Last year we reviewed a couple of random cheap smartwatches. We decided to try something a little less known that has some high expectations. The Amazfit T-Rex has the price point where you should expect a fully functional device with most of the bells and whistles.

This device took many months of testing in order to come up with an accurate assessment of its abilities. When first using the device there was a firmware issue that prevented me from actually making real use of it.  The clock on the phone was off by 12 hours nearly all of the time. What that meant was, at noon it thought that it was midnight and the information would reset for the day. Steps were useless, sleeping was useless, it ended up being so bad to use I went back to by $15 watch. Off to a bad start.

I started using the watch again after a Firmware update was available. I Left the device off for more than a month and when I turned it back on before strapping it to my wrist I got a heart rate showing the date and time of today. Heart rate lowered by 18 BPM  after 5 minutes of measurement and still just sitting on the table. As far as I can tell the BPM is decoration and has nothing to do with your body since it shows random changing numbers regardless if you are even wearing it or not.

How about steps? If I woke up at night at used the restroom, it didn’t count. When I woke up for the morning use, it still shows 0 steps. I have to think that during the course of the day it seems like it just doesn’t care about some of the steps you take and decides when to apply them and when not to.

Alright, how about sleep? This happened to take place during a time when my daughter was having some issues sleeping. I would wake up 3-4 times a week and potentially a few times a night and tend to her. The watch would pick up about 30% of the time I woke up, and still 0% of the steps taken.

Battery life? sure it lasts a while, I guess that’s the one thing it does that it says it will. I would forego 85% of the battery life to get a watch that does anything else it says it does. all the battery power in the world doesn’t mean a thing if non of the features work.

Results, the good:

  • It’s rugged I guess. water-resistant and hasn’t broken so . . . rugged I guess

Results, the bad:

  • Doesn’t keep track of BPM at all, just shows seemingly random numbers regardless if you are even wearing it
  • Doesn’t keep track of steps with any form of accuracy
  • Doesn’t keep track of sleep and awake times with much accuracy: about 30%

This watch isn’t much better than a $15 watch and that’s a shockingly bad result.