mode selection, sleep sounds, tap controls, firmware updates, sleep history, private alarm and bedtime reminder. That gives the earbuds much more depth than simple sleep earplugs, but it also makes the app a big part of the overall experience.

What I didn’t like is that this should feel like a simple product. But the app does feel overly busy, which is not exactly what you want for something used at bedtime. But more about that later.

There is also a paid tier. The good news is that the earbuds do not feel locked down without it. The basics are included, including many soundscapes and sleep tracking, so you can use SomniPods 3 properly without adding another subscription. The extra AI coaching is there if you want more personalised guidance, but it feels like an add-on rather than something you really need.

Sleep modes

SomniPods 3 are at their best at night, which makes sense given what they are built for. The three available modes sound slightly complicated at first, but they start to make sense after a few nights.

Bluetooth Mode is the simple one. The earbuds stay connected to the phone, so you can play Spotify, podcasts, YouTube, audiobooks or anything else. The audio quality is actually pretty decent, too. I would use this mode for winding down, but it is also the least “sleep bud” mode because the phone stays in the loop.

Beyond sleep and winding down, you can also use Bluetooth Mode during the day for casual listening. The added benefit is that you can switch ANC on when you want a bit of noise cancellation.

Sleep Mode is the proper bedtime setting. It cuts Bluetooth media audio and switches to built-in sounds stored on the earbuds. The app also provides a wide selection you can choose from. That makes the experience calmer and more predictable, with less chance of a notification, autoplay or random volume change disturbing you.

Auto Mode is the most interesting option and the one I used on most nights. Plus, I would switch on ANC for a couple of hours to tune out my noisy upstairs neighbours. This mode lets you fall asleep with your own audio, then switches to Sleep Mode once the earbuds detect sleep.

For me, this is the ideal combination. It works best if you are happy for your podcast or playlist to stop once you are asleep.

That is the main thing to understand. SomniPods 3 give you flexibility, but they also make you choose your bedtime routine. If you want streamed audio all night, Bluetooth Mode is the answer. If you want a more controlled sleep setup, Sleep Mode or Auto Mode makes more sense.

I like the idea of this flexibility. The modes are genuinely useful. But you need to understand what each of them does.

The trade-off is control. You cannot currently import your own sounds for offline playback. If you already have a favourite brown noise file or a long ambient track that works for you, you will need Bluetooth Mode for that. The offline sounds make sense for battery life and simplicity, but they also lock you into Fitnexa’s library.

Noise reduction and sleep sounds

Noise reduction is where SomniPods 3 feel more convincing as sleep earbuds than as regular ANC earbuds. Fitnexa quotes up to 32dB of ANC and up to 42dB of total noise reduction when passive isolation is included, but the second figure tells the fuller story. These earbuds rely on the seal from the tips as well as the active noise cancellation.

That combination works best with steady, repetitive noise. Fan hum, air conditioning, distant traffic, ticking clocks and hotel-room background noise all fade back once the earbuds are seated properly. As do my neighbours. The buds do not create total silence, but they do make those sounds easier to ignore.

They are less convincing against sharper, less predictable noise. Voices nearby can still come through. That is the realistic limit here. SomniPods 3 reduce the edge of night-time noise rather than removing the room around you.

The sleep sounds are a bigger part of the experience than I expected. The three basic on-bud sounds in Sleep Mode are fine in a pinch, but they are not the best way to use the earbuds. The app sound library is better, especially the brown noise options, and it feels less repetitive.

Overall, the ANC helps, but the best results come from the full combination: fit, passive isolation and masking audio. SomniPods 3 are not for people chasing total silence. They are for making ordinary night-time noise fade into the background enough that you stop focusing on it.

Battery and alarm

Battery life is good, but it depends heavily on how you use the earbuds. With ANC off, Fitnexa says you can get up to 12 hours on a single charge. Switch ANC on and that drops to around 6.5 hours.

The useful part is that the app lets you choose how long ANC stays active. For me, running it for about two hours on the Auto Sleep Detect setting was enough, before the earbuds switched back to non-ANC mode. Used that way, you can stretch them to over nine hours of overnight use.

This is why timers and Sleep Detect are useful. If you use Auto Mode, the earbuds can start with your chosen audio, then move into a more sleep-focused setup once they detect you have fallen asleep. Plus you get the option of choosing how long ANC stays on, which helps avoid burning through battery when you may no longer need full noise cancellation.

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The charging case is good for topping up to 48 hours of total battery life. It is compact enough for a bedside table and gives the earbuds somewhere obvious to live during the day.

Plus you get the fast charge feature, which is useful for this kind of product. A 10-minute top-up is rated for up to 2 hours with ANC off, or 1.5 hours with ANC on. That is handy if you realise at bedtime that the buds are low, although it does not remove the need to keep the case charged.

There’s also a private alarm that you can set via the smartphone app, but I would treat it with some caution. It plays through the earbuds, so it can wake you without disturbing someone else. But Fitnexa recommends it mainly for naps or shorter sleep sessions, because the earbuds need to remain powered on until the alarm time.

There is also the obvious practical issue. If a bud falls out while you are asleep, you may miss the alarm. For a nap or a light backup wake-up, it makes sense. For an important early start, I would still set a phone alarm as well.

Sleep tracking and AI

Sleep tracking is the feature I am least convinced SomniPods 3 need as a standalone extra. It has a role because Auto Sleep Mode depends on sleep detection, but the actual sleep stats feel less essential.

They are interesting enough to glance at in the morning, but they add more weight to an app that already does a lot. It feels a bit tacked on. If detailed sleep data is what you want, a smartwatch, fitness band or smart ring will give you a better picture.

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The missing piece for me was the payoff. The app gives you sleep history and some insights, but it did not really change how I used the earbuds. With a Garmin, Fitbit, Apple Watch or smart ring, sleep data feeds into recovery, readiness or training context. Here, it mostly sits on its own.

The earbud form factor is still interesting because it looks at sleep from a different position than a watch or ring. Sleep-position and movement data could be useful if Fitnexa makes it more actionable, but I would not buy SomniPods 3 for sleep stages or a sleep score.

AI coaching sits in a similar place. It may appeal if you want to use the wider Fitnexa wellness app and log things like food, drink and exercise, but that starts to feel separate from the earbuds themselves. Limited chat credits also make it feel more like an optional extra than a constant coach.

For me, the hardware still carries the product. And it does this well. The fit, noise reduction and bedtime audio are the reasons to use SomniPods 3. The tracking and AI are there if you want them, but they are not the main story.

Technical specs

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8.3

Design 8.5/10

Ease of use 7.5/10

Use of information 8.0/10

Value for money 9.0/10

Pros

• – Comfortable to wear day and night
• – Screenless design removes distractions
• – Strong sleep tracking focus
• – Useful health metrics
• – Lower price than most rivals

Cons

• – Limited workout feedback
• – Google Health app is good but needs polish
• – Not ideal for serious training

Design, hardware and comfort

It might sound strange, but Fitbit Air makes more sense on the wrist than it does on paper. Bear with me. A screen-free Fitbit sounds limited at first, yet the design works because the device is small, light and easy to forget about.

Comfort is easily the best feature here. If a passive tracker irritates your skin or feels bulky, the whole concept falls apart. The Fitbit Air avoids this completely, and it is easy to wear for days at a time, including to bed, without feeling like another demanding gadget is strapped to your arm.

Ditching the display is a smart move. You do not have to deal with buzzing notifications, tiny menus, or awkward watch-style interactions. It feels more like a discreet health pod than a traditional fitness band, which is exactly the kind of low-profile approach I appreciate.

Of course, you have to accept some trade-offs with this design. Any basic feedback needs to come from the Google Health app, the vibration motor, or the tiny battery light. While this keeps the hardware clean, you lose the instant gratification of glancing at your wrist for stats.

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The internal tech is simple but covers the essentials well. The device tracks heart rate, movement, blood oxygen, and skin temperature variations, while the vibration motor is ideal for silent morning alarms.

The physical design is a huge win. The hardware is light, comfortable, and out of the way, making it much easier to wear continuously than a Whoop or most other fitness trackers I have tested over the years. Google got the hardware right.

Setup and app experience

Setting up the Fitbit Air is a breeze. It pairs up through Google Health, asks for the usual permissions, and then just fades into the background. That is exactly how it should be for a screen-free tracker, since the last thing you want is a complicated setup before you even put it on.

Things get trickier once you open the app. Because the Fitbit Air does not have a display, Google Health has to do all the heavy lifting. It is your screen, your settings menu, and your dashboard all rolled into one, which puts a lot of pressure on the software.

The main screen looks clean enough when you first open it. The layout is easy to scan, and being able to view data from different sources side by side is a nice touch. It makes the device a lot more useful if you like comparing trends instead of just trusting one tracker blindly.

Still, Google Health definitely feels like a work in progress. Some parts are cleaner than the old Fitbit app, but others just feel clunky. It often takes too many taps to get to the raw numbers or see a clear trend line.

The AI Coach is a perfect example of this. It is fine if you want a casual explanation or a quick nudge based on your recent stats, but sometimes it just feels like it is getting in the way. There are plenty of days where you do not want to chat with an AI, you just want your data.

Luckily, Google is already pushing out updates to fix these software gaps. They are bringing back missing features and listening to early feedback, which is great news because a screen-free tracker like this completely relies on its companion app to be useful.

Living without a screen

Living with Fitbit Air means giving up quick glances. There is no watch face, no step count on the wrist, no workout screen and no easy way to check whether something is being tracked.

That bothered me less than expected. After a few days, I stopped treating Fitbit Air like a normal tracker. It works best as something that collects data quietly in the background.

There are benefits to that. It does not distract you, show notifications or pull your eyes to the wrist. Silent alarms also make sense on this kind of device. You set them in the app, the tracker vibrates and that is all it needs to do.

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The downside is control. If you want to check battery, confirm a setting or look at an automatically detected activity, you need your phone. Workouts also feel limited because there is no live pace, distance or heart-rate zone on the wrist.

For daily health tracking, I can live with that. For serious exercise, I would not.

Health and sleep tracking

Health tracking is where the Fitbit Air feels most at home. As a tool that builds a health picture in the background.

The core metrics are all covered. The device tracks heart rate, sleep, daily activity, blood oxygen, and skin temperature trends. And it does this with reasonable accuracy. It also supports background AFib notifications, which adds a serious layer of health monitoring without turning the tracker into something you constantly need to check.

Sleep tracking stands out as one of the best use cases. The hardware is small enough to wear overnight without a second thought, which matters far more than a massive list of niche metrics. If a sleep tracker bothers you in bed, the data becomes useless anyway because you will just stop wearing it.

The results were useful during my testing, but I noticed placement matters. I experimented with wearing the device on my ankle and noticed that it recorded shorter sleep durations than when worn on the wrist. That does not mean one position is definitely right and the other is wrong, but it highlights why the companion app needs to explain these placement differences better.

For day-to-day health tracking, Google Health does a decent job. Sleep, resting heart rate and temperature trends are easy enough to follow, and the app turns passive data into something readable. Even if it sometimes feels like it is trying to do too much. A lot of the time, I just ignored the AI suggestions.

I liked to have the passive AFib notifications running in the background. But you have to remember this is not an on-demand ECG device. The hardware can watch for irregular rhythms while you rest, but it will not replace a dedicated device with a proper ECG app if that specific feature is what you need.

Ultimately, general health and sleep monitoring suits the Fitbit Air well. It takes the best of Fitbit tech and packages it into a small form factor. The device shines brightest when it collects passive data, shows long-term trends and stays out of the way.

Silent alarms and vibration

Silent alarms are one of Fitbit Air’s simplest features, but also one of the most useful. They fit the whole idea of the device well because there is no screen involved and very little interaction needed.

You set the alarms in Google Health, and Fitbit Air does the rest with a vibration on the wrist. You can create up to eight alarms, choose between low and high vibration and dismiss them with a double tap. It is basic, but it works.

I found this more useful than expected. A screen-free tracker does not need many active features, but a silent alarm is exactly the sort of thing it should do well. It gives the device a practical role beyond passive tracking without making it feel like a smartwatch.

The vibration is not aggressive, which is good for comfort but may not suit everyone. The high setting is the safer option if you are using it as a wake-up alarm, especially if you sleep deeply. The low setting feels better for reminders during the day.

Sports tracking

Sports tracking is where Fitbit Air feels most limited, but not useless. The hardware can collect decent workout data, but the lack of a screen changes what you can realistically expect from it.

For casual activity, it does the job. Steps, heart rate and automatically detected exercise all fit the idea of a passive tracker. You wear it, let it collect data and check the app later.

My wrist-based 5K result was better than I expected. Fitbit Air came very close on heart rate, with average heart rate matching my reference device, and distance coming in only around 40 metres short. That is a strong result for a small screen-free tracker.

But the overall exercise experience still feels basic. If you care about pacing or want feedback while training, Fitbit Air is not the device for that. It does not have a display.

Automatic detection is useful, but it also exposed a software gap. When I wore Fitbit Air on the ankle, it picked up the 5K run automatically, but started too early and finished too late. That pulled down the average heart rate because the session included time before and after the actual run.

The problem was not simply detection. That worked well enough. It was what happened afterwards. Google Health does not currently give you enough control to clean up that kind of mistake properly. For a screen-free tracker, the app should give you more flexibility..

So I would not treat Fitbit Air as a serious sports or running tracker. It is fine for logging movement and giving you a broad view of activity, and the wrist run result shows the sensors can perform well. But the training experience is too limited for anyone who wants live feedback, detailed workout tools or proper post-session control.

Battery life and charging

Battery life is one of the easier parts of Fitbit Air to live with. Google quotes up to seven days, and that feels like the right kind of target for this device. A screen-free tracker should not need daily charging.

In normal use, I found the battery low-maintenance. There is no display draining power, and the device is designed to sit quietly in the background, so it does not feel like something you constantly have to think about.

Charging is handled through a magnetic charger. A full charge takes around 90 minutes, while a quick five-minute top-up can give roughly a day of use. That makes it easy enough to charge while showering, working at a desk or getting ready in the morning.

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The main annoyance is checking battery status. With no screen, you have to rely on the app or the small battery light. That is fine most of the time, but it does remove the quick glance you get from a normal tracker.

Subscription and value

The Fitbit Air is a whole lot easier to justify because you do not need a monthly subscription just to see your basic data. At $99, the price feels fair for a tiny, screen-free tracker that just focuses on passive health stats.

Don’t get me wrong, the subscription side is still there. Google Health Premium is basically the new version of Fitbit Premium, and it throws in the AI Coach, personalized fitness plans, daily workout guidance, and extra help making sense of your health data. It also lets you log things like meals and workouts using text, voice, or photos.

The good news is you do not actually need any of that for the essentials. The Fitbit Air still tracks your sleep, heart rate, daily steps, and core health metrics completely free. I would treat the subscription as a nice extra rather than something you need just to make the device work.

The value equation changes completely if you already pay for Google AI Pro or Google AI Ultra. Google bundles Google Health Premium into those plans, which works out well for me since I already have a Gemini subscription. It means I am not looking at the Fitbit Air as yet another gadget that adds an extra bill to my monthly budget.

Even so, I would still judge this tracker on the core experience first. The AI Coach and deeper guidance can be helpful, but they are not essential.

What works well

Comfort is definitely the biggest win here. It is tiny, incredibly lightweight, and so easy to wear for long stretches, including to bed. It never feels like you have another bulky smartwatch strapped to your arm, which is perfect if you want to track your health without adding more screen time to your day.

The passive tracking matches this physical design perfectly. Things like heart rate, sleep, daily steps, skin temperature trends, blood oxygen, and background AFib notifications all make total sense on a device you do not constantly need to check. The hardware is much better at quietly gathering data in the background than trying to act like a mini training watch.

Silent alarms are another simple but great feature. They are easy to set up, the vibration is discreet, and the whole thing works flawlessly without needing a display. It is exactly the kind of low-friction feature that suits this form factor.

I also really like the side-by-side data view inside the Google Health app. It makes the tracker a lot more useful if you already have health metrics from other devices, since you can easily compare broad trends instead of treating one specific tracker as the absolute truth.

The overall value also works well, as long as you do not need a full smartwatch. The price is reasonable, the battery life is low-maintenance, and you do not need a separate monthly subscription just to see your core data.

The Fitbit Air is at its absolute best when you keep your expectations realistic. It is not a sports watch, and it does not try to be one. As a small, passive tool for tracking sleep, health stats, silent alarms, and background data, it handles its job much better than I expected.

What needs work

The real issue here is not the hardware at all. It is the software built around it. The Fitbit Air relies completely on the Google Health app, and that interface still needs plenty of polish, better user control, and much faster access to the stats that actually matter.

The automatic workout detection definitely needs some work. When the app guesses the start or end time of a session wrong, there should be an easy way to trim or correct the workout afterwards. This becomes a much bigger deal on a screen-free tracker because you cannot just manually start, stop, or check things on your wrist.

Google Health also needs to do a better job of explaining the data without burying it under too many menus. The AI Coach might be fine for some, but it should never feel like a barrier between you and your own health metrics. There are plenty of times when the app just needs to show the raw numbers clearly and get out of the way.

Ditching the screen works fine for passive tracking, but it gets annoying when you just want a quick confirmation. Checking your remaining battery life, tweaking a setting, or confirming your workout status always forces you to reach for your phone.

Fitness tracking also stays pretty basic. The tracker can gather helpful daily activity data, but it is just not built for real-time workout feedback, pacing, heart-rate zones, or deep training analysis.

The physical device itself shows a lot of promise. Now, the Google Health app just needs to catch up to the hardware.

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