Amazfit sleep tracker review
Huami isn’t new to the wearables industry. They partnered with the Chinese phone company Xiaomi to help them develop the Mi Band 2 and Mi Band Pulse. Now, they’ve gone out on their own and created a unique looking sleep tracker of their own.
The Amazfit Moonbeam sleep tracker was designed in a manner that was inspired by Chinese pendants. When in the watch form factor, it’s certainly something that will catch your eye.
But does the Moonbeam perform as well as it looks? Let’s take a look.
Design
Unless you’re really paying attention, the Moonbeam is a pretty discreet fashion accessory. Other than the hole in the center, it looks a lot like a standard watch.
But just because there is no display doesn’t mean that the device doesn’t have any output.
If you tap on the top of the device, you can estimate the time or your activity progress from a set of built-in LED lights. There are a couple different designs for the Moonbeam.
One is a white (although they call it “eggshell”) with a rose gold accent around the bevel. If that’s not your style, you can pick up a black one which is made entirely from a single color.
Alternately, there is another model that trades the watch-style band for a single spaghetti looking strap that gives you a very sleek and modern appearance.
Activity Tracking
Well, obviously we know that it looks great. But how well does it track your activity? We compared the Moonbeam to other trackers to find out how accurate it is, and how the features stack up.
First is the step counter. This has been a problem with a lot of affordable sleep trackers, but the moonbeam worked very well.
We compared it with our Samsung sleep tracker and a Fitbit and the results were almost dead on.
Next, we have the calorie counter. This is a calculated measurement based on the length and intensity of your workout.
These are comparable results to what you would get from a standard fitness tracker, although not as accurate as some of the fitness trackers that measure your heart rate.
Unless you’re training for something that requires a very specific amount of calorie output, this should produce results that are within 10% of your actual expenditure.
Last, the Moonbeam tracks your sleep cycles. This is actually pretty accurate. It can differentiate between light sleep, deep sleep, and tell you how many times you woke up during the night.
Since this is not an expensive fitness tracker we expected the collected data to be much simpler than what you’d get with an expensive model, but the Moonbeam actually collects quite a lot of data.
Application
Since there is no display on the Moonbeam, all of the data is transmitted via Bluetooth and access through an IOS or Android application. The app has a very clean interface and is very simple to use.
To set it up, you simply need to enter your age, height, gender, and weight profile. You can also set workout goals for yourself, and enter your current activity level to help the device more accurately track your calorie expenditure.
The app shows you the battery life in the top corner so it’s easy to figure out when the device needs a recharge.
The design is quite simple, which we found made it very easy to use. We didn’t have to spend any time learning all of the options as we did with the Fitbit surge, it’s pretty much ready to go out of the box.
The only complaint we had is that syncing takes a little longer than some fitness trackers, but this is a very minor problem.
Battery Life
The battery lasts a very long time. Since it tracks sleep, you’ll probably be wearing it all the time. Impressively, you can go well over a week without having to recharge. In our tests, the battery finally went flat on the 10th day of use.
Final Verdict
The Amazfit Moonbeam by is a great looking sleep tracker that has all of the basic features. If heart rate tracking is important to you, you’ll sadly have to spend a lot more money on a product that looks more like a tiny computer than a fitness tracker.
But for the rest of us, the Moonbeam is a much better choice than the overpriced name brand products currently flooding the market.