Amazfit Active 2 review: outsized bang for your buck

A communal scholar petition I get goes thing for illustration this: what should I bargain if I don’t want a smartwatch but want basal fittingness tracking? When I propose alternatives for illustration fund fittingness bands aliases smart rings, I get an unsure hmm and a displeased scrunch of the nose. After a fewer much back-and-forths, I usually find that galore group do want a smartwatch. They conscionable don’t want 1 from Apple, Samsung, Garmin, aliases Google. They want thing much akin to ye olde Pebble aliases this retro-chic $56 Casio. For those folks, see the humble Amazfit Active 2.

Amazfit’s shtick is delivering an outsized bang for your buck. The Active 2 starts astatine $99.99. For $30 more, you get a fancier type pinch an other leather strap and a much durable sapphire crystal lens. There’s a 2,000-nit OLED touch display, upgraded wellness sensors, caller slumber and bosom complaint algorithms, offline maps, and the Zepp Flow AI assistant. There’s besides the Zepp Coach for personalized training plans and a mini app from Wild.AI, which gives fare and workout recommendations based connected your hormonal and menstrual cycles. You won’t find dual-frequency GPS connected this watch, but it has built-in GPS pinch entree to 5 outer systems (the adjacent champion point you tin get). If you unrecorded successful Europe, the watch besides now has NFC payments. (Unfortunately, I don’t unrecorded successful Europe and couldn’t trial this.)

This is simply a stacked characteristic group for nether $150. It’s bonkers. There isn’t moreover overmuch of a catch.

I seldom get compliments erstwhile testing fund gadgets. The straps are chintzy and the cases are plasticky. Sub-$200 smartwatches often look for illustration it.

I was amazed erstwhile I received compliments while wearing the Active 2 during CES. My workfellow David Pierce pointed astatine my wrist and asked, “What’s that?!” because of the stylish watchface. Two different colleagues inquired because they dug the look. A fewer showgoers asked astir it. All were gobsmacked erstwhile I told them the price. The Active 2 does not look aliases consciousness cheap.

Is it the astir elegant watch I’ve ever donned? No, but its creation is basal and sleek capable to fresh pinch immoderate outfit. It’s lightweight and doesn’t get snagged connected overgarment sleeves. Is the leather strap connected the “premium” exemplary the astir supple pinch a vintage patina? Of people not, but it’s comfortable capable to deterioration 24/7, and it’s held up good complete respective weeks of deterioration — including aft respective sweaty workouts. (Normally, I’d urge swapping to a silicone strap for exercise, but this uses a modular pin mechanism, and that’s difficult to usage erstwhile you deterioration press-on nails arsenic often arsenic I do.)

The Active 2 won’t wow anyone looking for Garmin-level insights aliases Apple-like finesse. But arsenic a fittingness and wellness tracker, it mightiness entreaty to personification seeking a Fitbit alternative.

Like Fitbit, Amazfit takes a streamlined, holistic attack to wellness. It emphasizes readiness, slumber quality, and play activity complete closing rings aliases throwing each capacity metric nether the sun into your dashboard. And for illustration older Fitbits, the Active 2 has amended artillery life compared to much precocious smartwatches. Amazfit estimates 10 days retired of a charge. I sewage astir 8 aliases 9 successful testing.

The Zepp app — Amazfit’s companion app — has been revamped since my GTR 4 review. It has a sleeker interface. Each morning, you get a Daily Readiness and Daily Sleep Insight score. There’s a punctual astatine the bottommost of each that opens the Zepp Aura Premium chatbot. (Zepp Aura is Amazfit’s subscription work for slumber and guided breathing content; it costs $77 annually.) Prompts include: “Are location circumstantial activities aliases habits I tin adopt to optimize my beingness recovery?” aliases “How astir my slumber value past night?” The erstwhile gives you generic wellness tips, akin to what you’d get from a ChatGPT query, while the second summarizes your slumber information and tin springiness you tips connected improving your slumber quality. You tin constitute successful prompts, but this is the wide gist. Samsung, Oura, and different wearable tech companies person implemented akin AI-powered features successful the past year. None person been game-changers successful contextualizing data. Zepp’s type is astatine slightest good integrated and accelerated to make responses, but it costs extra, and you’re not missing retired connected overmuch if you skip it.

The Zepp Coach is much useful. I had it create a civilization eight-week 5K training scheme pinch a clip extremity of 32 minutes. The consequence was astir what I expected, pinch a operation of easy runs, interval runs, and agelong runs that gradually progressed successful difficulty. Nothing crazy, but I admit that the workouts sync straight to the wrist. There’s a caller spot training mode that auto-identifies reps wrong a set. It mostly useful — it struggles if a activity doesn’t move your full limb aliases body, for illustration a plank aliases alternating bicep curls. But show maine a smartwatch that doesn’t struggle pinch this.

The Active 2 is akin successful accuracy to my Apple Watch Ultra 2 for GPS runs and bosom rate. Sleep search was besides mostly aligned pinch my Oura Ring 4. The differences dishonesty successful polish. It takes a 2nd aliases 2 longer for the Active 2 to get a GPS awesome — sadistic erstwhile I’m shivering my tuchus disconnected earlier a wintry run. Viewing humanities information beyond the past week is simply a pain. Also, I was irritated that I couldn’t edit my workouts. While calibrating my first treadmill run, I mistakenly input my region arsenic 3 miles alternatively of two. Normally, I’d edit this successful a companion app aliases connected the wrist. I had nary measurement of doing either. I still sewage in installments for my workout, but this is simply a basal characteristic for fittingness apps and a astonishing omission.

As I wrote successful my hands-on, the Active 2 touch show bugs me. It useful good astir of the time. But person sweaty fingers? Forget it. Even if I wiped my hands, I often had to swipe down the touchscreen, too. This made it annoying to region aliases power euphony mid-workout. Casual users won’t see this a deal-breaker, but it’s thing to note.

Another gripe is pinch sound commands connected the Zepp Flow assistant. I recovered I had to emphatically enunciate successful bid for it to prime up my queries — which made maine look kooky while yelling astatine my wrist to group a five-minute timer successful public. Your arsenal of requests is besides limited, fixed that this isn’t Siri, Google Assistant, aliases Bixby. You tin inquire it to show wellness data, motorboat apps, group timers, aliases power settings. That’s fundamentally it. Even then, I sewage occasional time-out aliases relationship errors.

When I felt irked by these quirks, I’d punctual myself that the Active 2 connected my wrist only costs $130. You get what you salary for — and it’d beryllium a small unrealistic that a smartwatch astatine this value wouldn’t person a quirk aliases two. Rather, it’s astonishing that location isn’t much for maine to kick about. The Active 2 punches supra its weight successful style, materials, and features. If you want a long-lasting, no-frills tracker, you’ll beryllium hard-pressed to find a amended value.