This Smartwatch is $69!

Summary

The video script offers a detailed review of a $69 smartwatch, discussing its features, design, and value for money. The watch includes basic smart functions like notifications, fitness tracking, and sleep monitoring, and is IP68 water and dust resistant. Despite its plastic feel and lack of premium materials, the watch is lightweight and offers a good user experience, especially for its price range. The reviewer compares it to higher-end models and notes that while it's a better-packaged option, it's still on the expensive side for basic smartwatches.

Takeaways

• 💰 The smartwatch is priced at $69, which the reviewer finds amazing considering its functionality.
• 🤔 The definition of 'good' is questioned, with the reviewer suggesting that for most people, basic features are sufficient.
• 📱 Basic smartwatch functions like time, notifications, step counter, heart rate, calorie counter, and sleep tracking are mentioned.
• 🎨 The smartwatch has a square design with an orange silicon band and a 1.96-inch metallic gray display.
• 📏 The build quality is described as feeling plastic despite being advertised as aluminum alloy, with a matte finish on the back.
• 🔄 The watch has thick and uneven bezels, a single button, and a non-rotating dial.
• 🔌 It charges with a USBA to dual-pin cable, which is less elegant but convenient.
• 💧 The smartwatch is IP68 water and dust resistant, suitable for outdoor and rainy use.
• 📱 The CMF Watch app is used for data synchronization and control via Bluetooth.
• 🏃‍♂️ The smartwatch is lightweight, making it suitable for sports and physical activities.
• 🔋 It has good battery life, with the reviewer estimating at least three days of regular use.

Q & A

What is the price of the smartwatch mentioned in the script?

The smartwatch is priced at $69.

What are some basic features included in the smartwatch?

The smartwatch includes basic features such as time display, notifications, step counter, heart rate monitoring, calorie counting, and sleep tracking.

How is the build quality of the smartwatch described?

The build quality is described as having obvious shortcuts of a cheap product, with a plastic exterior that feels lightweight and somewhat premium for the price range.

What is the display size and color of the smartwatch?

The smartwatch has a 1.96-inch diagonal display in a metallic gray color.

How is the smartwatch charged?

The smartwatch is charged using a USBA to dual pin cable with a magnetic connection to the back of the device.

What is the water and dust resistance rating of the smartwatch?

The smartwatch has an IP68 water and dust resistance rating.

How does the smartwatch sync with a phone?

The smartwatch syncs with a phone using Bluetooth and works with the CMF Watch app.

What are some of the pre-installed apps on the smartwatch?

Pre-installed apps include an exercise app, blood oxygen app, phone call app, music app, camera remote app, voice assistant app, and Find My Phone app.

How does the smartwatch perform in terms of battery life?

The smartwatch has a good battery life, with the manufacturer claiming up to 13 days of regular use. The reviewer was able to get three straight days of use without issue.

Where does the smartwatch's price point compare to other basic smartwatches?

At $69, the smartwatch is on the premium end for a basic smartwatch. Most basic smartwatches are typically priced in the range of $20 to $50.

What is the main takeaway from the reviewer's experience with the smartwatch?

The main takeaway is that the smartwatch offers a decent set of features and build quality for its price, but it is not without the typical compromises found in budget devices.

Outlines

00:00

📱 Affordable Smartwatch Overview

This paragraph introduces a $69 smartwatch, questioning its value and quality. The author reflects on the amazement of obtaining a fully functioning smartwatch at such a low price in 2023, considering the high costs of other smartwatches. The watch is described as basic, with features like time, notifications, step counter, heart rate, and sleep tracking, which the author believes are sufficient for most people. The smartwatch's design is noted to be similar to other smartwatches, with an orange silicon band and a 1.96-inch display. Despite its affordable price, the smartwatch has a few shortcuts apparent in its design, such as thick and uneven bezels, a cheap feeling button, and a plastic exterior. However, it boasts a matte finish, heart rate sensors, and IP68 water and dust resistance. The watch's UI is familiar to smartwatch users, with fitness data, weather, sleep tracking, and an app list. It supports various built-in apps, including exercise, blood oxygen monitoring, phone calls, music control, camera remote, and voice assistant. The watch's lightweight design and Bluetooth compatibility with any Android phone are highlighted, emphasizing its convenience and practicality for everyday use.

05:01

📱 Smartwatch Features and Battery Life

The second paragraph discusses the smartwatch's compatibility with Android phones and its basic functionality through the Play Store app. The author mentions occasional connection issues but overall satisfaction with the app's performance, providing essential data like heart rate history and workout summaries. Sleep tracking is also mentioned, with the author preferring a mattress cover sensor over the watch for this purpose. The paragraph transitions into a discussion about the mattress cover's sleep monitoring capabilities, leading to the author's decision to stop wearing the smartwatch for sleep tracking. The smartwatch's charging method is described as convenient, albeit not as elegant as wireless charging pucks. The battery life is praised as being significantly better than an Apple Watch, with the watch lasting three days on a single charge and potentially more with Power Saver mode. The author concludes by noting that while the smartwatch seems expensive for its segment, it offers a premium design and packaging compared to similarly priced options, making it a good value for those willing to pay a bit more for a better-looking and slightly more refined product.

Keywords

💡Smartwatch

A smartwatch is a wearable electronic device that functions as a companion to a smartphone, typically featuring functionalities like notifications, fitness tracking, and various smart features. In the video, the smartwatch in question costs $69 and offers basic smartwatch capabilities such as time display, notifications, step counting, heart rate monitoring, and sleep tracking, which the reviewer considers sufficient for a majority of users.

💡Affordability

Affordability refers to the ease with which consumers can purchase a product without straining their finances. In the context of the video, the smartwatch's $69 price point is highlighted as a significant factor, making it an affordable option compared to other, more expensive smartwatches in the market.

💡Design

Design in this context refers to the physical appearance and aesthetic of the smartwatch, including its shape, color, and materials used. The smartwatch discussed has a square shape with a metallic gray color and an orange silicon band, aiming for a sleek look but with a plastic feel that is common in budget devices.

💡Functionality

Functionality refers to the range of features and capabilities that a product offers. The smartwatch's functionality includes basic smart features like notifications, fitness tracking, and heart rate monitoring, which are essential for most users and are effectively implemented in this budget device.

💡User Interface (UI)

The user interface, or UI, is the system through which users interact with the smartwatch, including the visual design and the ease of navigation. The smartwatch's UI is described as straightforward and similar to other smartwatches, with a watch face as the starting point and easy access to fitness data and app lists.

💡Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a wireless technology standard used for exchanging data between devices over short distances. In the context of the smartwatch, it is the method by which the device communicates with a smartphone, sending and receiving data for features like notifications and fitness tracking.

💡Battery Life

Battery life refers to the amount of time a device can operate before needing to recharge. The smartwatch is noted for its impressive battery life, with the manufacturer claiming up to 13 days of regular use, which is attributed to its minimal processing power requirements and basic functionality.

💡IP68 Rating

An IP68 rating is an Ingress Protection (IP) code that indicates a device is dust-tight and can be submerged in water up to a certain depth without damage. For the smartwatch, this rating means it can withstand sweat, rain, and other minor water exposures, making it suitable for use during physical activities.

💡Fitness Tracking

Fitness tracking refers to the monitoring and recording of physical activity data, such as steps taken, heart rate, and sleep patterns. The smartwatch offers basic fitness tracking features, which are essential for health-conscious users looking to monitor their daily activity and sleep quality.

💡CMF Watch App

The CMF Watch App is the companion software for the smartwatch that allows users to manage and customize their device, as well as access and analyze collected data. It serves as the bridge between the smartwatch and the user's smartphone, facilitating the transfer of information and enabling additional smart features.

💡Value for Money

Value for money refers to the worth or utility a consumer gets from a product relative to its cost. The smartwatch is evaluated based on its price and the features it offers, with the reviewer noting that while it is more expensive than the most basic smartwatches, it provides a better design and packaging, offering a perceived value for the slight price increase.

Highlights

The smartwatch is priced at $69, which the reviewer finds amazing considering its functionality.

The reviewer questions the definition of 'good' in relation to the smartwatch's quality and features.

Basic smartwatch functions like time, notifications, step counter, heart rate, calorie counter, and sleep tracking are deemed sufficient for most users.

The smartwatch features a 1.96-inch diagonal display with a metallic gray color and a matte finish on the back.

The smartwatch's design is compared to other smartwatches, with a focus on the material and build quality.

The smartwatch is IP68 water and dust resistant, which is a notable feature for outdoor and exercise use.

The smartwatch works with the CMF Watch app on your phone, sending data via Bluetooth.

The user interface of the smartwatch is familiar to those who have used other smartwatches.

The smartwatch includes a variety of built-in apps such as exercise tracking, blood oxygen monitoring, phone calls, music control, and camera remote.

The reviewer notes that the smartwatch's voice assistant feature essentially opens Google Assistant on the phone.

The Find My Phone app on the smartwatch has limitations, requiring the CMF app to be open on the phone.

The smartwatch's battery life is praised for its simplicity and longevity, with the reviewer getting three days of use.

The smartwatch's price is considered premium for a basic model, with cheaper options available in the market.

CMF, the brand, stands for color, material, finish, reflecting the company's focus on design.

The smartwatch's design is compared to the Apple Watch Ultra, with the reviewer suggesting it's a bargain by that standard.

The reviewer concludes that the smartwatch is a good option for those looking for a basic model at a slightly higher price point for design and packaging.

Transcripts

(package clunks)

(upbeat music)

(plastic rustling)

- So yeah, this smartwatch is $69.

But, but, before you type it, is it though?

Is it really that nice?

Is it that good?

I feel like we should define good first,

because going into this, I was thinking,

"Just the fact that you can get

"a fully functioning smartwatch for $69 in 2023,"

just that by itself, on its face, was kind of amazing.

'Cause we live in a world

where you can easily spend hundreds

and hundreds of dollars on a smartwatch.

But clearly, there's a wide spectrum

of what these things can be capable of.

So this one, just the simple stuff, right?

Just the basics, the time, notifications, step counter,

heart rate, calorie counter, sleep tracking,

just on its face, that's good enough

for 95% of people, right?

Well, let's just start with the basics here.

This is a square smartwatch.

It's got this orange silicon band that comes in the box

and it feels surprisingly similar

to any other smartwatch band.

And then it's got a 1.96-inch diagonal display.

The color is metallic gray,

but the material here is definitely not nearly as metallic.

It does say aluminum alloy on their site,

but if you didn't tell me that, just holding it,

I would swear this is 100% made of plastic on the outside.

But, you know, at least it's coated

in sort of a matte finish on the back part

that's touching your wrist around the heart rate sensors.

And then there's some engravings with a bunch of text

in the Nothing font, like the model number

and the headquarters location,

which happens to be Cheapside, London,

which is very appropriate.

Honestly, it doesn't look or feel terrible,

but it just, it clearly has all the obvious shortcuts

of a cheap product the more you look closely at it.

You know, the bezels are thick

and also weirdly uneven all the way around.

There is no rotating dial, just the single shallow,

cheap feeling button right above the small tinny speaker

to the side and no fancy puck to charge, just USBA

to dual pin cable that comes in the box.

It magnetizes to the back, which in hindsight,

I guess is just as convenient as a fancy puck,

but, you know, a little less elegant looking.

But I guess, the key here is all of it works and it's solid.

Like, the brightness outside, it gets up to 600 nits.

There's no auto brightness though,

so you gotta change brightness manually, like this.

But hey, at its max, it's very good indoors, at least.

And the whole thing is IP68 water and dust resistant,

which is, first of all, great if you want to go out

and sweat in it or go out in the rain.

But also wasn't there a long period of time

where OnePlus and Nothing products didn't get IP certified

'cause it cost too much extra?

But now, the CMF watch has it,

but then it all works with the CMF Watch app on your phone,

which is where all the data gets sent via Bluetooth.

So honestly, there's not too many different clever ways

to design a watch UI,

so, you know, if you get a smart watch,

if you've used one before,

you'll basically already know how to use this one.

So your watch face is your starting point.

And then you can swipe through fitness data,

which looks surprisingly like Apple Watch rings.

It's got your heart rate history for the past 24 hours.

The weather is there in that simple dot matrix way,

plus sleep time if you use it to track sleep,

then a single press on that plastic feeling button

will take you to your app list,

which you can view as a grid or as a list.

And then there's a good amount of apps in here

that just come on the watch.

So an exercise app that has a ton of different exercises,

the blood oxygen app,

which gives you your measurements whenever you want.

You've also got a phone call app

and yes, you can receive phone calls on the watch

and that tinny little speaker will crank out audio

as loud as it can to facilitate a real conversation.

There's also a music app,

which gives you just music controls

for whenever something is playing on your phone.

There's even a camera remote app,

which it doesn't actually open the camera app on my phone

or show a viewfinder preview,

but when I do have the camera app open,

the shutter button does actually work, so there's that.

There's even a voice assistant app,

which if you open it, basically just opens Google Assistant

on your phone and then uses the mics

and speakers on the watch for you to interact with it.

The Find My Phone app is hilarious though.

It only works when the CMF app is open

or running on the phone.

So if you've just closed the app,

it will just ask you to open the app on your phone,

but you don't have your phone.

But when you do actually open it,

so it plays this max volume ringing sound,

which will allow you to find the phone,

which is pretty cool as long as you've got that app open

or have opened it recently.

And I will say the UI on the watch itself,

it feels like it's moving around pretty quickly

and not too much waiting time to actually open

or switch between these apps,

mostly because they're very lightweight.

Like, this thing is basically just a Bluetooth accessory,

pinging little controls on your phone

and then it's got watch faces

and the watch faces have a nice little variety.

I think this one's probably my favorite

with the orange theme

and a second hand moving slowly in a full circle down here.

I feel like I'm pretty impressed.

It's also very lightweight,

not that people always value lightweight in watches,

but in this price range,

they're pretty much all gonna be made of plastic.

So you might as well lean into it.

And this thing is super light, so if you're doing sports

or just running around, yeah, it's kind of out of the way.

And then because it's a Bluetooth accessory

and a pretty generic one, you can use this actually

with basically any Android phone.

So you just grab the Play Store app, which has 3.1 stars

and it does have some connection issues occasionally for me.

But even that sort of availability, at least,

on any Android phone is better than Apple can say

about their own smartwatch.

And it gives me all the basic info I'm looking for

from heart rate history to workout summaries.

Honestly, it's not so bad when it's working.

So I'm also able to do sleep tracking,

since that only really requires the heart rate sensors.

But I also continue to get that info from the sensors

that are actually built into the mattress cover I use.

At this point, I'm sure you've heard of Eight Sleep

and the Pod Mattress Cover that, you know, warms up

and cools down each side of the bed independently,

automatically.

So that thing not only helps you sleep better

by automatically changing the temperatures,

but then it also monitors how you sleep.

It's got the sensors inside

and then delivers a report for you.

So you just open the app every morning,

you get this personalized report

that shows you things like your heart rate variance,

respiratory rate, you know,

how your sleep stages panned out overnight.

So I think I'm officially done wearing any wearables

to sleep for any sleep tracking data,

just 'cause this handles it all.

Now, I've actually talked about them before

and I saw a lot of your comments about Eight Sleep.

And so I chatted with Eight Sleep about them

and was able to get them to offer

a little bit more functionality to people who are new,

like, first time signing up.

So they'll actually now,

no matter what your membership level,

they will give you a free Sleep Report every six months,

so it's not behind any sort of paywall.

So thanks to Eight Sleep for sponsoring this video.

I'm happy to report that they're also offering

you guys the largest discount that they ever have.

So if you wanna check it out,

feel free to check out the link in the description

and use code MKBHD.

So now that I'm not wearing it to sleep,

I am able to charge the CMF Watch every night.

Like I said, it's got this little magnetic pin charger,

technically not as pretty

as those fancy wireless charging pucks,

but honestly, pretty close.

And the battery life, I've realized, is really, really good

because of how simple it is.

Again, just a Bluetooth accessory,

not a whole ton of processing power needed.

On their site, they're claiming, like,

13 days of regular use.

I don't know if I'm gonna get that,

but I was able to get three straight days easy, no problem.

And I'm sure you could probably use Power Saver mode

and get even more if you wanted to.

So it's got better battery life than an Apple Watch.

But really, the main thing that I learned,

when testing this watch, is it turns out,

this is actually a pretty expensive watch in its segment.

$69 is on the premium end for a very basic smartwatch.

It's actually pretty common for the cheapest,

most basic smartwatches to be in the 20 to $50 range.

And, you know, at that point,

they're all, more or less, the same product.

They're all a simple, plastic-y Bluetooth accessory

with some slightly different designs.

So this, the CMF Watch Pro is a slightly better packaged,

slightly better design, slightly better looking version

for a slightly upcharge, kind of the same way Nothing

is probably charging a little bit more

than you would expect for a phone with the same specs,

just 'cause of the design

and the nice stuff they do with it.

That's what this is too.

And I bring up Nothing because CMF

is Nothing's ultra-budget sub-brand

and they actually do some other stuff, like earphones,

chargers, same deal, extremely cheap products,

but just marked up a little bit

for nice packaging and nice design.

So here, I'll leave you with this.

CMF, in the industries, typically stands for color,

material, finish.

It's the name of the company,

but it's also what those letters stand for.

And the CMF of this smartwatch

is it's very much still silver-ish, fingerprint-y,

technically metal, but feels kind of plastic-y.

But if you squint enough,

this square kind of looks like an Apple Watch Ultra.

And if that's your comparison point,

then this thing is a total bargain.

So I think that was what their real goal was.

Yeah, if you wanna get one of these things, you can.

It is maybe a little more challenging to get it in the U.S.

Maybe if you import it, spend a couple extra dollars,

then you're competing with some other smartwatches,

but it's an option.

But now you know it exists.

The more you know.

Thanks for watching, catch you guys in the next one, peace.

(soft upbeat music)