Today we’re having a look at this retro style watch from Amazfit. It’s called Amazfit Neo and it’s got heart rate monitoring, activity tracking, sleep tracking, notifications and so on. A retro digital watch with all these functions is actually a good idea in my opinion. There’s a big choice of budget activity trackers out there, with nice touchscreens and all kinds of graphs, but not so many, if any at all, in this retro style.
In the box we get the watch itself, a cable for charging and a manual. To charge the watch we just press it into this holder and connect it to a USB power source.
This is a plastic watch, but it looks quite good, and I like the retro style. Let me know in the comments below if this is a type of watch you would use yourself and why? On the back we find the heart rate sensor and the connectors for the charger.
There are two buttons on each side of it, for navigating and controlling some of the functions. So, back to the charger a bit. To attach it we just press it into this piece, and it will snap in place. Now we can see the charge progress in the top part of the display.
It’s not a magnetic charger, so it sits on here very well, and is not going to fall off.
Charging from empty to full, takes about two and a half hours. Pairing the watch with a phone is easy. There is a QR code in the manual, but for some reason it doesn’t work. Anyway, it’s just as easy to install the app manually. It’s the same app as with other Amazfit watches, and it’s called Zepp.
After installing it, tap the + icon in the corner, now tap Watch, and Watch without a QR code. It should now pop up on the screen, so we can tap Amazfit Neo. The last step is to click the top left button marked “Select”, on the watch. That’s all, and we can now start using it.
The bands are made of polyurethane, which means it’s basically a flexible plastic material.
It’s comfortable to wear for long periods and it doesn’t move much if the watch is tight enough on the wrist. The watch case is also made of plastic, but I think it looks good in black with the red marks around it. This screen is of course always on, so the information on it is always available without doing any gestures or clicking any buttons.
On the right side we have two buttons, which are used for navigating through the different options. The top button on the left side is used to select items, and the bottom left one works as both a back button and for activating the backlight.
It’s not a very big watch, so the size should fit most of us. It measures 40.3 by 41 by 11.1 mm, and weighs only 32 grams, so it’s very light. I don’t have the smallest wrist, but I think the watch is of good size, even for larger wrists.
We can also wear in it rain or swim with it, as it is waterproof up to 50 meters. There’s not really any reason to wear it while swimming though, as it doesn’t support swim tracking. But it’s nice to know it’s not going to take any damage if we do wear it in water. The 1.2“ screen is as I mentioned earlier, always on, and it’s very clear.
The buttons stick a little bit out on the sides, but they are of good size and easy to press.
The main screen is separated into three sections. The round one in the top left shows an icon of the active function. Right next to it, is where the data for this function will show up. Right now it’s showing a shoe icon, and next to it we have steps so far today.
Below it is the date and time. Next is distance, which is calculated based on the steps. Here’s calories burnet. Todays weather, with the lowest and highest temperature next to it. The DND mode, which can be changed by pressing select.
We can choose between off, on and smart. It’s got a stopwatch, and again we use the select button to start and stop it, and pressing back will reset it.
Next is the alarm clock. We can’t really do anything with it on the watch, so to set it we have to open the app. Next is the PAI result.
Here’s the heart rate, and it will start a manual reading when it’s open. It is also possible to see the remaining battery as one option, but it must first be activated in the app. I’ll show you how to do it a bit later. In dark areas where it’s not so easy to use the screen, we can hold the back button, which will switch on the backlight.
This light is quite bright and will stay on as long as you keep using any functions on the watch, and will automatically switch off if you don’t press any buttons for a while.
If you’re like me and like getting notifications on your watch, you’ll be happy to know that we can get them on this watch as well.
They’re a bit simple, but they work. For incoming messages or app notification we only get an icon and the number of notifications in the display. For incoming calls we get a phone icon and the name of the person calling. The beep sound when pressing the buttons is a bit loud in my opinion, but luckily it is possible to turn it off.
Just remember that it’s something you’ll have to do in the app. One thing that is a bit annoying on this watch, is that it’s not possible to start any activities directly from it. But, we can start them from the app, and they will show up on the watch while the activity is active. We can choose between Running, Walking and Cycling. Let’s start one activity, so you can see what it looks like on the watch. On the screen we can now see the time spent, distance and heart rate.
We can also pause and continue the activity by pressing the Select button. There’s no built-in GPS, but it will use the phones GPS to get the necessary data and save it in the activity. To open a previous activity, just go into the Exercise records, and we will first see the short summary. Selecting it, shows us the map, and below we have distance, time spent, average speed, calories and so on.
Further down we have a speed graph and speed zones. Here’s also graphs for heart rate, heart rate zones, altitude, cadence and stride. So the activity date for such a simple watch isn’t bad at all, but it depends on using the phones GPS.
As I said earlier, the app used here is the same as with other Amazfit watches, The Zepp App. It’s a good and very stable app, so I’ve had no problems with it at all.
On the main screen we have the data for today. Here’s activity data, a heart rate graph, sleep monitoring graph, pai and so on. Selecting any of these will give us a more detailed view, and we can swipe between the different days if we want to.
Sleep data also works quite well, and the watch is comfortable and light enough to wear it at night. It’s accurate enough, but it did say I was awake a couple times, even though I can’t remember actually being awake.
It also supports tracking of REM and napping. One annoying thing in the app, is that it doesn’t hide functions that are not relevant for this specific watch. Other Amazfit watches have more functions than this one, but I can see all of them in here, and they are of course empty. I wish Amazfit would hide these functions completely, as there’s no point of having them here with a watch like the Neo.
It would make the app look a bit cleaner, with only useful information in it.
Next we have the watch settings, and we can switch on or off notifications for calls and messages.. If you want to use the alarm, it must be set in here. Since there’s no vibration on this watch, the alarm sound is the same beeping sound we heard earlier. Idle alerts can be set here, and we can choose a start and end time for it.
There are a lot of settings in here, so I’m not going to go through them all. But, if you want to save some battery and don’t need 24 hours heart rate monitoring it can be switched off here. The Watch Display Settings is quite useful though, because here you can rearrange the functions on the watch the way you want them. Just select the one you want, and move to wherever you want it. It’s nice to have the functions you use the most first in the menu.
I think the battery level function is disabled by default, so if you want it, you must drag it into the menu here. Just click save, and we can now see the remaining battery on the watch.
Regarding battery life, this watch has a 160 mAh battery, that can last up to 28 days at what they call normal use. But to get 28 days, most functions must be reduced or switched off, so it’s not really a realistic number. In my test I got 14 full days before it died, and that’s with heart rate and sleep monitoring switched on, and I used the notifications every day, and it was always connected to the phone.
This is a simple watch, but it does what it’s supposed to in a good way.
Basically all we can do on the watch is read information, start manual heart rate reading and use the stopwatch. Everything else is read only, without any possibility to see historical data, or start any activities. But as we saw earlier the activities can be started from the app. In one way it makes it easier to navigate and use the watch, but it is very limited, especially if you want to see historical data or often use activities.
But then again, if you like retro watches, the Amazfit Neo offers a lot more than a many other digital watches. It’s still quite limited, but I think this watch is targeted towards people who want the retro look, and don’t mind these limitations. So overall it’s a nice looking watch with some good functions and good battery life, and as long as you’re ok with its limitations, it’s a good choice for a budget retro watch.
