Timex iConnect Premium Active Review: A Pretty Watch with Basic Features
The legacy brand Timex has entered the smartwatch game with the iConnect Premium Active, aiming to attract users with its premium aesthetics and a color touchscreen. While it offers basic fitness tracking, sleep monitoring, and notification features, the Timex iConnect Premium Active raises the question: is it worth the price? After using it for over a month, here’s a detailed review exploring its design, features, performance, and overall value.
Timex iConnect Premium Active Design: Elegant but Flawed
The Timex iConnect Premium Active boasts a premium look, particularly with its rose gold stainless steel mesh band, designed with women in mind. The square touchscreen with gold edges contributes to its sleekness, especially when paired with the mesh band. However, the significant bezels around the display, especially at the bottom, make the actual touchscreen area relatively small. Navigation relies solely on touch input, with no buttons.
The replaceable stainless steel mesh strap, while stylish, proved to be a bit loose, especially during activities like badminton, potentially leading to the watch falling off. The silicone strap option, with a buckle closure, might be a more secure choice for active users.
Timex iConnect Premium Active Features and Interface: Functionality over Depth
The Timex iConnect Premium Active features a 36mm dial with rounded edges and a metal frame. It’s IP68 water-resistant, withstands activities like washing utensils without damage. The UI navigation is simple, offering customizable watch faces, activity data, heart rate monitoring, and sleep tracking. You can adjust brightness, toggle DND mode, and turn off the smartwatch, though automatic brightness adjustment is missing. While notifications from your phone are displayed, the watch lacks the functionality to respond to messages or emails, and call alerts can only be viewed, not muted or declined.
The watch offers seven workout modes: walking, running, climbing, riding, basketball, elliptical, and yoga. Other basic modes like swimming and free training are absent. The features include a timer, weather widget, and a "relax" option for breathing exercises. You can manage your phone’s music and even use the "Find My Phone" feature. However, the watch lacks an always-on display and a wrist-gesture wake functionality.
Timex iConnect Premium Active Companion App: Basic Controls and Limited Customization
Pairing the Timex iConnect Premium Active with the iConnect By Timex 2 app on your smartphone is simple. The app provides an overview of your daily activity, including active time, distance, steps, and calories burnt. You can also view heart rate measurements and a history of readings, as well as weekly sleep data.
The app offers basic customization options like adjusting sedentary alerts, reminders to drink water, wrist orientation, and alarms. The Timex iConnect Premium Active does not support continuous heart rate monitoring, and you cannot change the interval between measurements.
While the app provides some additional watch faces, compared to the default ones available on the watch, it lacks further customization options. Features like wrist-gesture wake, display timeout settings, and a flashlight are notably absent. The Timex iConnect Premium Active also lacks features like period or ovulation tracking, stress monitoring, or SpO2 measurement.
Timex iConnect Premium Active Performance: Decent Tracking, Battery Life, and Charging
During testing, the Timex iConnect Premium Active exhibited satisfactory heart rate and sleep tracking results, comparable to similar devices. The sleep data generally aligned with perceived sleep quality.
The watch’s battery life is decent, lasting about four days with average use, including maximum brightness and a daily half-hour run. Reducing brightness would extend battery life, but the reflective screen might be less usable in sunny conditions. Charging takes approximately two and a half hours.
Step and distance tracking accuracy was decent, but not as precise as some other devices. In tests, the watch counted 970 steps instead of 1,000, and measured a distance of 1.02km instead of 1km.
Timex iConnect Premium Active Verdict: Stylish, But Features Fall Short
The Timex iConnect Premium Active offers an attractive design, making it a tempting option for those seeking a stylish smartwatch. However, it falls short on features, lacking essential functionalities like period and ovulation tracking (given its target audience), more workout modes, and customization options for watch faces. Activity tracking accuracy is decent but not as precise as some competitors, and there’s no configurable 24×7 heart rate monitoring. The absence of SpO2 measurement is also a missed opportunity, especially in today’s health-conscious landscape.
The loose mesh band poses a potential issue for active users. Overall, with a price of Rs. 6,995 (silicone strap) or Rs. 7,295 (stainless steel mesh strap), the Timex iConnect Premium Active faces stiff competition from other smartwatches in its price range, such as the Amazfit GTS 2 mini and the Realme Watch S. While the Timex iConnect Premium Active marks Timex’s entry into the smartwatch market, it needs to offer more functionality and refinement to truly stand out.
