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With the classic design of its Zepp Z smartwatch, the manufacturer Huami should have met the taste of many watch enthusiasts.

This is a special achievement with a smartwatch, as many of these clever watches look more like small computers on the wrist.

The Zepp Z is made from a single piece of polished titanium alloy.

This makes it extremely stable and light.

With its dark brown leather strap, the watch looks classy and high quality.

This impression is also supported by the round display with its touchscreen, which is sharp and sufficiently bright.

Users can choose from more than 50 watch faces.

If desired, the time can be displayed continuously in always-on mode, which, however, consumes additional electricity.

Then, however, the dials are only shown very reduced.

You can either see the numbers or the hands.

Only when the wrist is raised does the full dial appear.

Often, however, only after a second or two.

The watch also observes the user while sleeping

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The Zepp Z is full of sensors, including a pedometer, compass, accelerometer, altimeter and biotracker.

The watch measures both heart rate and blood oxygen saturation.

Together with the built-in satellite positioning, it becomes a sports and tracking watch.

Users can choose between twelve sport modes.

Because it is waterproof, it is even suitable for swimming.

However, users should replace the leather bracelet for sports use.

In the test, the pulse measurement was found to be reliable compared to other smartwatches.

In the smartphone app belonging to the watch, which is available for iPhones and Android devices, an index value with the designation PAI is also displayed, which converts the heart rate, activity and other health metrics into a single value and is intended to express the physical condition .

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The watch also monitors sleep.

The smartphone then shows how large the proportion of deep sleep, light sleep and waking times was.

There are also tips for a better quality of sleep.

"Health button" rarely reacts

The clock is easy to use.

Functions can be accessed via the touchscreen or via three buttons on the right-hand side, one of which is a rotatable crown, but which can also be pressed to return to the dial.

The lower button can be configured and calls up the training modes in the standard setting.

The top button is a "health button" that activates heart rate measurement, for example.

However, it cannot be pressed.

Rather, it should be sensitive to touch.

In the test he reacted very rarely.

Here Huami has to follow up with an update.

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Calling up the digital voice assistant Alexa from Amazon is also to be retrofitted with an update and could therefore not be tested by us, nor could the offline voice commands for controlling some functions.

Implementation does not do justice to the technology

Conclusion:

Theoretically, the Zepp Z has many requirements for a good smartwatch.

But the implementation does not do justice to the technology.

The list of unfulfilled user requests is too long.

Notifications from WhatsApp, for example, are only partially displayed and cannot be answered on the watch at all.

The watch can only remotely control music on the smartphone, but does not save any songs so that they can be played while jogging without a smartphone.

It also does not automatically detect any activity, so tracking must always be started manually.

Because the watch has no loudspeaker, you cannot accept phone calls on it.

In addition to a payment service such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, it also lacks an app store for third-party applications.

In the test, the watch lasted four days on one battery charge, with continuous pulse measurement, at least one hour of daily sports tracking and measurement of sleep quality being activated.

This is a good value, even if the manufacturer specifies 15 to 30 days, but only if the user foregoes many functions.

The Zepp Z costs 349.90 euros.