Amazfit Balance: The Smartwatch That Balances Style and Functionality
Amazfit has improved its hardware dramatically and it has gotten better and more comfortable to wear. The Balance is Amazfit’s all-purpose fitness tracker designed to support both physical and mental wellness. It looks very similar to a Galaxy Watch6, with only a slightly different top button, and it aims to track your sleep, heart rate, and activities, as well as handle calls. It also offers several optional AI tools for sleep, meditation, and exercise. However, it's still too buggy, which is especially noticeable when compared to the perfectly working Garmin tester on my other wrist.
That said, the Balance is a very lightweight, stylish, and discreet fitness tracker. Despite its large size—46 mm across and 10.6 mm deep—it didn't feel bulky on my 150-mm wrist. The bezel is sleek gray aluminum, it has two buttons on the left side for control, and features a tempered glass AMOLED touchscreen.
Amazfit Balance Smart Watch: Privacy Concerns
When checking the privacy policy for most fitness trackers, it's usually easy to find and states that no data is used for ads. However, the Balance's privacy policy was difficult to locate. According to Amazfit's website, their privacy policy doesn't cover Amazfit trackers, nor does Zepp Health's policy. There's no privacy policy in the product manual either, and Amazfit didn't respond when I asked for the correct policy.
Even if everything is fine, the company makes it hard to know what happens to your data. If that concerns you, you might want to stop here.
Amazfit Balance Smart Watch: Screen, Battery, and Advanced Features
The screen is clear, bright, and very responsive. The battery is supposed to last 14 days and it charges quickly. It has a water resistance rating of 5 ATM, so you can use it while swimming, but oddly, not in the shower.
Like most high-end fitness trackers, it has many sensors and tools. These include onboard GPS with dual-band positioning to filter out environmental noise, an acceleration sensor, gyroscope, ambient light sensor, temperature sensor, and biometric sensors for heart rate and blood oxygen. It also has a microphone and a very loud speaker and a comfortable nylon strap.
Amazfit Balance Smart Watch: Improved Features and Ongoing Challenges
Amazfit is owned by Zepp, formerly known as Huami, and the Balance uses the Zepp Health app. The app used to be very frustrating to use, but its homepage is now much improved. Zepp Health features a Readiness score similar to Fitbit’s Daily Readiness or Garmin’s Body Battery, but you can still check the older PAI metric. PAI, developed using research from Ulrik Wisløff, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, uses your age, sex, resting heart rate, and the past seven days of heart rate data to determine how much activity you should be getting.
When compared the Balance's metrics with those from a Garmin and a smart ring, you may find the numbers are generally accurate. For instance, it tracks your sleep onset within minutes of the Garmin, though Zepp's algorithm is more generous—seven hours of sleep is rated as great by Zepp but just OK by Garmin Connect.
The heart rate sensor can be inconsistent. Seeing a gentle walk may spike the heart rate to 150 bpm can be alarming, but adjusting the watch usually resolves this. The Body Composition measurement for body fat percentage seems accurate.
The Zepp’s AI-powered tools are not very useful. Each tool, like Zepp Aura or Zepp Fitness requires a separate subscription, which adds up quickly. Effective AI health and wellness advice should be a perfect use for AI, but you yourself may well guide the AI for actionable advice. If you don't know the right questions to ask, you won't get good answers; if you do, you probably don't need an AI coach.
The Garmin and the Amazfit are similarly priced, but the Garmin is much easier to set up. You can easily pair it with your phone and the smartwatch functions will just working.
In theory, you can use the Amazfit to take calls and see messages, but you have to set these up manually in the app. Despite following the instructions, it may be hard for some users. There’s a limit to how much time you are willing to spend troubleshooting, especially when other trackers are so much easier to use. The Balance should simplify your life, not complicate it. Also, to play music, you have to upload MP3s. Seriously, what?
Since Fitbit was bought by Google and is now more tied to Google products and services, there's a need for wearables not solely tied to iOS or Android. Garmin makes wearables that work with both, and there's room for more companies in this space. Amazfit is reportedly releasing a smart ring soon, which looks interesting, and the Balance is already much better than the previous version.