The Fire-Boltt Talk: A Budget Smartwatch That Lets You Take Calls on Your Wrist
Affordable smartwatches are becoming increasingly popular, offering a stylish way to monitor health and fitness, receive notifications quickly, and even make calls directly from your wrist. The Fire-Boltt Talk, priced at a very affordable Rs. 4,999, aims to deliver impressive features at a fraction of the cost of premium options like the Apple Watch. But does it deliver on its promise? Let’s delve into our detailed review to find out.
Design and Build: A Familiar Look with a Touch of Refinement
The Fire-Boltt Talk boasts a round 1.28-inch color touchscreen with a dial that evokes traditional mechanical watches. A single button, similar to a watch crown, sits on the right side. While the button physically turns, it lacks scrolling functionality, instead serving to wake/sleep the screen and navigate back to the home screen from deeper menus.
It’s important to note that the screen on our review unit wasn’t perfectly aligned with the dial, appearing slightly off-center. However, this seems to be a specific manufacturing defect and didn’t affect functionality.
The rubber straps are comfortable and adjustable, and are thankfully replaceable with standard 46mm watch straps, allowing for personalization. The casing is made of metal, while the bottom is plastic and houses the charging contacts and optical sensor for heart rate and SpO2 monitoring.
The included charging cable, featuring a USB Type-A connector and a proprietary magnetic connector for the watch, is a bit low-tech and could potentially be susceptible to damage. Nonetheless, it functioned adequately during the review period, taking less than two hours for a full charge.
Available in black, grey, and teal, the Fire-Boltt Talk weighs approximately 60g and boasts an IP67 rating for water and dust resistance. It utilizes Bluetooth 5 for connectivity, offering a low-power connection for regular smartwatch functions and a ‘Phone’ mode that transforms the watch into a connected wireless speaker and microphone.
Software, Interface, and App: A Blend of Familiarity and Clunkiness
The Fire-Boltt Talk runs a custom UI that, while similar to the one found on the Fire-Boltt Beast, features adaptations for the round screen. There’s a clear inspiration from Apple’s watchOS, particularly in the bubble-style app drawer and quick settings icons. All functions are navigated through swipes and taps. The crown button can be used for waking the screen, though the watch also wakes with the raise-to-wake gesture.
The home screen prominently displays the time and other details, allowing you to customize the watch face through the companion app. Swiping left reveals the app drawer, swiping down shows unread messages and notifications, swiping from top to bottom brings up quick settings and the battery level, and swiping right cycles through built-in tools and health monitors.
Navigating the Interface: A Slightly Rough Journey
Other notable apps include the camera shutter app, music remote, stopwatch, and alarm. While the device includes a blood pressure monitor, it proved to be unreliable during our testing and we don’t recommend relying on its readings.
A key feature of the Fire-Boltt Talk is its ‘Phone’ mode, allowing you to use it as a hands-free device for your smartphone. This mode needs to be activated through the watch app or settings menu. Once turned on, the watch becomes a visible Bluetooth audio device that can be paired with your smartphone. This also activates phone settings within the watch itself, enabling access to the call log, dial pad, and eight pre-configured quick call contacts.
While the hands-free functionality is generally usable, the overall experience can be awkward at times. Swipes and taps may not always register promptly, and navigating the watch’s menus often feels time-consuming. The experience is less clunky than the Fire-Boltt Beast, but still requires some patience.
The Da Fit App: A Welcoming Companion
You can manage most of the watch’s data and settings through the Da Fit app, available on both Android and iOS. The app performed well during our review, maintaining a consistent connection between the Fire-Boltt Talk and our OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition smartphone. While the pre-installed watch faces are fairly basic, the app offers a wide selection of downloadable options. However, it’s worth noting that you can’t cycle through watch faces on the device itself, requiring you to use the app for any face changes.
We found it much easier to view health data, including sleep, SpO2 levels, steps, and heart rate, within the smartphone app, where they are presented in clear charts and numbers. The app also allows you to configure basic settings, set fitness goals, and update the Fire-Boltt Talk’s firmware.
Performance and Battery Life: A Solid Showing
The Fire-Boltt Talk is device-agnostic, working with most Android and iOS smartphones. While some features can be used independently of a smartphone, the hands-free functionality requires a Bluetooth source device. Most fitness and health tracking tools, as well as other features, are accessible directly on the watch itself.
The Essence of a Smartwatch: Connecting You With Your World
The core purpose of a smartwatch is to act as a convenient wrist-worn extension of your smartphone, displaying notifications, caller ID, and health parameters without needing to constantly retrieve your phone. The Fire-Boltt Talk fulfills this role adequately, delivering notifications and allowing hands-free calls effectively.
The pairing process is straightforward and rapid, even for first-time smartwatch users. The pre-installed watch faces are minimalist yet clean, providing information such as the time, date, steps, battery level, and connection status.
Accurate Tracking and a Reliable Heartbeat:
The heart rate and SpO2 trackers on the Fire-Boltt Talk delivered accurate readings when compared against an Apple Watch Series 5 and a standard fingertip pulse oximeter. While taking a few seconds to register, the readings were usually accurate with minimal waiting time. The Fire-Boltt Talk also performed well in step counting, registering around 1,020-1,030 steps for a manually counted 1,000 steps, with the error margin increasing to around four percent for larger step counts.
However, the blood pressure monitor, relying on the optical sensor, consistently produced inconsistent and varied readings. It’s best to avoid relying on this feature, as it doesn’t seem accurate and proper equipment should be used for blood pressure readings.
Additional tools within the watch’s app drawer include a flashlight, stopwatch, timer, alarm, and music player, all of which work flawlessly. A ‘Theater’ mode further reduces screen brightness and turns off vibration alerts. The Da Fit app lets you select which phone apps you want to receive notifications from, covering popular platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, alongside basic apps such as Phone and SMS.
A Conversation on Your Wrist: A Smooth Experience
The hands-free functionality, which gives the Fire-Boltt Talk its name, works as expected. The watch serves as a Bluetooth hands-free device with an integrated speaker and microphone. This functionality necessitates the watch being within Bluetooth range of your smartphone. Thankfully, the speaker delivers clear and loud sound for calls, while the microphone effectively picks up voices, resulting in an enjoyable experience. You can even use the watch to play audio from your smartphone, including music.
The Fire-Boltt Talk delivers satisfactory battery life, with its 170mAh battery providing around four days of usage between charges. This figure was recorded with the watch almost constantly connected to our smartphone, measuring health and fitness data and handling occasional hands-free calls. While it falls short of the claimed 10 days of battery life, it remains commendable for a device with a large screen and a comprehensive set of features at this price point.
Verdict: A Strong Contender for Budget-Conscious Watch Enthusiasts
While the Fire-Boltt Talk shares similarities with other budget smartwatch options in terms of design and features, it distinguishes itself through its ability to act as a hands-free device, enabling phone calls directly from your wrist. This simple feature provides a convenient way to manage quick calls while on the move. The inclusion of additional health and fitness features like step tracking, SpO2 monitoring, and heart rate tracking further solidify its appeal at this price point.
While the app experience is satisfactory, the on-device software UI feels clunky and inconvenient at times. The blood pressure monitor, unfortunately, is not accurate enough to be relied upon. Despite these drawbacks, the benefits of the Fire-Boltt Talk outnumber its shortcomings.
Overall, the Fire-Boltt Talk is a compelling option for those seeking a feature-rich smartwatch under Rs. 5,000. Its hands-free calling capability, coupled with its comprehensive feature set, makes it a standout choice against comparable offerings from larger brands.
