Product Review: AvidSport Smart Watch

What is it: The AvidSport, a watch that tracks your fitness and syncs with your smartphone.

Price and Where to Buy: The watch is priced on a sliding scale from $99-$169 (early buyers on Kickstarter will receive the better price) at Kickstarter.com.

Pros:

• Uses Bluetooth 4.0 to sync the watch to your phone
• Can be used to track fitness, including steps walked, time spent working out, and calories burned. Use GPS to track your running path and review it on Google Maps. You can also set workout goals and compete with other users.
• Has a golf mode that works with over 30,000 courses worldwide
• Alerts you to incoming phone calls, texts, emails and social media notifications
• Watch can remotely trigger the camera on your smartphone
• Watch can call your smartphone if you lose it
• Can be used to control your phone’s music
• AvidSport’s look can be customized—change the strap color or display design easily
• Battery lasts up to four days when using with Bluetooth on

Cons: For people with smaller wrists, the watch felt bulky and heavy. (The AvidSport is 1.67″ high x 1.48″ wide and 0.48″ deep. It weighs 1.95 ounces.)

How it Rates:

• Usefulness: 10/10: Smart watches are always being billed as the next big thing for future technology, and the AvidSport does pretty much everything you could imagine. It’s most useful for fitness and golf fanatics.
• Value: 10/10. Compared to the Apple Watch (which will retail for $349), the AvidSport is a steal, at basically half the price.
• Durability: 8/10. It’s water-resistant and made from anodized aluminum, but like a smartphone, if you drop this face down at the wrong angle, it’s likely to crack the screen.
• Portability: 7/10. It’s a watch, so it’s portable. However, if you have smaller wrists, you may find the AvidSport bulky and heavy to wear.

Final Verdict: Are you the kind of person that yearns for a smart watch on your travels? The AvidSport is great to keep track of your fitness and to stay in contact no matter where you roam, and it’s a great price point. However, if you’re just not that in to tech stuff, then we can safely say you’ll be fine without this product. If you want to combine your fitness tracker and phone into a watch though, you can’t beat the AvidSport.

Editor’s Note: Reviews are based on usefulness, portability, durability, value, and “cool factor.” Some review products are sent to us free of charge and with no incentive to offer a favorable review. We offer our unbiased opinions, positive and negative, and will never accept compensation to review a product. If you have any questions or comments concerning our reviews, or would like to suggest a product for review, please email us at [email protected].

(Photo: AvidSport)