The smartwatch market in India is huge. From premium players like Apple, Samsung, Garmin, and more, to affordable brands like Noise, Boat, Amazfit and the likes, there are smartwatches for every type of user in India. PLAYFit is a new brand founded by Vikas Jain, Co-Founder of Micromax. PLAYFit aims to become a leading home wearable brand and already has a portfolio of products that includes smartwatches, fitness trackers, true wireless earphones, portable speakers and more.
PLAYFit recently launched its PLAYFIT Dial smartwatch at a sticker price of Rs 4,999. The smartwatch comes with many features that users would only expect from a high-end smartwatch such as SpO2 sensor, sleep tracker, and more. PLAYFIT comes into competition with similar offerings from brands like Dial, Noise, Realme, and others. I’ve used the smartwatch for about a month now, and in this article, I’ll tell you what I like about it, what I don’t like, and if you should be spending your money on the PLAYFIT Dial smartwatch. let’s go.
Design
In terms of design, the PLAYFIT dial has an Apple Watch-like design with a rectangular dial (almost square). The smartwatch has golden borders around it and a button on the right. The screen is slightly curved around the edges and has minimal bezels, with a slightly thicker chin, and a speaker grille on the bottom left. The PLAYFIT dial strap is replaceable and comes with a standard black silicone strap that feels sub-standard in terms of quality.
The PLAYFIT dial goes with a secure design approach that has worked for many brands in the past. However, this design is quite familiar. While it looks decent, the PLAYFIT dial doesn’t have as sleek a look as the company had hoped. It’s still a seamless design with no intrusive or out of place elements – there’s just one button on the entire watch. The quality of the material used is also good for this budget. Although, the watch feels a bit heavy compared to other options, this could be due to the alloy metal that the company has used on the body of the PLAYFIT dial.
Show
The display on the PLAYFIT dial is a 1.77-inch IPS display. The display of the smartwatch is average. It’s not the best in terms of quality and the image isn’t the sharpest we’ve seen on a smartwatch in this segment. The display is bright enough for both outdoor and indoor use, and users can set the brightness as well. However, under strong sunlight, you will find it difficult to see dark colors and visibility will be reduced along with haze on the screen.
The colors on the PLAYFIT dial’s display aren’t the most accurate and the details aren’t as sharp as we’ve seen on other budget smartwatches in this segment. However, it is good enough to get the job done and the touch panel does a fairly good job. The smartwatch also comes with IP67 dust and water resistance so users don’t have to worry about stepping out in the rain or washing hands with the PLAYFIT dial on.
Performance, Features and Battery
Now, in terms of performance and features, the first thing to mention here is that the setup process for the PLAYFIT dial is complicated. It took us a while to figure out which Bluetooth option to connect to in order for the PLAYFIT app to read the smartwatch. It took us a while to actually connect the smartwatch to the phone and show up on the app.
The only physical sensor at the back seems to be an optical heart rate sensor with green infrared light. The PLAYFIT Dial smartwatch also comes with a SpO2 monitor that tells you blood oxygen saturation. Here, it uses light to determine the color of your blood to tell you oxygen saturation. When compared with a pulse oximeter, the smartwatch has similar readings. The heart rate monitor also turned out to be accurate and matched the readings of a pulse oximeter during my testing.
The step counter on the PLAYFIT dial is also accurate and mostly counts the steps you are actually walking. At times, it felt like the smartwatch was showing more steps than I was walking, but this could be due to various reasons. There are other fitness-related features like separate workout modes that you can toggle on and off during your workout. Sleep Track didn’t work properly during my use. Sometimes it didn’t show any data after a good night’s sleep, and sometimes it just gave a random reading.
As mentioned above, the connectivity options on the PLAYFIT dial are complicated. While the watch shows notifications and incoming calls, it also has the option to take calls directly from the watch, which is a great feature, if implemented properly. If you want to take calls directly from the watch, you’ll have to be fine with playing each and every media on the smartwatch, like Bluetooth speakers or headphones. If speaker mode is on, PLAYFIT will play everything on its speakers, including dial calls.
Talking about the battery, it is impressive. While the PLAYFIT promises 4 days of battery backup, I was really able to squeeze in more with the PLAYFIT dial, but without the Bluetooth calling function that turns the smartwatch into a Bluetooth earpiece. The PLAYFIT Dial lasted for over a week on a single charge with regular use. In terms of charging too, the smartwatch is quite fast and takes around two hours to fully charge.
Decision
PLAYFIT DIAL is an ambitious product in the highly competitive segment. The company is relatively new and it will take some time to improve its products. The PLAYFIT dial has a lot of potential and offers features that not many smartwatches in this segment have. However, there are a lot of rough edges in the implementation. The smartwatch looks and feels good, has a great battery, an accurate heart rate monitor, and step counter, but tries to implement quirky features like Bluetooth calling, sleep tracking, and more. Appreciate only when implemented properly. Moreover, PLAYFIT also needs to work on a more smooth setup and connectivity experience, and the app is also not user-friendly at all. Overall, it’s a great try, but trying too much for too little has damaged the product.
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