The ASUS VivoWatch isn’t exactly the star of the company’s smart watch line ups, however it is definitely a product worth keeping an eye on as it has reached the Malaysian shores. Unlike the ZenWatch, the VivoWatch is more of a fitness tracker device that also receives notifications from your smartphone, thanks to its e-ink display and Bluetooth 4.0 LE, the VivoWatch is one of the few fitness trackers that can actually work up to 10 days on a single charge.
The VivoWatch resembles the ZenWatch a lot and you might actually mistaken it as the latter, ASUS has given it an IP67-certified water resistant design that lets you shower or swim with it, the strap is a high quality sweat resistant hard rubber material that actually feels really good when wearing it on the wrist. The VivoWatch has continuous heart rate tracking, which works pretty well if you want to know your physical condition and know when to slow your pace down should it reach a hazardous stage.
The VivoWatch will work with iOS and Android devices, the good news here is that the watch features Bluetooth SMART, which means you could actually switch between devices without resetting the watch in order to pair to a new phone and it is definitely a bonus feature for people like me. The ASUS HiVivo app requires you to have an ASUS online account and can be signed up upon launching the app, otherwise pairing the VivoWatch is simply effortless.
ASUS has given the app a very ZenUI like make over so if you are an ASUS smartphone user, navigating around the app should be pretty easy for you. I like the very user friendly dashboard as it tells me my Happiness Index (HI), a measurement that is able to tell me on how well I am on that day based on my sleep and work outs, other useful information also includes a historical chart of my steps, calories burnt and heart rate. While the essential software features are there, I was also hoping for more such as badges and challenges like some other fitness tracking apps out there, the VivoWatch also unfortunately do not support third party fitness tracking apps such as Endomondo and Runtastic.
I’ve been testing the VivoWatch for about three days and it has been good, it doesn’t look too sporty to wear for events and my friends didn’t even notice that it is a smart watch, we’ll be back soon with a full report on the VivoWatch so stay tuned. The ASUS VivoWatch retails at RM799 and is available at All IT Hypermarket and Foto Flash outlets.
