Huami announces Amazfit Stratos $200 multisport GPS smartwatch with onboard music storage
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The Amazfit Bip (see our full review) is a very impressive fitness-tracking watch that powers for about a month at a price of $99.99. I didn't expect much from it, but I was thoroughly impressed.
Due to my hands-on time with the Amazfit Bip, I am quite excited to soon test out the new Amazfit Stratos, so stay tuned for my full review, as I train for my next half marathon. Huami developed the Stratos in partnership with Firstbeat Technologies, the company that also powers the heart rate analytics engine of the new Garmin Forerunner 645 Music, and Zepp Labs in order to bring a GPS sport watch that tracks more than 12 sports and offers advanced fitness and performance metrics.
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The sports you can track include swimming, cycling, running, tennis, soccer, mountaineering, trail running, triathlon, skiing, and more. With Firstbeat Technologies heart rate analytics engine, you can view your measured VO2max and work to improve it with coaching guidance.
There is an excellent Firstbeat-powered widget I use on the Garmin Forerunner, and it looks like these same training tools are provided on the Stratos. These include:
- Training Effect: Highlights the impact that specific activities have on the development of aerobic performance capacity
- Recovery Time: Recommends down time between each activity to maximize the benefit of each session
- Training Load: Keeps track of the combined physiological impacts of all activities over the past 7 days
The Amazfit Stratos has an advertised five days of battery life, 5 ATM water-resistant rating, GPS and GLONASS support, and notifications for calls, messages, calendar alerts, email, and other apps. The Stratos has a 2.5D Gorilla Glass display with carbon fiber case design and ceramic bezel. It uses standard 22mm watch straps so you can customize as you see fit.
One thing I always look for in these new wearables is the ability to use the data collected on various platforms. The information provided shows that the Stratos has native support to sync data to Strava. I plan to see if I can also sync this to RunKeeper and other services when I evaluate the watch.
While GPS sports tracking is one aspect of this new watch, you can also automatically track steps, heart rate, and sleep with the Amazfit Stratos. In addition, it has onboard storage and support for music playback via Bluetooth headphones.
You can purchase an Amazfit Stratos for $199.99 from the Amazfit store starting today. Please let me know if you have any specific questions, as I evaluate the Stratos over the next couple of weeks.
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