Haylou WATCH S8 – Beats €1000 smartwatches
We can define Haylou as a "friend" brand of this blog that continues to delight us with decidedly successful products, offering quality, functionality and a lot of substance in relation to the super popular selling price. Today I return to talk to you about this brand, and in particular about the Haylou Watch S8, a wearable that you can take home at a price of less than 30 euros and believe me for what it offers, it is undoubtedly the best wearable that you can buy in this figure. Curious? Then continue reading this full review.
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Package Contents
The sales package is quite accurate, showing the image of the product on the front and some product specifications on the back, while inside we find simple and essential equipment, namely:
- Haylou Watch S8;
- Instruction manual in Chinese and English;
- Charging cable with magnetic attachment.
A display protection film is missing, but who already provides it?
Design and materials
One aspect on which Haylou always keeps the bar high is that linked to the design and materials of its devices and in the case of the Watch S8 we can confirm this statement. Design inspired by Apple Watch Ultra but without imitating it too much, still offering resistance but also style. We find a body made of highly robust polycarbonate, without fear of scratches or knocks, but at the same time also counting on the certification for water resistance of 3 ATM (up to 30 meters), although Haylou Watch S8 does not support swimming between sports monitorable.
Considering the absence of metal, the weight of the wearable is only 58,5 grams (including the strap) offering a pleasant feeling of comfort, also counting on a comfortable silicone strap with quick release and 22 mm pitch, to be replaced with other straps easily available on the market to create a completely personal outfit. The wearability is good and the strap allows the skin to breathe well even during sports sessions. The back of the case is always made of plastic where we find the specific sensors for heart rate and SpO2 value, but these are not the only health statistics that can be monitored.
On the right profile of the case which has dimensions equal to 51,15 x 39,15 mm, we then find 2 buttons, or rather a lower button programmed to quickly recall the possibility of monitoring sporting activities and the upper one which is used to enter the menu system but which also hides a digital crown, to scroll through the menus without having to scroll on the display or to quickly change the watchface of the display. There is also a microphone and speaker as this watch is able to initiate voice commands via your phone's assistant and manage calls via Bluetooth.
Screen
Looking more closely at the display of the Haylou Watch S8 we notice a 1,96-inch curved AMOLED panel with a resolution of 410x502 pixels in a rectangular shape, which also boasts a refresh rate of 60 Hz, a truly rare pearl in this range of price. This configuration boasts a fluid and always reactive user experience but I add a further gem, namely the presence of the Always On Display function that can be set with digital or analogue skin or if you want you can keep the display on for up to 20 minutes. The AOD is a bit weak and cannot be seen very well in direct sunlight while there is no difficulty in viewing content on the screen in standard mode, although unfortunately I must point out the absence of a dedicated lighting sensor, which forces you to manually adjust the display backlight.
Here too we are faced with a good assembly; the display protection glass is recessed flush with the rest of the body, has a good oleophobic treatment and does not retain many fingerprints. The AMOLED display guarantees brilliant colors and deep blacks but above all helps in reading notifications as well as giving a premium look to the watch which you can customize with around 100 watchfaces available for free via the companion app, or create your own with photos and wallpapers your pleasure.
Hardware
Naturally, I cannot give you the technical specifications relating to the processor or anything else but I can safely say that our Haylou Watch s8 comes with complete and dedicated sensors: we can in fact monitor the heart rate 24 hours a day via its sensor (green light) but also the value SpO2 (red light), but among the metrics dedicated to health we also find the stress value, sleep, the female cycle and generally also blood pressure, the value of which at least in my case was very close to what was measured with the device professional, although I do not advise you to rely on this value in an absolute sense.
There is no GPS and therefore for greater precision of the route you will have to rely on the smartphone but there is an excellent Bluetooth 5.3 with dual chipset, which proved reliable as I never found disconnections from the smartphone even reaching a distance of 30 meters, but if necessary via the app it is possible to set the disconnection notification. As already mentioned, via Bluetooth we can make calls and recall the virtual assistant of the device to which the Haylou Watch S8 is associated, but the fact of having a dual chip allows you to disconnect the connection for phone calls while remaining active with the smartphone for the receiving notifications.
We find an inaccuracy regarding the step count: both in sports monitoring mode and in standard activities, the count is rather high but overall the result obtained is overestimated by a good 5/10%. However, I admit that sometimes the sensor was very sensitive, even counting hand movements while you are driving your car and changing gear or other things or if you wash your hands often. The sensors relating to heart rate and SpO2 value are perfectly aligned with reality, compared with higher-end smartwatches. The sleep monitor is also accurate, recording the start and end of sleep and whether you've woken up but it doesn't record REM sleep or naps. However, I cannot give you information on the female cycle monitor and related reminders, as you will understand that it is not a function that I have been able to try.
Software
The software is one of those aspects that sometimes leaves you disappointed on these products, but in the case of Haylou, net of some translation inaccuracies in our language, I must admit that it is convincing, being full of functions. We move mainly with swipes starting from the home page, for example to recall the toggle menu, or to access the quick tabs where we can, for example, find the statistics of the day, have the address book and telephone functions at hand, manage the music and more. We can of course access notifications, which we can read and delete, but which we cannot respond to. I also point out that we cannot view emojis, respond to audio notes and above all that notifications are not perfectly synchronized with the smartphone, that is, if you read a notification on one or the other device, it continues to remain in memory on the device where you have not viewed it. the notification.
Entering the actual menu, we find many functions including the weather, the possibility of remote control of the smartphone camera (but only via the companion app), world time, alarm (settable directly from the watch), stopwatch/timer, health functions (cardio, SpO2, sleep, stress etc..), calculator, stock market indices and even a game to spend time with if you are bored. Furthermore, if you are a lover of security, you can set a password to access the various menus. Finally, there is also a reminder for sedentary lifestyle.
Sports activity and autonomy
The sports that Haylou Watch S8 is able to monitor are up to 100, but strangely despite the 3 ATM certification, we do not find swimming nor other water sports. It goes without saying that not all 100 sports have dedicated metrics and that where we find them, these are basic but still able to provide us with a trend on our sporting activity. We are not in the presence of a sportwatch, but for less than 30 euros I would not have expected such a thing. Overall for casual athletes, the monitor for certain activities was quite precise and satisfactory.
In terms of autonomy, Haylou's wearable boasts a 270 mAh battery which, according to the company, offers up to 8 full days of battery life with all functions active, but without AOD which, if active, effectively halves the autonomy, or rather the 'it practically takes less than a day. In reality I never reached the values declared by the brand, but at most I went to 3 and a half days. You can, however, increase the real value of the autonomy by managing the settings as best as possible, for example heart rate monitoring, adjusting the intensity of the backlighting or whether or not to activate the wrist gesture, etc. Instead, it will take around 3 hours for a full charge .
Sync application
There is also a dedicated application which, however, compared to other smartwatches of the brand, is not Haylou Fun but Haylou Watch, available for both iOS and Android. Inside the navigation menus of the app we find the Status section where we will find all the values collected by the smart wearable, including calories, distance travelled, heart rate, SpO2, sleep, stress and daily activity data including steps .
Then we have the Sport tab, where you can start a sporting activity using your smartphone's GPS for greater accuracy of your steps and track. In the Device section we can choose the watchfaces, decide which apps to receive notifications from, set the alarm, receive a sedentary reminder, synchronize the contacts in the address book and much more. Finally, in the IO tab you can set personal goals, update the firmware and poco other.
Final considerations and price
Haylou Watch S8 you can find it on the brand's official store on AliExpress at the incredible price of around €26, a decidedly super interesting price if you are looking for a wearable with an AMOLED display, capable of managing calls from the wrist, good reliability of the data collected as well as resistance over time. Also excellent as a gift idea or in any case to have a secondary device to take to the seaside or mountains. A watch that turns into a phone and works alongside your personal sports trainer. AMOLED display and digital crown are unique elements in the price range in which the device is placed, resulting full of functions and complete for daily use. Haylou Watch S8 is a real best buy, especially now with a price of less than 30 euros.
