Does this €51.70 Amazon Warehouse smartwatch finally meet my needs?

I’ve already written two articles about my search for a new smartwatch. In my opinion piece, I complained that there are hardly any budget-friendly, well-known brands offering simple, no-nonsense smartwatches that don’t cost much yet are still well built.

Out of sheer lack of alternatives, I ordered a €20 smartwatch from AliExpress. It was cheap, looked fine, and even surprised me with solid battery life—but it failed at the one function I absolutely need: alarms.

So to replace my old, worn-looking Amazfit Bip Lite, I kept searching and eventually stumbled across the Amazfit Active 2 ($80 new) on Amazon Warehouse Deals. Normally it’s above my price range, but the “Like New” unit for €51.70 caught my eye.

Two days later the package arrived, and setup began. We once called the Active 2 a price-performance champion that can do just about everything—maybe too much for my taste. Still, I liked the design right out of the box. Unfortunately, the second fabric band was missing; only the silicone one was included, and its clasp is a bit annoying.

Setup is straightforward—as long as you’re okay using the Zepp app. Functionally, it’s fine, but it’s not exactly privacy-friendly. If you’d rather pair the watch with Gadgetbridge, you’re in for a surprise: Gadgetbridge needs an authentication token that’s only created during pairing with Zepp and stored on Zepp’s servers. There are ways to extract it, but they’re far from simple.

Besides the design, the overall user experience is solid. The round display responds quickly and reliably to swipes and taps. Battery life also looks promising and seems likely to meet my expectations.

The vibration settings only offer “Standard” and “Enhanced,” yet even Standard feels too strong to me. A gentler option would be nice.

I also found it surprisingly difficult to disable all the features I don’t need. Modern smartwatches are cramped with functions that only drain the battery for no benefit in my case. I had to dig through a lot of menus to turn off as much as possible—some of which, annoyingly, can only be disabled through the app, not the watch itself.

What really drove me crazy, though, was that despite using Theater Mode and Power Saving Mode, the watch immediately started pestering me about earning PAI points during my first use. I wore it to indoor soccer, and apparently the number of steps I took triggered several default daily goals. After that, the watch buzzed every 15 minutes with new achievements and more PAI points.

The Zepp app’s privacy policy isn’t exactly comforting either. They claim not to sell data to third parties, but they do share it, and the manufacturer collects pretty much everything it can and analyzes it, including for marketing purposes.

And even with Theater and Power Saving enabled, I noticed the green sensor light on the back turning on occasionally—meaning measurements were being taken anyway.

At least through the Warehouse Deal, the Active 2 meets my price target. It looks good and the battery life is solid.

But why does a smartwatch today have to bombard you with notifications every few minutes—notifications you can barely disable? The watch should be a tool I use when I want to, not a device that constantly demands my attention, making me raise my arm and stare at the screen.

I’ll probably keep the Active 2 for now, simply because I don’t have many other options, and I’ll try to disable even more features. But I’ll continue advocating for affordable models with good build quality and battery life, yet minimal features. Or, alternatively, for a watch UI that clearly lists everything and lets you disable every function directly on the device.

Ich werde die Active 2 aus Mangel an Optionen wohl vorerst behalten und versuchen weitere Funktionen zu deaktivieren. Aber ich plädiere weiter für preiswertere Modelle mit guter Verarbeitung und Laufzeit, dafür aber minimalem Funktionsumfang. Alternativ für ein UI direkt auf der Uhr, bei dem man alle Funktionen klar erkennen und auch abschalten kann.