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 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!

I'm on the same boat... I was rocking balance 1 gen for four years, the best watch I've ever had... But unfortunately, the time has come for a change, so I bought balance 2, and it's such a great successor to the first one... Then I bought a Helio strap, just to be able to switch watches from time to time ( OnePlus watch 3 and TicWatch atlas ), and Helio strap is an awesome device. But, for sleeping I also bought a Helio ring, I know that the battery is not among the best, but still it gives me a great measurement for 4 days, I wear it just for sleep tracking... And what I like the most is the zepp ecosystem, I don't need to use many apps, one rules them all ( of course, I have ohealth for opw 3 and TicWatch for notifications and calls, but all the health measurements are taken from Helio strap I wear on my bicep during the day). I am very happy that I found the Amazfit brand :)

I’ve been comparing the Helio Core with my Fenix 7 Pro for a few days now. It’s still early with the Helio Core, but so far its estimated VO₂ is almost 20 points below my actual value (Garmin detects it well), and as a result all the training-related metrics are affected. Biocharge has never dropped below 50% so far, even while I had a viral infection that pushed my Body Battery to under 20 by the end of the day for several days in a row. That said, Garmin has years of my data, so I’ll give Amazfit a few more weeks. But initially, the numbers don’t make much sense (to me).

Just got the Amazfit Ring and Strap myself. Strap goes on the right wrist, mechanical watch on the left. Also use the ring when I don’t feel like the strap. $200 bucks together and no subscription

I've ditched my Polar and gone all out Zepp/Amazfit. I used to have Amazfit watches and had the weighing scales too, but I've had Polar for the last few years. I've ditched the smart watch as a daily for the last year, so I was looking at other screen less options to track daily steps/activeness and sleep. I ended up going with the Helio ring, and the Active 2 watch. So far, I'm really pleased, battery life is proving to be a little less than expected, 3 days for both, but it's manageable. Other than that, having everything in one app is great, the Zepp app has really upped it's game too. I'm using one app to log food intake (this is a massively under appreciated bit of the Zepp app and it's completely free?!), weight/body metrics, workouts, sleep, general activeness. I'd recommend the set up for anyone considering it. The scales I already had, but the watch and ring were no more than a total of £160!! So cheap, and you get so much from it. The Polar watch I've ditched is £280 on its own, and I've not missed anything from that or the Polar app (so far).

I’ve got Amazfit watches, the band, and the ring. Overall I think it’s great, especially for the $100 price Amazon has it at right now. The battery life is meh. The way the Zepp app merges the data from the band, ring, and watches is cool. Sleep tracking seems great. It agrees with my Apple Watch sleep data pretty solidly, and is also pretty dang close to the RingConn Gen 2 sleep data as well. The HR and temperature values seem to differ a bit from the strap which makes sense as you wear them different places and they have different sensors, but as you alternate between devices you’ll see a jump or drop in skin temp and maybe think “oh man am I getting sick? My skin temp is up” but no, you’re not, it’s just the different device reading differently. Overall though I think the ring is pretty damn cool and underrated and for general metrics and sleep tracking. But it’s definitely not for fitness tracking.