As someone who has bought a fair number of smartwatches and fitness trackers and always over-researches every decision I make:
- See the rest of the replies for info on cheap smart watches. They’re basically a cereal box toy.
- Depending on what you need, the MiBand or Amazfit bands had excellent battery life and there used to be 3rd party apps for your phone that did a much better job collecting and displaying your stats than Zepp or MiFit (the official apps) did. I miss my 1.5 month battery life. Its also possible to use gadget bridge so it’s all 100% offline though I understand its still a bit more rudimentary than a corporate cloud-based solution. I remember the bands I got from them running $25-50 USD
- Used Garmin devices or previous gen garmin devices can be had MUCH cheaper than list price on Amazon or so. I picked up a Fenix 6 a few years ago for less than half of the $600 list price. I love the lack of touchscreen because the button navigation is absurdly fast and no mistouches! This suits how I use a watch much better than trying to put a tiny a 2x2cm touchscreen on my wrist. These are fitness watches, but some have a few smart features. Depends on what you plan to use it for I guess.
- If you are a nerd (a good thing) and want to contribute to a cool project, Pine Computers, which makes the pinebook, pinetab, pinephone, etc. makes a device called the pinetime that is basically a smartwatch that is open to the community’s hacks and modifications. I haven’t bought one because my biking depends on my Garmin stats, but I am tempted to grab one to mess with it.
None of these are fancy “smarts first” watches like an Apple Watch or an Android Watch. I found I needed less smarts than I thought as I usually carry my phone at all times anyway. It is nice to have the doorbell ring on my wrist and to reply to texts by choosing from a few pre-written responses while biking, or otherwise unavailable to text. If you really want a bunch of apps and integration with your phones OS, Apple and Android are the big two and its not really feasible to go 3rd party for the same experience.
Pros: Might look cool, is cheap.
Cons: Won’t be very durable, the app for it will be shitty and closed-source(probably malware), the battery will probably suck, any vital sensors won’t be accurate, the screen will probably suck, and it will probably have a bad UI.
In summary: Save up for a better watch.
Pro: Price, Convenience, Looks
Cons: Much like buying an “iPhone” from Temu, the price is usually reflected in the quality.
Don’t get me wrong, there are cheep smart watches if you look for them or go second hand. But what you’ll find advertised on Temu isn’t it.
Build quality is usually the first to suffer, but you’ll find mislabeled battery info a 500mah instead of the promised 1000mah. Or an LCD instead of an OLED.
But those are things we can adapt too. The biggest problem is software. That’ll do and close enough has been the name of the game for years now. And sometimes “smart” just means it can (badly) track your steps and pretend to check your heart rate with a led pretending to be a sensor.
Alternative
If you are looking for any budget electronics try looking for last years or a few years ago models. I got a Garmin Forerunner 235 in 2022 for 1/5 of its asking price because I found a deal on eBay.
I’d also look into the landscape of the market you are buying into and seeing who is actually making these things, and what is running on it.
For smart watches I found the answer was
Apple
Android with Watch OS (Samsung google and many more)
Garmin
If the watch isn’t running android watch os or is made by Apple or Garmin. Assume its good too be true and look into it more, or look elsewhere.
Good news China is lazy and one clone usually is made by many factories and someone else made a video about it. Might not be the same name, but it’ll be close enough.
You’ll be probably be happier with a higher quality watch than with one that barely works. I would not recommend going for an option because it’s cheap, instead go for the one that’s good enough for you needs.
No need to buy the same one as I did, but I have been very happy with my “not the cheapest, not the most expensive”-garmin watch for years. It is reliable, does what i need it to do and is not so expensive that i am afraid of breaking it for instance. I did need to make choices to be able to get it, i could not spend that money on other things, but that only made me feel better when I got it.
More on topic: it’s easy to find accesoires/replacement parts for my watch, it’s easier to get it repaired, both at garmin as well as a local shop, the software has a lot of integration option with other software (strava, komoot, etc.) and i can download apps and watch faces other people with the same watch built and i can be sure my alarm goes off in the morning. I don’t expect the temu watch to have these things. For me it was worth to pay a bit more. Sidenote: I did get a screen protector for my watch from AliExpress, so apparently I’m not against that 😏
Pro: it’ll probably work well enough to get your notifications and maybe even your heart rate and stuff.
Con: it probably won’t arrive. If it does, it probably won’t look like in the pictures if it does, it probably won’t work like described. If it does, it probably has done kind of cheep, toxic chemicals it’ll leave in your arm. If it doesn’t, it’ll probably come with an app that drains your battery. If it doesn’t, it probably sells your live location and notifications to data brokers. If it doesn’t, it’ll probably never receive software updates. If it does, it’ll probably be broken by the end of the year.
There are actually a few relatively cheap smart watches that some people like to reprogram with open source firmware. You can get a Colmi P8 or a Kenboro K9 for less than $30 and flash WaspOS onto it. You have to get lucky and buy the right hardware revision but flashing new firmware onto those things can be as simple as downloading an app and loading a file into it. These devices are underpowered and software availability is limited, but at least with the open source stuff you can rest easy about your data not being sold.
Exactly. Don’t buy anything on Temu if you about quality or human rights at all.
All the terrible quality and human rights violations also apply to any other Chinese shop as well as Amazon or whatever your local Amazon equivalent is. I’ve found the exact same shit sold on Temu in physical store shelves for those cost-saving stores. The entire supply chain is fucked.
I do order shit directly from China, but only if I need something specific like phone parts or electronics that I see “local” shops carry with the exact same photos, descriptions, and pictures, for twice or triple the price. I’ve fallen for that trick too many times, I’ll go straight to the source now.
At least the Temu shit isn’t as bad as buying chocolate or clothes…
This! Some of my friends crap on Temu but have Amazon Prime and wind up buying the same stuff from Chinese manufacturers anyway.
Yep. Go to flea markets and trift stores people.
IIRC Temu makes it business from super cheaply priced items.
Super cheaply priced generally means either super cheap quality or some really iffy labor rights violations* in third-world countries (I know that term isn’t the term to use nowadays since it’s a cold war relic but I can’t think of a better term—lemme know if you know of one), usually both.
*Up to and including slave labor. (Yay capitalism!)
You don’t need it. Save your $.
Cons: Ewaste and bad for the environment. Get something High quality used like on Facebook marketplace or a thrift store.
Agreed. Getting something second-hand is almost always better.
Isn’t Facebook marketplace an awful place to buy things? The only people I know used it all got scammed.
USA: eBay
JP: Rakuten
NL: MarktplaatsThere is probably a zillions better alternative in w/e country you are, if not online then flee markets or thrift stores
Not awful. I’ve had only positive experiences. No buyer protections, but it’s hard to get scammed buying something in person from someone local, unless you get it home before realizing it’s fake/broken, or they kidnap you and lock you in their basement. There are pretty simple precautions you can take against either, not that there’s any foolproof solution…but I wouldn’t say awful.
The best advice is just to be cautious. Obviously don’t send money before you get something and make sure it’s functional. Facebook marketplace is a good place to find deals if you know to be safe.
It might or might not:
- arrive
- work
- be genuine
- be fit for purpose
- Give lead poisoning
- Leak battery juice
- Explode
Pros: price
Cons: the watch doesn’t work and now you have lead poisoning
Hey, you could be paying a lot more for lead poisoning of this strength.
I have some strict rules about buying things where I cannot verify the used materials:
Nothing that goes into my body
Nothing that goes on my body
Nothing that touches my food
Nothing my pets touch
Nothing that needs to be plugged in or chargedA smart watch violates multiple of those rules. I wouldn’t want to risk it.
Nothing that needs to be plugged in or charged
How are you using this site?
where I cannot verify the used materials
I’m very much doubting you can verify everything in your computer/phone as even computer part manufacturers have difficulty tracing their supply chain, so good luck with that.
While I completely appreciate your perspective, I do have to ask: what with how interconnected, not to mention fucked up, the world is today, wouldn’t pretty much everything violate at least two or three of those rules?
I took that one to mean You know your Samsung S21 was made by Samsung. That suspiciously cheap “hoverboard” with the lithium ion battery was made… in china… somewhere.
I figured they meant that as well. I’m just saying their rules may not be as hard and fast as they seem to be presenting them.
Just buy a cheap Casio if that’s your budget. It’ll keep better time and is less likely to end up in a landfill
I have a casio phys and love it. It’s about 10 years old and I never even had to change the battery!
Then why are you considering it at all. I just rediscovered my old W-213 still going strong. I readjusted the seconds to match the current time, and I love the beep sounds.
I don’t think smartwatches and wearable clocks are the same thing. I want some of the features that smartwatches offer. I find it inconvenient to use a cellphone while riding my bicycle. I think sending and receiving text messages from a wearable device would be more convenient while commuting on the bike. plus some of the health monitoring features interest me. Also with my job I may look more professional checking my watch in certain cases than pulling out my phone.
So I already responded, but I’m seeing here that you are also a cyclist! I have tried a number of watches over the years and Garmin is absolutely the gold standard for fitness focused smartwatches. Some of them, like mine, only have buttons, no touchscreen, which sounds bad, but is actually amazing. Sure I can only choose from prewritten SMS responses, but I can get there with a few button clicks while riding (even on gravel). With my touchscreen watches, I used to have to stop to reply. The TFT screens also look better in direct sunlight than an LCD or OLED. So now, whenever my wife texts “where are you?” I can send a “out riding, love you” with only a few clicks. I also send her my GPS location when I ride in the road so she can have some peace of mind. I hear Wahoo also released a watch, haven’t heard much about it.
Cons are a weak app ecosystem and not quite as “smart” (meaning it is not as filled with tech gimmicks and an endless stream of notification chum). The stat analysis of your health data is best done via Garmin Connect app or even better, the desktop website. They let you download some of the reports as a CSV, but I’ve found that more often than that, the formatting and how the data is broken up in the csvs needs some work.
Do remember, while not a Google or an Apple, Garmin is still a big evil corporation trying to make money off chumps like you and me. You likely won’t get these features and keep your privacy 100% intact
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Seems like asking for disappointment
if you want a decent cheap option, the wyze watch seemed okay
Someone close to me had positive things to say about the Wyze watch as well. If apple and android are tier A, wyze is below that, but above all the F tier temu and amazon junk.
All of the wyze stuff seems to be decent, but not super premium.
The headphones are 85% as good as the Bose, but for $49
The scale is quite good, nothing even remotely off about that and it integrates with Fitbit just fine.
The Color smart bulbs have been solid. One of the wyze smart plugs lost its memory once and needed to be re-setup, but fine since.
The cameras all work great too, as long as you’re comfortable with the fact that the video goes to some cloud location.
When smart watches were begining to be a thing, a friend of mine bought a smartwatch for like 5$ in Ali express. When I asked him how the watch is he said “I am surprised that even for this low price, they still managed to disappoint me”
I recall there being a LOT of those watches out that were “mobile data connected” for very cheap.
The catch? The mobile data radio was 2g, and those networks are all obsolete and gone now (I think)
Thanks for the suggestion!
Cheap but probably won’t work I’m guessing?
If you really want a cheap smart watch there’s a bunch of reliable ones worth looking into rather than getting something random on temu. I haven’t tried the Pine Time but it looks good if you like fiddling with the tech.
If you can put up with Xiaomi they make a ton of different options. I used a Mi Band for a few years and it kinda did what I wanted it to do better than my current Wear OS watch does
I never heard of Pine Time before, but that looks interesting!
Didn’t nothing make a relatively cheap one too?
Another person mentioned nothing by another name, and it is definitely interesting to me.
