Amazfit Bip tips and tricks

The Amazfit Bip is one of the best budget smartwatches you can get, crammed with plenty of features - sleep tracking, GPS and heart rate - for a low price.

You also get a whopping 30 to 45 days of battery life. It's insane, we know, and you couldn't help but get one on your wrist. But how the heck do you master this thing?

Wareable verdict: Amazfit Bip review

Well friends, we've had the Bip for quite a long time - and we're here to make your life easier with a selection of our favorite tips and tricks. Read on.

Download AmazTools

You're largely going to interact with your Bip through Xiaomi's Mi Fit app (Stick with us here, but Amazfit's Bip is a product of Xiaomi spin-off Huami). There are a number of options in the Mi Fit app to customize your Bip, but the very unofficial AmazTools app is what you need to download.

You'll get detailed statistics on your activities and the ability to export them to Strava, and you can also sync your workouts and heart rate to Apple Health. While Mi Fit will let you choose a watch face, AmazTools will let you create your own.

Plus, you'll get to use your Bip as a controller for your phone's flashlight, camera and Spotify account. You may not be able to download music to the Bip, but you will get to control your Spotify.

Turn off disconnect alerts

The Bip is not a standalone smartwatch, but thanks to its GPS powers every once in a while you may decide to take it out on a run. When you get far enough away from your smartphone, it's going to send you an alert telling you you're disconnected.

This is - frankly - super annoying. Unless you absolutely need to know when your smartwatch is connected to your phone, you can turn this off. Just head to Amazfit Bip in the Mi Fit app, click "More" then toggle off "Disconnection Reminder."

Maximize that battery life

The Bip already has great battery life. You can get 30 days of battery life pretty easily, but you can go beyond that if you like. In fact you can stretch it to a whopping 45 days with the right settings.

All you have to do is cull features like notifications and minute-by-minute heart rate. If over a month of battery life is something you want, then you should definitely slim down notifications to the essentials and reduce heart rate scanning to every five or 10 minutes.

Those two things alone will help you get the battery life you crave.

Customize heart rate intervals

Speaking of heart rate intervals, you'll want to customize that to something that suits you. Head to the Mi Fit app, click on "Amazfit Bip" and scroll down to "Heart rate detection."

Click and select "Detection frequency." Your choices are one minute, five minutes, 10 minutes and 30 minutes. Choose what's best for you and pick that. Most people should be perfectly fine with detection every five minutes. If you're more on the athletic side or need to keep more of an eye on your heart rate for whatever reason, one minute will likely suit you best. If you kinda don't care, 10 or 30 minutes is good.

Heart rate data that you want

There is yet another way to customize heart rate detection on the Bip. It's down to two different use cases: Automatic, 24-hour heart rate detection and sleep assistant.

Automatic heart rate detection is pretty much how it works on most other wearables. The heart rate sensor will automatically sense it's on your wrist and detect your heart rate at least every minute. Sleep assistant, on the other hand, is totally focused on using the heart rate monitor while you're sleeping for improved accuracy.

Choose what's more important to you then head to the heart rate detection section of your Bip in the Mi Fit app to change it. You can also change it up multiple times during the day if you choose, like before you sleep.

Track your sleep

Speaking of sleep, you should definitely take advantage of the Bip's 30 days of battery life and track it. There are few other wearables that can offer this much battery life, and battery life is the number one feature needed for long-term sleep tracking.

Read this: The best sleep trackers

Even with something like a Fitbit Versa, you have to charge it up after little less than a week to keep going. With the Bip, you don't have to worry about it for a month. That'll keep you tracking longer, and less likely to break your pattern because you forgot to charge it or were too lazy to.

Don't take your sleep metrics too seriously

However, you shouldn't take your metrics too seriously. We found that the accuracy of the Bip's sleep tracking isn't the best when compared to the current king of wearable sleep tracking - Fitbit.

But! Don't be disheartened - the Bip offers some pretty fun sleep tracking features that can be useful. For instance, it keeps track of your sleep regularity. Seeing as sleep regularity is a major part of getting good sleep, that's a good thing to know. It can also tell you that you slept too late and can offer earlier bedtimes.

Program your long press of the crown

The Bip has a single button, a crown, that you can click to go home. But you can also long-press it to activate a specific workout. Scroll all the way over to the right for the Settings app on your Bip.

Then click "Long button press" and choose which activity you want to program your long button press to. There's outdoor running, treadmill running, cycling, walking and nothing. Yes, that means you can turn it off completely if you keep accidentally enabling it.

Check the app for more watch faces

There are a good number of watch faces you can switch to on the Bip itself, just scroll all the way to the right to get to the watch's settings. However, there are even more in the Mi Fit app. These faces are a little more graphically intensive, and include pixel artwork of the Sydney Opera House and such. They will suck up battery life, but they're there for you.

Just head over to the Mi Fit app, then click on "Amazfit Bip" in the home screen and click "watch face settings" to see them all. There are about 20.

Set a schedule for raise to wake

You've had a long day and you're winding down for bed with some TV and warm milk. You want to keep your Bip on for sleep tracking but you also don't want it turning on in the middle of the night while your arms wave about.

Head to the Amazfit Bip section of the Mi Fit app and scroll down to "Lift wrist to view info." Click it and you'll see that you can schedule a time for this feature. That way, from 11p.m. to 7a.m. your Bip's display won't activate.