Pros: price
Cons: the watch doesn’t work and now you have lead poisoning
Hey, you could be paying a lot more for lead poisoning of this strength.
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Pros: cheap
Con: you support temu, and slave labour.
Cheap but probably won’t work I’m guessing?
If you really want a cheap smart watch there’s a bunch of reliable ones worth looking into rather than getting something random on temu. I haven’t tried the Pine Time but it looks good if you like fiddling with the tech.
If you can put up with Xiaomi they make a ton of different options. I used a Mi Band for a few years and it kinda did what I wanted it to do better than my current Wear OS watch does
I never heard of Pine Time before, but that looks interesting!
Didn’t nothing make a relatively cheap one too?
Another person mentioned nothing by another name, and it is definitely interesting to me.
Cons: Ewaste and bad for the environment. Get something High quality used like on Facebook marketplace or a thrift store.
Isn’t Facebook marketplace an awful place to buy things? The only people I know used it all got scammed.
USA: eBay
JP: Rakuten
NL: MarktplaatsThere is probably a zillions better alternative in w/e country you are, if not online then flee markets or thrift stores
The best advice is just to be cautious. Obviously don’t send money before you get something and make sure it’s functional. Facebook marketplace is a good place to find deals if you know to be safe.
Not awful. I’ve had only positive experiences. No buyer protections, but it’s hard to get scammed buying something in person from someone local, unless you get it home before realizing it’s fake/broken, or they kidnap you and lock you in their basement. There are pretty simple precautions you can take against either, not that there’s any foolproof solution…but I wouldn’t say awful.
Seems like asking for disappointment
if you want a decent cheap option, the wyze watch seemed okay
When smart watches were begining to be a thing, a friend of mine bought a smartwatch for like 5$ in Ali express. When I asked him how the watch is he said “I am surprised that even for this low price, they still managed to disappoint me”
I recall there being a LOT of those watches out that were “mobile data connected” for very cheap.
The catch? The mobile data radio was 2g, and those networks are all obsolete and gone now (I think)
Thanks for the suggestion!
Someone close to me had positive things to say about the Wyze watch as well. If apple and android are tier A, wyze is below that, but above all the F tier temu and amazon junk.
All of the wyze stuff seems to be decent, but not super premium.
The headphones are 85% as good as the Bose, but for $49
The scale is quite good, nothing even remotely off about that and it integrates with Fitbit just fine.
The Color smart bulbs have been solid. One of the wyze smart plugs lost its memory once and needed to be re-setup, but fine since.
The cameras all work great too, as long as you’re comfortable with the fact that the video goes to some cloud location.
You’ll be probably be happier with a higher quality watch than with one that barely works. I would not recommend going for an option because it’s cheap, instead go for the one that’s good enough for you needs.
No need to buy the same one as I did, but I have been very happy with my “not the cheapest, not the most expensive”-garmin watch for years. It is reliable, does what i need it to do and is not so expensive that i am afraid of breaking it for instance. I did need to make choices to be able to get it, i could not spend that money on other things, but that only made me feel better when I got it.
More on topic: it’s easy to find accesoires/replacement parts for my watch, it’s easier to get it repaired, both at garmin as well as a local shop, the software has a lot of integration option with other software (strava, komoot, etc.) and i can download apps and watch faces other people with the same watch built and i can be sure my alarm goes off in the morning. I don’t expect the temu watch to have these things. For me it was worth to pay a bit more. Sidenote: I did get a screen protector for my watch from AliExpress, so apparently I’m not against that 😏
It’s cheap
Pros:
- Cheap
- May still have regular capabilities
- not a big deal if it breaks
- They usually don’t require “service,” just Bluetooth and being connected to a phone.
Cons
- Usually they require an app, that could just be Spyware
- it will not last long
- the capabilities it will have will be a poor imitation of the original.
- Could be irritating (to the skin). It may not fit right.
- Poor battery life
- Additional E-waste when you do get rid of it once it dies.
Pros: Might look cool, is cheap.
Cons: Won’t be very durable, the app for it will be shitty and closed-source(probably malware), the battery will probably suck, any vital sensors won’t be accurate, the screen will probably suck, and it will probably have a bad UI.
In summary: Save up for a better watch.
I have some strict rules about buying things where I cannot verify the used materials:
Nothing that goes into my body
Nothing that goes on my body
Nothing that touches my food
Nothing my pets touch
Nothing that needs to be plugged in or chargedA smart watch violates multiple of those rules. I wouldn’t want to risk it.
Nothing that needs to be plugged in or charged
How are you using this site?
CMF watch, the old one, is a nice, cheap option, that works with Gadgetbridge, keeping your privacy intact.
No one else has yet to mention privacy. I do like the watch, and it’s price as well.
I have been using it for a few months, now. I will say the sensors are not perfect, but they do the job. I needed it mostly for calls and notifications.
Pro: Price, Convenience, Looks
Cons: Much like buying an “iPhone” from Temu, the price is usually reflected in the quality.
Don’t get me wrong, there are cheep smart watches if you look for them or go second hand. But what you’ll find advertised on Temu isn’t it.
Build quality is usually the first to suffer, but you’ll find mislabeled battery info a 500mah instead of the promised 1000mah. Or an LCD instead of an OLED.
But those are things we can adapt too. The biggest problem is software. That’ll do and close enough has been the name of the game for years now. And sometimes “smart” just means it can (badly) track your steps and pretend to check your heart rate with a led pretending to be a sensor.
Alternative
If you are looking for any budget electronics try looking for last years or a few years ago models. I got a Garmin Forerunner 235 in 2022 for 1/5 of its asking price because I found a deal on eBay.
I’d also look into the landscape of the market you are buying into and seeing who is actually making these things, and what is running on it.
For smart watches I found the answer was
Apple
Android with Watch OS (Samsung google and many more)
Garmin
If the watch isn’t running android watch os or is made by Apple or Garmin. Assume its good too be true and look into it more, or look elsewhere.
Good news China is lazy and one clone usually is made by many factories and someone else made a video about it. Might not be the same name, but it’ll be close enough.
As someone who has bought a fair number of smartwatches and fitness trackers and always over-researches every decision I make:
- See the rest of the replies for info on cheap smart watches. They’re basically a cereal box toy.
- Depending on what you need, the MiBand or Amazfit bands had excellent battery life and there used to be 3rd party apps for your phone that did a much better job collecting and displaying your stats than Zepp or MiFit (the official apps) did. I miss my 1.5 month battery life. Its also possible to use gadget bridge so it’s all 100% offline though I understand its still a bit more rudimentary than a corporate cloud-based solution. I remember the bands I got from them running $25-50 USD
- Used Garmin devices or previous gen garmin devices can be had MUCH cheaper than list price on Amazon or so. I picked up a Fenix 6 a few years ago for less than half of the $600 list price. I love the lack of touchscreen because the button navigation is absurdly fast and no mistouches! This suits how I use a watch much better than trying to put a tiny a 2x2cm touchscreen on my wrist. These are fitness watches, but some have a few smart features. Depends on what you plan to use it for I guess.
- If you are a nerd (a good thing) and want to contribute to a cool project, Pine Computers, which makes the pinebook, pinetab, pinephone, etc. makes a device called the pinetime that is basically a smartwatch that is open to the community’s hacks and modifications. I haven’t bought one because my biking depends on my Garmin stats, but I am tempted to grab one to mess with it.
None of these are fancy “smarts first” watches like an Apple Watch or an Android Watch. I found I needed less smarts than I thought as I usually carry my phone at all times anyway. It is nice to have the doorbell ring on my wrist and to reply to texts by choosing from a few pre-written responses while biking, or otherwise unavailable to text. If you really want a bunch of apps and integration with your phones OS, Apple and Android are the big two and its not really feasible to go 3rd party for the same experience.
