Budgetish smartwatch for Xmas for wife, confused :{

[gazzarose]

Evening all,

I've been trying to think of something for my wife for Xmas and came across the idea of a smart watch, but I don't really know what I'm looking at.

She wants to start to do a bit of light fitness this year to lose a bit of weight, so more walking, bit of running, cycling and maybe a bit of swimming so a fitness monitor would be nice.

Ability to get notifications from her phone, only the basics like texts, call, whatsapp that sort of thing. The phone policy in her work is a light 'no phones on desks and must be on silent' sort of thing, which is fair enough, but makes it a pain to get a message to her in the day. I don't need her to be able to reply without using her phone, but knowing that a 'I'll be late home' message will get through will be handy.

The option of NFC payment sounds good, but that does only seem to be on more expensive ones.

Everything else would be a bonus but not a necessity. She doesn't listen to music on her phone, and doesn't take photos of her dinner for instagram so none of that stuff, and shes not really a girly girl, so quite open for the looks.

I know it's a bit vague, but looking on Amazon is a complete sea of brands I've never heard of, which might mean that they're all crap, but might (probably) mean that I'm just way out of touch with these things.

Thanks

Gareth

[ging84]

I got the Fitbit with nfc but Fitbit pay doesn't work with many banks, Santander and starling seemed to be the only UK ones I could see.

[alorotom]

Could try a Xiaomi Mi Band ... The v4 is only about £22 (that's what I paid on heartbeat for it).

Does everything other than NFC but you can get an NFC version I believe

[gazzarose]

See thats what I'm confused about. There seems to be tons of sub £50 stuff, which I'm just a bit sceptical of being any good, but then the next band seems to be £150+ full of big name brands.

Maybe I shouldn't worry too much about the cheaper stuff, I've just always gone by the mantra on 'Buy cheap buy twice', but maybe thats a bit daft with consumer level electronics considering they're all, cheap or expensive, probably made in the same handful of factories in China.

Thanks for the replies, I'll keep looking and probably end up doing what I usually do, look at the top end of my budget, add a bit more, then pick the colour I like, lol.

[barryrs]

I have had a Withings Steel HR Sport for the last year and I haven’t worn any of my much more expensive watches since.

It has fantastic battery life and displays my notifications with most of the smart functionality via the phone app.

https://www.withings.com/uk/en/watches

[shtu]

The Mi Band ones are excellent for the price, and the 4 is a significant step up from the older models.

https://www.xda-developers.com/xiaomi-mi-band-4-re...

[gazzarose]

I think that may well be a winner. The nfc payment stuff doesn't seem to kick in until the much higher price stuff. I can't believe something that seems to be that good is that cheap. The fact that the battery life is really good is a definite plus, shes a nightmare keeping stuff properly charged so the longer run time the better.

Thanks for all your help, I honestly would have just written off the cheap stuff as being knock off chinese rubbish, but it seems that have a really good reputation. PH to the rescue again.