Step into a smarter, more active life
View(s):By Mahesh de Andrado
I’ve been using my Haylou Solart Plus RT3 for more than a year and while it’s done a bang-up job for its price, it was getting a bit dated in terms of performance. I was familiar with Amazfit and one model in particular caught my eye – the Amazfit Active 2. This little smartwatch punches way above its weight class for a price that’s easy on both the eyes, and the wallet.
The Amazfit Active 2 is light. At just 29.5g (minus the strap), I sometimes forget it’s even there. But don’t let the weight fool you. It’s built well. You get a stainless steel bezel, a polymer frame, and a vibrant 1.32” AMOLED display (466×466 resolution) that pushes 1000 nits of brightness. It’s crisp, clear, and totally usable even in direct sunlight. The glass is 2.5D tempered with an anti-fingerprint coating, while the Premium model ups the ante with sapphire glass.
Two physical buttons sit on the right. The top one doubles as your app menu/home button, while the bottom jumps straight into workouts. Long-pressing the top button launches Zepp Flow, more on that in a sec. There’s a mic between the buttons, a speaker at the bottom edge, and health sensors on the back. Everything’s clean and intuitive.
Battery? A modest 270mAh cell powers the Active 2 for up to 10 days of regular use, or about five days if you turn on everything. I usually keep everything on including Bluetooth calls, except AOD, and I get seven days easy, even with a couple of workouts tossed in. Charging is painless too: under two hours using the included USB-C magnetic puck. I just plug it into my 65W GaN charger and forget about it. Two hours before I go to sleep and it’s ready to track my sleep, no stress. Also, it supports 20mm quick-release straps, so swapping bands is a breeze.
Zepp OS 4.5: Budget wearOS vibes, in a good way
Coming from an older Bip 3 Pro on RTOS, I was genuinely curious to see what the fuss was about, and wow, it’s a major leap. You get all the core features: robust health tracking, a buttery 60Hz UI, access to the Zepp App Store, music control, and smooth animations. It’s not as stacked as Wear OS, but it nails the everyday stuff really well.
What really blew my mind? Zepp Flow. Introduced in Zepp OS 3.5, it brings OpenAI-powered voice smarts to your wrist. I get a text or WhatsApp message? I can reply with the tiny keyboard, or just speak my reply. And the dictation is on point. It catches punctuation, tone, and context nearly perfectly, even on long replies.
Long-pressing the top button fires up Zepp Flow, turning it into your on-wrist voice assistant. You can start workouts, check health stats, read notifications, set alarms, and more. The only catch: you need to be connected to your phone via Bluetooth. There are offline commands, but they’re not as sharp as the cloud-powered Zepp Flow.
UI navigation is clean. Swipe down for quick settings, up for notifications, sideways for widgets (heart rate, PAI, sleep, weather, etc.), and you can tweak all of it in the Zepp App. Tons of watch faces are available via the Zepp Store.
Precision health tracking
In terms of health tracking, the Amazfit Active 2 packs the latest BioTracker™ 6.0 PPG sensor, backed by a solid lineup of sensors: 5-satellite positioning, barometric altimeter, compass, and even a skin temperature sensor. Having done several of my usual walks home from work, the GPS had no issues tracking my route, whilst the workout gave me all the info I needed and it even linked to Strava and Google Fit. All-in-all, extremely satisfied.
Zepp’s Readiness Score was another feature I found myself using. Normally, features like this are locked behind more premium brands like Garmin or Suunto. But here it is, on a budget watch. It basically tells me exactly how ready I am for the day, both mentally and physically by analyzing data like sleep quality, HRV, resting heart rate, breathing quality, and skin temp to assess your recovery.
And the results? Genuinely accurate. The watch gives a quick summary, and the full report on my phone when I want more detail.
Available at SimplyTek for Rs. 32,000 and Rs. 38,000 for the premium version.
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