The Realme Watch 3: A Budget-Friendly Smartwatch With Calling Capabilities?
The affordable smartwatch market is booming, with brands like Realme vying for a slice of the pie. Realme, known for its budget-friendly smartphones and audio products, has now entered the affordable smartwatch arena with the Realme Watch 3. Priced at Rs. 3,499, the Realme Watch 3 aims to strike a balance between fitness and health tracking, useful features, and affordability. But is it good enough to stand out in a crowded market filled with similar offerings from brands like Noise, Fire-Boltt, and Boat? Let’s find out in this detailed review.
Design and Specifications: A Big Screen and Familiar Features
The Realme Watch 3 directly competes with the recently launched Noise ColorFit Pro 4, boasting a similar feature set. The Realme Watch 3 boasts a 1.8-inch TFT LCD touchscreen, which is larger than the Noise counterpart, but with a lower resolution of 240×286 pixels. Despite this, Realme claims a maximum brightness of 500 nits.
The smartwatch is available in two shades: black and grey. The grey strap, coupled with the reflective silver sides, gives the Watch 3 a sleek and modern look. The front and back are black, and the standard 22mm straps can be easily swapped with aftermarket options.
While the large screen is a plus, those thick bezels surrounding it might give the smartwatch a slightly dated appearance. Thankfully, using a black background minimizes the visual impact of these borders.
The right side houses the microphone and the primary button controlling both power and navigation within the interface. The left side accommodates the speaker used for making and receiving calls. The bottom provides charging contacts and optical sensors for heart rate and blood oxygen readings.
The Realme Watch 3 is IP68 rated for dust and water resistance, weighs 40g with the strap, and utilizes Bluetooth 5.3 for connectivity. The package includes a magnetic charging cable for convenience.
Software and App: A Simple Interface with Expected Features
Like most affordable smartwatches, the Realme Watch 3 presents a simple interface with a fixed set of apps that manage its functionality. No app installation or removal is possible. The Bluetooth connection to your smartphone synchronizes fitness data, receives notifications, and enables the device’s wrist-worn speakerphone function.
Swiping left or right cycles through the main apps, including activity tracking, sleep tracking, heart rate monitoring, weather, and music controls. A swipe upwards reveals notifications with text previews, while swiping down provides quick toggles for brightness, power saving mode, settings, and more. Pressing the side button displays the full app menu in grid or list format.
Essential apps are included, covering features like a stopwatch, timer, alarms, camera shutter control, heart rate and blood oxygen tracking, workout records, and settings. The user-friendly layout makes navigation a breeze.
The Realme Link app, available for iOS and Android, serves as the go-between for the Realme Watch 3 and your smartphone. It offers a detailed view of the fitness data collected, allows for customization of watch settings and functions, and enables changing watch faces.
Realme offers a growing library of watch faces, with the option of saving up to four on the watch for quick switching. You can personalize which apps send notifications to the smartwatch, create event reminders, and choose between activating the watch by pressing the button or using wrist raise. Tapping the screen in standby doesn’t trigger any response.
If you own multiple Realme products, like earphones or IoT devices, the Realme Link app becomes a central hub for all of them. Throughout the review period, the connection remained stable, and notification delivery proved reliable.
Performance and Battery Life: A Mixed Bag of Features
While budget smartwatches often boast features, the reality can be disappointing. However, the Realme Watch 3, along with other devices in this price range, delivers on the basics of displaying time and notifications thanks to the color screen and customizable watch faces.
The Bluetooth calling feature proved particularly useful, allowing for short conversations in relatively quiet environments. Although the dialler interface felt clunky, the ability to define frequent contacts simplified calling regularly contacted individuals. Receiving calls on the watch was seamless and without issues.
In terms of health and fitness tracking, the Realme Watch 3 unfortunately fell short of expectations, mirroring the accuracy levels of similar budget devices. During the review, the smartwatch recorded 1,072 steps when manually counting 1,000, comparable to the similarly priced Noise ColorFit Pro 4. Over longer distances, the difference increased to approximately 85 extra steps per 1,000 when compared to the Apple Watch Series 7, with both devices worn simultaneously.
Distance measurements were significantly underestimated when compared to the Apple Watch, while calorie measurements were overestimated. Heart rate readings were inaccurate during movement but matched readings from the Apple Watch or a pulse oximeter when stationary. Blood oxygen readings generally aligned with the pulse oximeter. Sleep tracking appeared accurate regarding duration.
Battery life on the Realme Watch 3 met the company’s claims, providing almost seven days of usage. This included frequent activity and health tracking, occasional calls on the smartwatch, and notification previews. This figure is on par with the runtime offered by most affordable smartwatches in this category.
Verdict: A Solid Budget Choice With a Few Caveats
The Realme Watch 3 offers significant value at Rs. 3,499, boasting appealing aesthetics, reliable connectivity, decent battery life, and a notable feature: Bluetooth calling. While fitness and activity tracking accuracy left room for improvement, it remains a well-equipped device within its price range. If your budget is tight and you seek a smartwatch, the Realme Watch 3 is worth considering.
However, the Noise ColorFit Pro 4 is another strong contender, particularly for its sharper screen and superior watch faces. Ultimately, the decision boils down to brand preference and personal needs. Nevertheless, the Realme Watch 3 delivers on its promise of affordability and provides decent value for your money.
