Amazfit - Helio Ring

I have a few devices that I like! Amazfit Active Watch and Helio Ring - theyre good all around fitness and sleep trackers. I use them mostly for sleep, steps and light heart rate tracking during the day. My downside to these is, like a lot of lower price smart devices, my watch only checks heart rate once a minute (unless it's set to an exercise mode), and the ring only every 5 minutes. Then (again, unless it's tracking a workout), it'll aggregate the heart rate data over 5 minute intervals for me to look at. It's all very accurate and gives a good quick picture of my day, but I wanted something with a bit more granularity to check our when I don't feel well. Sometimes I also find myself distracted during the day wearing the watch since it'll also send me notifications for texts and such. Visible 2.0 Armband - this is a new addition for me. I've had it a week now. This device only checks heart rate and HRV, but it is constantly monitoring the heart rate and gives you your HRV in the mornings (or during breathing exercise through the app). The data is presented minute-by-minute, it's incredibly accurate and gives a lot of helpful insights into when I'm pushing myself a little too hard. Downside here, it's subscription based. While my Amazfit watch was a one time like $90 payment, this band is an initial cost of $79 with a $20 a month subscription fee. With a referral code (which I used), it basically made it $59 for the band and the $20 initial first month payment. Slightly better but again, it is financially restrictive for some people. If youre interested though, I'd be happy to provide a referral because I do think it's a useful tool at least to gather information.

I'm a big fan of Xiaomi products and their sister products. Redmi, Yi, Amazfit. I'm wearing the amazfit gtr3 watch. I find it excellent, but not much of a work out type, it counts steps, monitors spo2 and heart rate / sleep. I like it a lot. It's not a medical device I know, but I'd see it as an indicator. Also have the Helio ring, the zepp app on android aggregated the results of the measurements, supposedly giving more accurate results. Get over a week with the watch after about an hour's charge, circa 3 days on the ring.

I would also recommend changing hands while exercising. Some people dread the "fitness tan" (that's what I call that permanent sun branding of your watch you get). This way your wrists will tan evenly :P or hopefully you will avoid this. I am on the same boat as you, but I just added the Helio Ring and man oh man...the combo is awesome. As of now my strap is charging and I don't feel I'm losing anything because I'm wearing the ring.

I have tested a lot of wearables and I can tell you this. Nothing compares to the Apple Watch as far as smart features. If you're looking for top notch sleep tracking Garmin IS NOT THE WAY. Apple's algorithm is far superior to Garmin's. Would the Venu 4 be a good fit for you? Sadly there's only one way to find out. Bite the bullet and get the watch. Worst case scenario you will end up using both, best case you end up making your mind up. I came back to the Apple Watch Ultra because of the integration and the fact that I can go for a run without my phone, but I'm training for a 100k race and the integration of the app I'm using is better in Garmin. I wear my AWU 24/7 and the Garmin when I train. Aaaaand to answer your questions: Why Garmin? The battery life and the metrics during my events (ultras, we're talking about 10 to 17 hours non stop tracking) Regret? Technically not regret, is just that Garmin 24/7 didn't give me as much as an AW did. Since I'm deep into the ecosystem (iPhone and Mac) nothing beats my AW integration. Why AW again? I just decided to test the waters for a bit and now I have more data to back up my decision. Garmin's metrics are nice and all but when you are constantly "harassed" by your watches metrics to do better or that you're not doing enough that is a deal breaker for me. I have enough with my own brain telling me to push harder to have a Goggins watch tell me that my run sucks (looking at you performance conditioning!) just because it is something that goes against the algorithm that Garmin has. From all these experiments (Coros Pace 3, Helio Strap and Ring, Garmin Enduro 3, T-Rex 3 Pro), I can tell you for sure that the best combo for me is the AWU2 24/7 and Enduro 3 while training paired with my Helio Strap (24/7). How did I come up with this? By biting the bullet and actually getting the tech (caveat that most of my tech were gifts from my family who support this nonsense as long as I don't kill myself during training for races XD). Good luck!

First off, no smart rings are good at fitness tracking beyond auto tracking of steps and calories with walking/running - at this point anyway. In fact, one that is designed for fitness tracking (Helio Ring) appears to be one of the worst performers in this in my experience. Having many different categories to be able to manually track fitness activities implies that they will have accuracy, but that isn't really the case. Some may do okay with HR and HRV, but step count is lacking and vice versa. Second, it is not recommended to wear a smart ring while lifting weights. Usually people cite the risk of degloving (your ring "degloving" the skin from your bone), but there are also risks of less dramatic finger injury, damage to the ring itself, as well as just being uncomfortable. It's recommended for the above reasons to wear a decent smart watch or chest strap for close accuracy with fitness tracking...then allow the the data to sync in Apple Health or Google Fit. Ultrahuman now allows that data to also [sync back into it's own app.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SmartRings/comments/1hu57us/comment/m5n4p8i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)

While I agree with you on the fitness tracker comments, I disagree on the subscription fees. Oura is the only smart ring that charges a subscription fee...and they are losing marketshare because of it. AmazFit Helio Ring tried to charge a subscription fee for premium features of their app, but, after a few months, lowered the price of their ring AND now bundle the premium features for free. Ultrahuman has third-party add-ons called PowerPlugs. There are 12 of these niche add-ons and only two require a subscription. Cardio Adaptability, and Region-Limited AFib Detection. RingConn did say that they were considering subscription fees at one point before their Gen 2 started shipping, but later said they decided against it.

I went from garmin epix 2 to amazfit helio. Purely because sleeping with the garmin was painful for me whereas with the amazfit can’t feel it. That was the bottom line for me

It's a bad deal because why buy this when you can get the Amazfit Helio for half the price which tracks even more.

Well this was a huge disappointment after the hype they built up with this. Did they get the memo that Amazfit Helio was released earlier this year with better sensors for half the price? All they needed to do was have a improved sensor and a competitive price. Swing and a miss, nothing to see here.

From my experience the Helios has way better sleep tracking then my Fenix 7 or 255m. The HR is much more accurate especially during lifting. For 99€ I don’t see why anybody wouldn’t get it.

Long Time whoop user here, who switched to the amazfit helio. The amazfit helio is just better than the whoop. The only downside is no journal, but to be honest I stopped using it after half a year on the whoop when I got all the relevant information out. The update frequency on amazfit helio is crazy.

Wouldn't get a Hume, I sent my one back! Get a Helio instead!

Polar Loop doesn’t have vibration sensor. That’s something which I liked in Whoop/Helio. I can wake up without disturbing my wife.