Amazfit looked set to have a massive CES – and the company has used the show to unveil a slew of fitness focussed wearables, as it cements itself as a player in the health tech market.
While the news was dominated by its smart treadmill with huge video screen for guided workouts, and AirRun Treadmill aimed at unseating Peloton, its new smartwatches and sports watches are aggressively aimed at the likes of Apple and Garmin, with powerful specs and low, low prices.
Check out our list of the best smartwatches of 2020.
Amazfit T-Rex packs a bite
The big story was the release of the Amazfit T-Rex, a brand new adventure watch built for the outdoors. It’s built to military grade MIL-STD-810G toughness, so think Garmin Instinct Tactical here – able to withstand a huge temperature range from -40 to 70 degrees.
It has a full 1.3-inch AMOLED display, with a 360x360 resolution and can still muster a 20 day battery life – which is pretty impressive. Amazfit says you get 20 hours of GPS and GLONASS tracking, which is shorter than a Garmin Instinct or Garmin Fenix but is still good for most people.
It’s a beast of a device, with the 48mm case right up there with the size of a Garmin Fenix 6. There are 14 sport modes and it’s water resistant to 50 metres.
While Amazfit’s fitness app and ecosystem can’t challenge Garmin’s for analysis of workouts, it certainly can on price. The Amazfit T-Rex is set to retail for $139.99, which is an extremely aggressive price and it will be on sale in January 2020.
However, a previous acquisition does lend weight to Amazfit’s claims that it can do the analysis as well as the tracking.
The T-Rex (and the new Bip S) works with Huami PAI, the technology developed and licensed from Mio Global. It analyses heart rate and activity data to develop a PAI score out of 100, which can be logged and improved upon. The users’ goal is to keep the PAI score high, rather than gun for 10,000 steps.
Amazfit and PAI Health (formally Mio Global) started the partnership back in 2018 – and it’s landed on a bunch of watches including the Amazfit GTS and GTR.
Check out full review of the Amazfit T-Rex.
Amazfit Bip S bops in
Huami has announced the Bip S at CES 2020 – confirming rumours and leaks that a follow-up to its successful budget smartwatch. And yes, it still looks like a really budget Apple Watch.
Following the Bip and Bip Lite, the Bip S has upgraded hardware and a bigger health focus – as Amazfit ramps up its vision to become a consumer health company.
First on the hardware: the Bip S ups its water-resistance to 5ATM and battery life to 40 days – and just like its predecessor has GPS and a heart rate monitor built in. It weighs just 31g, which is identical to the original Bip smartwatch.
Check out our hands-on review of the Amazfit Bip S.
Two new wireless earbuds
Finally, Amazfit has also jumped into the true-wireless earbud game with two new products.
Most interestingly, the Amazfit ZenBuds are a pair of earbuds designed to help you sleep (pictured above). They feature passive noise cancellation to drown out external sound, they play sleep inducing sounds for three hours after you drift off.
That’s determined by built-in sleep monitoring from heart rate, body position and movement. All this is fed back into a sleep report.
While that’s pretty niche, there’s also the PowerBuds (above). These also feature built-in heart rate monitoring, Thru Mode and 8 hours listening time, plus an extra 24 hours in the charging case.
The PowerBuds are fitness focussed – as with all of Amazfit’s new tech – and they have removable sport ear hooks that can be clipped on for a snug fit when working out.
We will update with full pricing and availability as we get them.
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.