I’ll admit I judged the Amazfit Bip 6 by its low price ticket. At $80, I did not count on it to carry its personal, not to mention compete with higher-end smartwatch rivals. But after per week of testing, I can say it is greater than only a whole lot. At a time when most smartwatches price a whole lot of {dollars}, the Bip 6 stands out as a result of it goes past the fundamentals. In my time testing the Bip 6, I discovered the health monitoring to be stable, the superior well being metrics to be correct and the battery life to final greater than per week on a cost. Add in the truth that it really works on Android and that iPhone, and you’ve got one of many few sub-$100 smartwatches that is really value your time.
8.5/ 10 SCORE Amazfit Bip 6 Pros
$80 worth is way lower than most watches
Works with Android and iOS
Great battery life (lasts per week with heavy use)
Tracks all kinds of health actions precisely
Temperature monitoring and superior sleep monitoring
Cons
Single sizing choice (44mm)
UI and app are unintuitive
Some well being metrics are exhausting to interpret
Voice assistant is unreliable
Bluetooth vary is brief (particularly on iPhone)
It’s not essentially the most refined watch on the market. Design and navigation really feel clunky in comparison with pricier fashions, however this looks like a small worth to pay (pun meant) for all the things else the Amazfit Bip 6 delivers on. If you are after operate over polish, the Amazfit Bip 6 makes for a straightforward, inexpensive entry level into the smartwatch world. It’s best for first-time smartwatch patrons who wish to discover well being and health monitoring with out spending massive, and significantly interesting to iPhone customers interested by smartwatches however hesitant to decide to an Apple Watch.Amazfit Bip 6 design The Amazfit Bip 6’s design is easy and purposeful. It has the boxy, flat look of an previous Pebble Watch, with a slight curve to the display and a metallic trim that provides it a little bit of polish. The 1.97-inch AMOLED show (390 x 450 pixels) appears to be like vivid and crisp indoors however I battle seeing what’s on display in direct daylight. While it feels gentle, the 44mm watch appears to be like cumbersome on my medium-sized wrist (6.5 inches), and it does not are available some other measurement.My evaluate unit got here with the black sport band nevertheless it’s additionally accessible in charcoal, stone and pink (which I’d’ve most well-liked). All the bands lean to the sporty aspect of the design spectrum and there isn’t any actual approach to costume it up until you go together with another band from Amazon. The Amazfit Bip 6 has an oblong display just like the Apple Watch, rubber straps and two bodily buttons which you can customise. Vanessa Hand Orellana / CNETAmazfit Bip 6 setup and softwareRight out of the field, the Bip 6 does not supply the smoothest onboarding expertise and it took me a little bit of fine-tuning to get the watch arrange the best way I like. I swapped out the default watch face, adjusted battery settings to maintain the display on throughout exercises (there isn’t any true always-on show) and customised which health metrics I wished to seem throughout my runs. It additionally took slightly trial and error to determine what the bodily button and numerous swipe gestures really do. It’s not as intuitive as different smartwatches just like the Galaxy or Apple Watch, however in the event you dig deep sufficient in settings, it is best to discover a approach to make it work.Even with these tweaks, I nonetheless bumped into some UI quirks. The font, for instance, is just too massive and makes use of a billboard-style animation to disclose textual content that does not match on the display — making it exhausting to learn at a look. The display feels sluggish, with noticeable lag after choosing an choice. Weird design selections on the Bip 6’s interface minimize off phrases that then crawl again onto the display with an animation. Vanessa Hand Orellana / CNETThe Bip 6’s voice assistant, Flow, is maybe its most evident weak spot. Flow in some way makes Siri seem to be a rattling thoughts reader. I normally depend on voice instructions for fast duties like setting a timer or replying to messages and whereas Flow claims to deal with these, it hardly ever will get issues proper on the primary attempt. I discovered myself screaming at my wrist, which I’m not proud to confess. Even when it did perceive the project, the lag between recognizing my request and responding was so lengthy that I used to be higher off simply tapping by the menus and doing issues alone. Fortunately Android telephone customers can reply to texts with a keyboard or dictation however iPhone homeowners are out of luck until they undergo a third-party app workaround. It does not assist that Flow performance depends on the telephone and the Bluetooth vary (at the least with an iPhone) is frustratingly brief. I usually misplaced connection when my telephone was only one room away. This makes the Find My Phone characteristic fairly ineffective in the event you depend upon it as a lifeline to find your telephone. Once I obtained previous these early rising pains, although, the remainder of the expertise was a lot smoother crusing. The Amazfit Bip 6 solely is available in one measurement (44mm) and appears a bit cumbersome on smaller wrists. Vanessa Hand Orellana / CNETAmazfit Bip 6 battery lifeBattery life is well one of many Bip 6’s strongest options. I put it by the paces, together with a number of GPS exercises, coronary heart price monitoring and utilizing the always-on show throughout runs and it nonetheless managed to get greater than per week on a single cost — 8 days to be precise. Had I been extra conservative with the settings, I seemingly would’ve come near the two-week promise the corporate boasts. Higher finish rivals just like the Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch and Pixel Watches want charging after a day and a half. Even the dearer Apple Watch Ultras with bigger batteries do not last more than three days on a cost.When you lastly do have to return for a cost, nonetheless, it’s going to take about two hours to go from zero to full and there isn’t any fast-charging choice that I do know of. Although I’ll take longer lasting battery life over quicker charging any day, I’d slightly go away it charging in a single day as soon as per week slightly than having to determine a time through the day to cost it again up. You’ll even have to produce your personal USB-C charging cable (and brick), because the field solely features a magnetic charging puck that must be plugged in. Most new watches just like the Pixel Watch and the Apple Watch have stopped together with the charging brick however do present the charging cable. The Amazfit Bip 6 has new sensors below the hood that enhance precision for well being and health monitoring. Vanessa Hand Orellana / CNETAmazfit Bip 6 health optionsTo say the watch covers health monitoring fundamentals could be underselling it. It has all of the exercises you’d ever want plus nuanced metrics for runners and different standard sports activities. I primarily examined the working exercises as that is my main type of train. Tracking a run on the Bip 6 feels shaky at first — it takes about 10 seconds to lock onto a GPS sign, which could be a momentum killer if you’re able to hit the pavement. But as soon as it locks in, it is off to the races. In a number of runs, the GPS labored reliably even with out my telephone. Heart price monitoring, together with zone breakdowns, held up surprisingly nicely. The knowledge was on par with the Polar chest strap HR monitor (the gold commonplace for shopper coronary heart price monitoring) which I take advantage of to check smartwatches. The Bip 6 was slower at detecting spikes as I approached my peak however that is a standard shortcoming of wrist-based displays — not one thing distinctive to this gadget. If you are keen to dig into the Zepp app (extra on this later) you may additionally discover nuanced metrics like cadence and stride that can assist you analyze your run.It did hit a bump in vivid daylight, although, because the display does not get vivid sufficient to learn open air. For indoor exercises, it tracks energy coaching and even makes an attempt to establish which muscle teams you are utilizing. I did not do a standard energy exercise so accuracy remains to be TBD nevertheless it did accurately flag arm muscle mass throughout a Pilates session I had labeled as energy coaching for testing functions. The Amazfit Bip 6 has an oblong display just like the Apple Watch, rubber straps and two bodily buttons which you can customise. Vanessa Hand Orellana / CNETAmazfit Bip 6 well being and wellnessThe Bip 6 had a tough time telling the distinction between once I was sleeping and once I was watching White Lotus and gave me about an hour’s value of sleep “extra credit” on weekend nights once I was very a lot awake. It’s value noting that the Apple Watch has made the identical mistake prior to now, which makes me query how lucid I really am when I’m mendacity comatose on the sofa on the finish of the day. The precise measurements, nonetheless, are very useful, because it measures coronary heart price and temperature variations, sleep phases and respiration high quality. This may doubtlessly assist sign the onset of ailments just like the vitals verify on different wearables just like the Oura ring and Apple Watch. The Bip 6 additionally gives a vitals verify exterior of sleep mode referred to as One Tap Measuring, which collects your coronary heart price, SpO₂, stress and respiration price in a single learn. You may even monitor your menstrual cycle on the watch nevertheless it does not issue pores and skin temperature into the ovulation predictions like different well being wearables. The Bip 6 tracks blood oxygen ranges (SpO2) as seen within the image, coronary heart price, and stress ranges. Vanessa Hand Orellana / CNETAnd in the event you actually wish to dig into your sleep and well being knowledge, you may subscribe to the Zepp Aura add-on, which gives superior sleep evaluation, AI-powered teaching and instruments that may assist flag situations like sleep apnea and insomnia. It’s presently on sale for $60 a 12 months (usually $150).I additionally had a little bit of hassle blocking notifications throughout sleep and I needed to arrange the “do not disturb” mode manually as a result of it did not mirror what I had arrange on my telephone. Amazfit Bip 6’s Zepp AppThe downside with all this well being knowledge is that it comes with little to no context. Whether you are wanting on the fast outcomes on the watch or reviewing long-term well being tendencies within the Zepp app, there isn’t any steerage on what the numbers imply, what’s thought of regular or the way to take motion primarily based on them. Maybe the Aura premium choice helps make sense of all of it, however I did not check it for this evaluate.The watch runs on Amazfit’s proprietary Zepp OS, with all of your knowledge and settings managed by the Zepp app in your telephone. It handles all the things from system settings and well being metrics to the app and watch face shops. But good luck discovering what you want as a result of the Zepp app’s interface shouldn’t be intuitive and layers tabs upon tabs.Even if you do discover the tab you want, the information itself is usually exhausting to know. As somebody who’s reviewed smartwatches and health wearables for greater than a decade, I think about myself well-versed in health lingo however even I discovered myself questioning what a few of these scores meant.Take the Readiness Score, which sits proper on the prime of the dashboard claiming its significance with out telling you why. I needed to dig deep to determine it is calculated utilizing a mixture of sleep, exertion, pores and skin temperature and coronary heart price. But even then, I wasn’t certain what I used to be imagined to be prepared for. To operate? To work out? To mother or father? I assume it is just like Garmin’s Body Battery, which I normally ignore anyway. As a working mother of three, I haven’t got the posh of ready round for a great rating to provide me permission to train. If I do not squeeze in a exercise through the one 30-minute window I get to myself, it is simply not occurring. Ready or not. The Zepp app’s AI -powered meals journal is surprisingly correct at calculating energy primarily based off an image of your meal. Vanessa Hand Orellana / CNETThen there’s the PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence) rating, which, in response to the app, displays your bodily situation. More digging revealed you are supposed to maintain it above 100 to scale back your threat of heart problems and enhance life expectancy. All good in concept however by the point I completed decoding what the PAI and Readiness scores have been, I used to be too far down the rabbit gap and extra able to lie down than to take motion on my metrics.Another bonus characteristic is an AI-powered meals journal that mechanically populates calorie and dietary info from a photograph or barcode. I examined it with a hand-crafted cheese sandwich, and it was surprisingly correct in calculating calorie depend, which I later cross referenced with the precise diet info of every ingredient. I can see this being a sensible software for individuals who wish to maintain monitor of consumption for weight administration however did not log long run for a complete evaluation of this characteristic. Amazfit Bip 6 last verdictThe Amazfit Bip 6 is a purposeful, subdued powerhouse that will not dazzle you at first look however will persistently overdeliver the place it counts. It’s the form of uncommon discover that you do not count on to return throughout within the sub-$100 smartwatch world and simply the most suitable choice we have examined in its worth vary.