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Thursday, May 26, 2016

Ulife-JOY U80 Smart Bluetooth Watch

Are you looking for a watch that will give you some nice reminders to stay healthy?  Then this is a great entry level smart watch for you.  I had long wanted a smartwatch that could talk to my phone and I could take calls from.  Such a great new technology I think.  But before I tell you my pros and cons on this item, let me talk about the feel of the watch.

As I looked over the product, it appeared well made with no major manufacturing defects of pieces of plastic sticking out anywhere.  The band was a very nice soft silicone-feel like material which was very comfortable on my wrist.  Now, I have very small wrists and I did find a small 'con' in that the way this strap is designed to go on, it's very difficult to snap the button and pull the band through the hole on your own with 1 hand.  That said, the face of the smart watch is a bit larger than my wrist but that is just me.  The display is a very nice brightness and that can be turned down in settings to conserve more battery life.  Speaking of battery - With a common day usage it had to be charged by noon of the next day.  This can vary from user to user but the battery life is not terribly long.  The plastic face touchscreen does tend to get pretty smudgy with alot of swiping I noticed.  The overall feel on my wrist was extremely comfortable.

As others have said, you'll need an app on your phone to get this to work in order to take calls and get notifications you normally see on your phone.  The app to get from the Google Play Store is: Mediatek SmartDevice.  (I have a Samsung Galaxy S5 running Marshmallow).  Once I had that installed and connected to the smartphone (via the app) everything started to work correctly.  The one thing to not is that the app will automatically have every app possible notification to 'on'.  This can get quit annoying as there is no way to just scroll through them all via the watch.

The reminders to drink and get up from sitting were very nice.  A good activity reminder and with the pedometer app it can help you reach your goal # of steps.  I also took a call with my husband using the watch and he said I came through nice and clear.  He even sounded pretty good to me too.  Music was just ok, but I didn't expect much because....after all....it's supposed to be a watch.  And you can't move very far away from your phone before it disconnects.  Plus it doesn't reconnect automatically - you have to manually go in each time to connect it to your phone.  There's no ability to add/delete/move apps from their current locations as well.  Texts - You can read them on the watch but you will still have to reply on your phone.  Same for email.
BUT!  With all that said, this watch can do a basic things very well.  The display is great, the ability to make and receive calls clearly is a huge plus and the ability to alert you via vibration of a notification that could be an important text is really good.  The occasional reminders to drink and move are also very nice.
I do really like the simplicity of the watch but the lack of any real user settings is somewhat frustrating.

To buy on Amazon: http://amzn.com/B019FSWYYW