Amazfit’s long-lasting Zepp OS fitness watches like iPhones and Android equally

Amazfit is launching three new long-lasting smart activity watches today: the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro, priced at $229.99 / €199.99, and the Amazfit GTR 3 and GTS 3, both priced at $179.99 / €149.99. The GTR 3 can go up to 21 days of typical usage before needing a recharge, the company claims, while the GTR 3 Pro and GTS 3 can last for about 12 days. They’ll go even longer if the battery saver modes are enabled.

Amazfit is the product brand owned by Zepp Health, previously known as Huami, a public company funded by Xiaomi. The Amazfit GTR 3 Pro, GTR 3, and GTS 3 watches all run Zepp OS, which plays nicely with both iOS / Apple Health and Android / Google Fit. They can also sync your health and activity data to Strava, Runkeeper, and others.

Image: Amazfit

The GTR 3 Pro is the company’s new flagship fashion fitness watch. It includes Wi-Fi, GPS, 2.3GB of on-board music storage (enough for a few hundred songs), and Bluetooth audio and call support underneath that round 1.45-inch 331ppi OLED touchscreen display. It’s water resistant to a depth of 50 meters, and a new BioTracker 3.0 optical sensor can measure heart rate, blood-oxygen, stress, and respiratory rate in less than 45 seconds with a single tap. The watch can be navigated with a push and a twist of the crown, a push of a second physical button next to that, or via swipes on the touchscreen.

The Pro model also features a mic and speaker that can be used to interact with Amazon’s Alexa voice commands when online (in 15 countries/regions and 14 languages). There’s also a built-in voice assistant (in English, Spanish, German, and Chinese) for use when offline, which can be useful for controlling the watch when your hands are too preoccupied with fitnessing. Amazfit says its watches can track over 150 sports, with eight activities recognized automatically to help you avoid forgetting to track common activities like running, walking, swimming, and biking.

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

I’ve been using a GTR 3 Pro running a beta OS and paired to pre-released versions of both the iOS and Android apps. The hardware seems fine: it’s lightweight, looks okay for the price, and the always-on display and general visibility are excellent when used in the gym or at home. I’m not a fan of outdoor visibility in direct sunlight (not a surprise for OLED) even on a display rated for 1,000 nits of brightness. I’m also not enthused by the overly simplistic UX that won’t let me select menu items with a physical button press. Anyone who’s worn a fitness watch knows how difficult it can be to accurately hit a touchscreen target with a sweaty finger that’s bouncing around. But since my review unit is running pre-release beta software, which is fairly buggy and feature incomplete, I’ll have to reserve judgment until later.

Image: Amazfit

Image: Amazfit

The long lasting GTR 3 keeps the 450mAh battery of the Pro model but loses the Wi-Fi, music storage, mic, speaker, and Bluetooth audio support and includes a slightly smaller 1.39-inch display. The lightweight GTS 3, meanwhile, still looks like the Apple Watch while maintaining most of the features found on the GTR 3, only in a slim rectangular case with less battery life.

In the US, the $229.99 / €199.99 GTR 3 Pro and $179.99 / €149.99 GTR 3 are available now, but the squarish $179.99 / €149.99 GTS 3 is only listed as “available soon.” All three watches are available now in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.