ZeWatch 2 by MyKronoz: between Switzerland and China
"Smart watches from Switzerland" - sounds tempting, is not it? However, these “Swiss watches” are made in the same China, and their designers were made, albeit real Swiss, but from the category “I am not a magician, but only learn”.
What are we talking about? About the novelty of the Swiss company MyKronoz - smart watches ZeWatch 2. This black brilliant beast had the imprudence to get caught in our claws, and now we intend to take it apart in the bones in our Mad-review.
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Specifications:
The watch looks quite decent. Of course, to the luxury of the legendary Swiss brands, designers like MyKronoz are as far as the Moon, but against the backdrop of dozens of Chinese analogues of ZeWatch 2, they look like Darth Vader in a crowd of attack aircraft. A good impression is made by the laconism of the forms and the black gloss of the case, smoothly turning into the smooth surface of the silicone strap, thanks to which the device looks more like a bracelet than a watch.
It's not entirely clear why an ordinary non-touch display has a glossy surface. The screen turned out very branded - it has to be cleaned every now and then. In the open air, glossy predictably suppresses the brightness of a contrasting OLED display, making its content poorly distinguishable.
Nevertheless, the ergonomics of ZeWatch 2 deserve praise: the watch is comfortable to sit on your hand, never tight, do not rub the skin, feel comfortable even after many hours of continuous wear and in the process of active sports. Although it’s not too comfortable to sleep with a watch on your wrist, you will need a habit.
Yes, and lovers of diving with the clock in the pool or just soaking up at the end of the day under the ZeWatch 2 shower will not work. The device is completely devoid of hydroprotection and, probably, will not be able to survive even a small rain. What to say about the full immersion.
Still, protection from water in smart watches is not the most important thing. Compatibility issues are much more significant for them. For example, the fresh “Sonevsky” SmartBand SWR10 fitness bracelet necessarily requires Android 4.4 on the master device. ZeWatch 2 is not so picky. They managed to easily “make friends” even with a weak Sony Xperia M. In the list of Bluetooth devices, the device was displayed as a standard headset with the function of relaying music. He connected without dancing with a tambourine: to initiate pairing, it was enough to press and hold the left upper button of the clock.
Holds the connection device tenaciously. If the smartphone and the clock diverge to a distance of more than 10 meters, the latter report this with two persistent vibration signals and the word “disconnected” - ideally, if you are one of those who forget the smartphone anywhere. In the presence of concrete walls, the connection is broken at a smaller distance. Fortunately, to restore the connection does not require additional manipulations - everything happens automatically.
But the mobile application ZeWatch 2 - this is a serious puncture.
Against the background of a quite suitable device, it looks just terrifying: the fonts on the buttons crawl out of the frame or overlap each other, some buttons do not function at all. In addition, it’s unnerving to confirm your login and password each time you log in and manually synchronize with the device.
Not to mention the fact that for any manipulation you will need Wi-Fi or 3G. All current information, you see, is stored in the cloud and without a stable connection, you cannot take a single step.
Completely disappointed in the Android version of the application, we decided to install it on iPad Air. On the tablet, the application looks much more decent: it is also not the top of the design skill, but at least you can interact with this, but a couple of glitches, like non-working buttons, are present here. About the tablet version of the speech does not go.
Now on the content. The application has four tabs: "activity", "goals", "reminders" and "parameters". The first tab provides statistics on the steps taken during the day, the distance traveled, calories burned, and sleep data. In the second tab, you can set your daily rate for each of the above parameters. The third is used to create alarms and alerts. In total, you can create up to 6 "reminders."
The fourth tab provides access to profile settings, adjusting screen brightness and activating silent mode. Here you can set the date and time format. Date and time are set on the clock automatically during the first synchronization.
Having dealt with the application, we turn to the most interesting - to the supported functions. In the manual, we found a whole scattering of valuable features: call forwarding, missed SMS notifications, voice control support, music broadcast, customizable alerts, and alarm clocks.
Most of the declared options were available and even without any special glitches. It was not possible only to cope with voice control: it flatly refused to respond to the traditional “Okay, Google!”. It did not even help the permission to transmit voice commands from Bluetooth devices, set in the Google Now settings.
As for the call retransmission, here everything happens quite predictably. When an incoming call ZeWatch 2 immediately takes fire on itself, notifying the user with loud trills and continuous vibration, as well as displaying the caller's number. The melody of the call, however, is not borrowed from the phone - instead of it, a simple 8-bit melody sounds. The sound can be turned off in the application “settings” menu - there is always enough vibration.
Acceptance and rejection of calls is carried out according to the usual pattern: the green button is responsible for the first, the red button for the second. It is also possible to temporarily turn off the vibrating alert by briefly pressing the right upper key, as well as call back to the missed number. As for the sensitivity of the microphone and the quality of the built-in speaker, they leave much to be desired. On a noisy street and in the subway to talk on the clock is very problematic.
Also in ZeWatch 2, you can discover the classic functions of fitness tracking. The gadget can count steps, measure distance traveled and estimate calories expended. All data is sent to the mobile application and checked against user “goals”. Statistics can be viewed both on the display of the device itself and in the application. The memory of the latter is extremely short - the statistics are stored for only a week.
It is difficult to suspect the device in high accuracy of measurements. However, here it is necessary to be more indulgent. In the end, this is not a specialized fitness bracelet, like the Polar Loop, but a universal gadget “for all occasions” with the character of a typical amateur.
As for the sleep tracker, here we are overtaken by deep disappointment. The point is not even in the annoying necessity to press a button each time when you go to bed or wake up to switch to the “night mode”. And the fact that from the four test nights the clock independently came out of this “night mode” twice, incorrectly determining the total duration of sleep with all the consequences.
In addition, the device never managed to transfer the results of night tracking to the application. As a result, statistics on sleep, we have remained pristine clean.
The most dubious of the stated functions seemed to us the retransmission of music. It is not quite clear why to transfer music to a weak speaker: even if it is brought to full power with its sound, it is not at all impressive. But intercept audio stream clock automatically. That is, if you want to listen to music through a wired headset, with the clock connected, this will require additional manipulations from you.
Finally, on nutrition. The watch is charged with a special clip, a USB connector is used as the power source.
Full charge, according to the documentation, is an hour and a half, but we managed to fill the battery in just an hour. Operation time: due to the low power consumption of the OLED-display, which automatically turns off after 5 seconds after activation, the device quietly pulls the strap for 3-4 days.
By the way, the absence of the ability to change the time to automatically turn off the display, as well as the need to start any manipulation by pressing the green or red buttons, is quite unnerving.
Summary
The advantages and disadvantages of a gadget roughly balance each other. Our attitude towards it was rather negative: without any special enthusiasm, but with complaints: first of all, to software developers. The gadget is trying to be an option for those who want to try smart watches in action, but it’s a pity on Pebble money. He does it badly: after wearing ZeWatch 2, a newcomer to the world of wearable electronics will most likely curse the entire industry at once.
Pros:
Minuses:
Competitor
Instead of ZeWatch 2, we advise you to take a closer look at Cogito Pop: these smart watches look like ordinary analog ones, but in fact they display notifications using various icons. With their help, you can control the music player on your smartphone and camera. In addition, youth watches from Cogito are waterproof, available in various colors and work without changing the battery for a whole year. You can buy Cogito Pop from us at Madrobots for 5,490 rubles. There is also a more advanced Cogito Classic model with a miniature display.
Review author: Andrey Gasilin
What are we talking about? About the novelty of the Swiss company MyKronoz - smart watches ZeWatch 2. This black brilliant beast had the imprudence to get caught in our claws, and now we intend to take it apart in the bones in our Mad-review.
')
Specifications:
- Size: 59 x 30 x 9 mm
- Weight: 35 g
- Connectivity: bluetooth 2.1 & 4.0
- Compatibility: Android 2.3+ and iOS7 +
- Battery: Li-ion, capacity 130 mAh
- Charging Type: USB
- Battery life: 3 days
- Charging duration: 1 h. 30 min.
- Memory statistics: 7 days
- Display: type - OLED, resolution - 96 x 64 pixels
- Sensors: 3-axis accelerometer
- Operating temperature: -10 ° C to + 60 ° C
The watch looks quite decent. Of course, to the luxury of the legendary Swiss brands, designers like MyKronoz are as far as the Moon, but against the backdrop of dozens of Chinese analogues of ZeWatch 2, they look like Darth Vader in a crowd of attack aircraft. A good impression is made by the laconism of the forms and the black gloss of the case, smoothly turning into the smooth surface of the silicone strap, thanks to which the device looks more like a bracelet than a watch.
It's not entirely clear why an ordinary non-touch display has a glossy surface. The screen turned out very branded - it has to be cleaned every now and then. In the open air, glossy predictably suppresses the brightness of a contrasting OLED display, making its content poorly distinguishable.
Nevertheless, the ergonomics of ZeWatch 2 deserve praise: the watch is comfortable to sit on your hand, never tight, do not rub the skin, feel comfortable even after many hours of continuous wear and in the process of active sports. Although it’s not too comfortable to sleep with a watch on your wrist, you will need a habit.
Yes, and lovers of diving with the clock in the pool or just soaking up at the end of the day under the ZeWatch 2 shower will not work. The device is completely devoid of hydroprotection and, probably, will not be able to survive even a small rain. What to say about the full immersion.
Still, protection from water in smart watches is not the most important thing. Compatibility issues are much more significant for them. For example, the fresh “Sonevsky” SmartBand SWR10 fitness bracelet necessarily requires Android 4.4 on the master device. ZeWatch 2 is not so picky. They managed to easily “make friends” even with a weak Sony Xperia M. In the list of Bluetooth devices, the device was displayed as a standard headset with the function of relaying music. He connected without dancing with a tambourine: to initiate pairing, it was enough to press and hold the left upper button of the clock.
Holds the connection device tenaciously. If the smartphone and the clock diverge to a distance of more than 10 meters, the latter report this with two persistent vibration signals and the word “disconnected” - ideally, if you are one of those who forget the smartphone anywhere. In the presence of concrete walls, the connection is broken at a smaller distance. Fortunately, to restore the connection does not require additional manipulations - everything happens automatically.
But the mobile application ZeWatch 2 - this is a serious puncture.
Against the background of a quite suitable device, it looks just terrifying: the fonts on the buttons crawl out of the frame or overlap each other, some buttons do not function at all. In addition, it’s unnerving to confirm your login and password each time you log in and manually synchronize with the device.
Not to mention the fact that for any manipulation you will need Wi-Fi or 3G. All current information, you see, is stored in the cloud and without a stable connection, you cannot take a single step.
Completely disappointed in the Android version of the application, we decided to install it on iPad Air. On the tablet, the application looks much more decent: it is also not the top of the design skill, but at least you can interact with this, but a couple of glitches, like non-working buttons, are present here. About the tablet version of the speech does not go.
Now on the content. The application has four tabs: "activity", "goals", "reminders" and "parameters". The first tab provides statistics on the steps taken during the day, the distance traveled, calories burned, and sleep data. In the second tab, you can set your daily rate for each of the above parameters. The third is used to create alarms and alerts. In total, you can create up to 6 "reminders."
The fourth tab provides access to profile settings, adjusting screen brightness and activating silent mode. Here you can set the date and time format. Date and time are set on the clock automatically during the first synchronization.
Having dealt with the application, we turn to the most interesting - to the supported functions. In the manual, we found a whole scattering of valuable features: call forwarding, missed SMS notifications, voice control support, music broadcast, customizable alerts, and alarm clocks.
Most of the declared options were available and even without any special glitches. It was not possible only to cope with voice control: it flatly refused to respond to the traditional “Okay, Google!”. It did not even help the permission to transmit voice commands from Bluetooth devices, set in the Google Now settings.
As for the call retransmission, here everything happens quite predictably. When an incoming call ZeWatch 2 immediately takes fire on itself, notifying the user with loud trills and continuous vibration, as well as displaying the caller's number. The melody of the call, however, is not borrowed from the phone - instead of it, a simple 8-bit melody sounds. The sound can be turned off in the application “settings” menu - there is always enough vibration.
Acceptance and rejection of calls is carried out according to the usual pattern: the green button is responsible for the first, the red button for the second. It is also possible to temporarily turn off the vibrating alert by briefly pressing the right upper key, as well as call back to the missed number. As for the sensitivity of the microphone and the quality of the built-in speaker, they leave much to be desired. On a noisy street and in the subway to talk on the clock is very problematic.
Also in ZeWatch 2, you can discover the classic functions of fitness tracking. The gadget can count steps, measure distance traveled and estimate calories expended. All data is sent to the mobile application and checked against user “goals”. Statistics can be viewed both on the display of the device itself and in the application. The memory of the latter is extremely short - the statistics are stored for only a week.
It is difficult to suspect the device in high accuracy of measurements. However, here it is necessary to be more indulgent. In the end, this is not a specialized fitness bracelet, like the Polar Loop, but a universal gadget “for all occasions” with the character of a typical amateur.
As for the sleep tracker, here we are overtaken by deep disappointment. The point is not even in the annoying necessity to press a button each time when you go to bed or wake up to switch to the “night mode”. And the fact that from the four test nights the clock independently came out of this “night mode” twice, incorrectly determining the total duration of sleep with all the consequences.
In addition, the device never managed to transfer the results of night tracking to the application. As a result, statistics on sleep, we have remained pristine clean.
The most dubious of the stated functions seemed to us the retransmission of music. It is not quite clear why to transfer music to a weak speaker: even if it is brought to full power with its sound, it is not at all impressive. But intercept audio stream clock automatically. That is, if you want to listen to music through a wired headset, with the clock connected, this will require additional manipulations from you.
Finally, on nutrition. The watch is charged with a special clip, a USB connector is used as the power source.
Full charge, according to the documentation, is an hour and a half, but we managed to fill the battery in just an hour. Operation time: due to the low power consumption of the OLED-display, which automatically turns off after 5 seconds after activation, the device quietly pulls the strap for 3-4 days.
By the way, the absence of the ability to change the time to automatically turn off the display, as well as the need to start any manipulation by pressing the green or red buttons, is quite unnerving.
Summary
The advantages and disadvantages of a gadget roughly balance each other. Our attitude towards it was rather negative: without any special enthusiasm, but with complaints: first of all, to software developers. The gadget is trying to be an option for those who want to try smart watches in action, but it’s a pity on Pebble money. He does it badly: after wearing ZeWatch 2, a newcomer to the world of wearable electronics will most likely curse the entire industry at once.
Pros:
- good design
- pleasant ergonomics
- compatibility with a wide range of devices (on the manufacturer's website even compatibility with desktop versions of Windows and Mac is declared)
- relatively long battery life
- short charging time
- a large number of functions
- low cost - about 4000 rubles
Minuses:
- terrible mobile app
- low measurement accuracy
- plenty of buttons and their inconvenient location
- lack of automatic display shutdown
- total lack of moisture protection
- inconvenient system of broadcasting calls and music
- the inability to fully use the device in sunny weather due to the glare display
- incorrect voice commands
Competitor
Instead of ZeWatch 2, we advise you to take a closer look at Cogito Pop: these smart watches look like ordinary analog ones, but in fact they display notifications using various icons. With their help, you can control the music player on your smartphone and camera. In addition, youth watches from Cogito are waterproof, available in various colors and work without changing the battery for a whole year. You can buy Cogito Pop from us at Madrobots for 5,490 rubles. There is also a more advanced Cogito Classic model with a miniature display.
Review author: Andrey Gasilin
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/364481/
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