Wyze Band

amazon Wyze Band reviews

The $25 Wyze Band is a super affordable fitness tracker that lets you control Wyze and Alexa-connected smart home devices from your wrist.
Wyze is known for making highly regarded yet affordable smart home devices, so we’re excited for the company to jump into the wearable market with its fitness tracker. The Wyze Band tracks your heart rate, sleep, step count and puts smart home controls on your wrist for just $24.99. It lets you remotely control Wyze bulbs, security cameras, and smart plugs and has Amazon Alexa built-in so you can control third-party smart home products, too. It doesn’t match the fitness tracking prowess of the Fitbit Inspire HR or the Samsung Galaxy Fit.

Design and specifications

The Wyze Band has a simple all-black monochromatic design and has no physical buttons. It has a rectangular 0.95-inch AMOLED color touchscreen with a resolution of 240 x 120 pixels. It comes with two black straps: a single-pin thermoplastic polyurethane strap and a traditional silicone watch-style strap, which fit wrists between 6.1 and 8.6 inches in circumference. Wyze does not currently offer the Strap or its Strap in any other color.

At its thickest point, the Strap measures about half an inch. It weighs 2.6 ounces, which I find comfortable to wear all day, but not to bed. I wouldn’t say I like sleeping with a hairband around my wrist. If you can wear the bracelet to bed, you’ll be fine with the Strap.
In terms of hardware, it has a Cypress PSoC 6 dual-core processor, 288KB of internal RAM, 8MB of external RAM, 16MB of flash memory, and two digital mics.

As for battery life, Wyze says the Band can last ten days on a single charge with normal use. After wearing it for 24 hours, I tracked my runs and extensively tested its features, the Band still has 93% battery life, so it’s safe to say you won’t have to charge it as often. Even when the screen is set to maximum brightness, the battery does not drain quickly.

The Strap isn’t completely waterproof, but it has a 5ATM water resistance rating, which means it can be submerged in water up to 164 feet for up to 10 minutes. Wyze says you can wear it in the shower, but don’t let it come into contact with soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions, or perfumes, which can “negatively affect the water barrier and membrane “negative” over time. It’s hard to avoid getting the Strap in contact with soap when you wear it in the shower and wash your hands about every two seconds due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was fine during testing through multiple showers and baths number of hand washes.

You can also wear it while swimming, but not when diving or participating in “intensive water sports” like scuba diving or skiing. If it comes into contact with chlorine or saltwater, Wyze recommends cleaning it with fresh water and drying it with a lint-free cloth to prevent damage. The company also says that you should take it off before entering a sauna or steam room.

Setup and Navigate

To get started, you first need to charge the Band, download the Wyze app (available for Android and iOS), and sign up for an account. The handy quick start guide that comes in the box provides setup and activation instructions.
Pairing the Band with the Wyze app is easy. Click Add Product in the app, select the Wyze Band and follow the on-screen instructions. After you pair it via Bluetooth, you enter your year of birth, height, and weight into the app and select the wrist you’re wearing the Strap.

From there, the app will briefly guide you on how to navigate the watch. You can swipe up and down to access functions like activity, alarms, Alexa alerts, find phone, heart rate, notifications, track tracking, settings, shortcuts, and weather. Once you access the function you want, you can swipe left and right for more details. The clock interface is simple and clean. It’s intuitive and easy on the eyes, with a black background, white text, and colorful graphics for each function.

The on-screen Home button at the bottom of the screen allows you to return to a previous function or on the watch face. You can also hold down the Home button to wake Alexa.
The screen turns off quickly, saving battery life, but turns back on when you lift your wrist or tap the screen. There are three brightness settings. When set to maximum brightness, the display is vibrant and colorful.
The screen, on the other hand, is not the most responsive. Sometimes I have to tap on it multiple times or wiggle my wrist to wake it up, and swiping feels a bit slow. For $25, it’s hard to complain.

Wyze device control

One of the Band’s standout features is its ability to let you control other Wyze devices. You can create up to five shortcuts that let you do things like turn the Wyze Bulb on or off, pause Wyze Cam notifications, and control the Wyze Plug, all from your wrist.
I tested this with Wyze bulbs, which I installed in my living room lights. I created two shortcuts in the Wyze app to turn the light on and turn it off. When I hit save, the app synced these shortcuts with the Band, and they worked perfectly. With a few swipes and taps on the Band, I was able to turn my living room lights on and off.

Alexa-Enabled

Because it has Alexa built-in, the Band lets you control non-Wyze devices with your voice. To connect the Band to Alexa, you need to log in to your Amazon account through the Wyze app, which you can do with just a few clicks if you already have the Amazon app on your phone. When setting up Alexa, the Wyze app will notify you that the Band’s microphone only turns on when you press a button to summon the virtual assistant, a great privacy guarantee.

Once connected, press and hold the Band’s Home button for two seconds to start talking to Alexa. During testing, the Alexa integration worked as promised. I connected Alexa to the iLife A9 robotic vacuum to use the virtual assistant to start cleaning with my voice. Once I connected Alexa to the Band, I pressed the Home button and said, “Alexa, turn on Zaco,” the A9’s nickname. Then I tap the Band’s screen to confirm that I’m talking about the A9 and the boot vacuum.

where can you get a Wyze Band online

Wyze Band Activity Tracker Watch with Customized Watch Face Fitness Tracker with Alexa Built-in Heart Rate & Sleep Monitor Smart Fitness Watches for Women Men Gift 5ATM Water Resistant: Buy it now

Fitness features

The Band automatically tracks your average heart rate, calories burned, miles traveled, and steps, as well as how long you slept. You can also measure your heart rate at any time.
It has a built-in running tracking feature but lacks support for other exercise types. When you click the Run on the Band app, it will count down to get you started, then start tracking your calories, distance, heart rate, pace, and time.
The default watch face shows your step count for the day, and you can swipe to the Activity section to see your total for the metrics mentioned above.

The Wyze app’s Activity section provides more information, including daily, weekly, and monthly totals for your calories, heart rate, running history, sleep, and step count. In the Sleep section of the app, you can see a graph of how much time you spend awake in deep and light sleep. The Running History section shows a list of runs with your average pace, calories burned, distance, and pace per mile.

Unfortunately, the Strap doesn’t show your progress on fitness goals or remind you to move if you’ve been inactive for too long, two standard features you get with most trackers. A fitness tracker will be very nice to be added in the future.

For comparison, the Fitbit Inspire HR lets you set goals for metrics like calories, time, or distance, so the tracker notifies you when you’ve reached that goal. That way, you can have it notify you once you’ve reached a certain distance while running, so you don’t have to keep checking your wrist. Inspire HR also offers auto-recognition for workouts like running, cycling, and swimming. You forget to manually start tracking and gives you an estimate of your VO2 Max or fitness score for your cardiovascular fitness. You don’t get these features with the Wyze Band.

Meanwhile, the Samsung Galaxy Fit also offers some fitness tracking features that the Wyze Band lacks. It supports more than 90 activities, allows you to create goals for specific exercises in the Samsung Health app, and automatically recognizes activities like treadmill, running, elliptical, rowing, and other dynamic exercises. You’re paying more for these devices, but you’re also getting more.

Alarms, Notifications, and Clock Customization

The Band doesn’t support downloadable apps, but it does offer some useful built-in functionality. You can set up to six alarms in the Wyze app, and the Band will vibrate at the specified time. That allows it to wake you up without disturbing your partner or roommate. The Find My Phone feature is also very handy. If you misplace your phone, press the Find My Phone button on the Strap, and the alarm will ring on your phone.

The Band does a good job showing notifications from your phone. For example, for incoming Coinbase notifications and Slack messages, the Strap will vibrate and display a preview on its screen. It also vibrates when there is a phone call and displays caller ID information. It’s a handy feature if you leave your phone in your bag or another room while working to avoid distractions.

You can easily customize the watch face from the Wyze app, including the background, display layout, and text color. There are several preset wallpapers to choose from, or you can upload a photo from your phone. I enjoyed the watch face customization options.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an entry-level fitness tracker and you own other Wyze or Alexa-connected smart home devices that you’d like to control from your wrist, the Wyze Band is the one great selection. In many ways, it’s comparable to the $100 Fitbit Inspire HR and Samsung Galaxy Fit, but only a quarter of the price. Of course, the Inspire HR and Galaxy Fit have more advanced fitness features, but they lack the smart home controls that the Wyze Band offers. All are strong choices depending on the features you’re after.

If you’re new to fitness trackers and want to check out the waters, the Wyze Band gives you that capability, plus smart home controls, for the price of a few lattes. The rich feature set and low price.

Advantages
Good price
Control other Wyze devices
Amazon Alexa voice support
Good battery
Built-in sleep tracking
Bright screen

Defect
Slow response screen
Basic fitness tracking features
Black only