REVIEW – HiFuture FutureFit Ultra2 smartwatch does Bluetooth calling very well. However HiFuture must put some work into a number of different capabilities of the watch to deliver it into the current. Have a look to see if the Ultra2 does sufficient so that you can justify its comparatively low value. It’s nicely constructed total, has a pleasant band and look and does its main perform very well. How rather more do you want?
What’s it?
The HiFuture Future Ultra2 smartwatch is an oblong, water-proof, multifunction smartwatch. Its important promoting level is Bluetooth telephone calling, fully by way of the watch.
What’s within the field?
- The HiFuture Future Ultra2 smartwatch
- Charging cable – USB-A to a proprietary connector
- Instruction sheet
Specs
- Display: 1.85-inch IPS show, 240×280 decision
- Water resistance: IP68
- Bluetooth: 5.2
- Battery: 300mAh polymer lithium battery, Standby time>25 days, Use time up to7 days
- Distant controls: Music, digital camera
- Compatibility: Android 4.4 / iOS 8.0 and above
- 12 month guarantee
Design and options
The HiFuture Future Ultra2 smartwatch was pretty straightforward to arrange, total. The watch boots up in below 10 seconds. Charging was quick because the watch had 61% battery capability on arrival. The Ultra2 and my Android telephone related usually by way of the ‘GloryFit’ app with no particular steps. I used to be in a position so as to add and take away watch faces within the app, and the faces synced to the Ultra2.
Right here’s the Ultra2 below the Amazfit GTS3.
Just one chosen watch face at a time will be put in on the Ultra2, so regardless that you could have a number of faces you’ve positioned into the ‘My dial’ tab of the app, to vary the face it must be re-synced to the watch. The 5 pre-installed watch faces can’t be eliminated.
After utilizing the look ahead to about 4 days, I attempted to put in/sync a watch face I’d used a few days prior, which had initially been put in in about 45 seconds. On the subsequent strive, the face took 35 minutes to sync! I finished the method after about 5 minutes, restarted the watch and telephone, and there was no change. The method was ploddingly sluggish and took 35 minutes. Once more, this was a easy watch face that synced usually just a few days earlier than.
The English within the app wants enhancing however when you cease and suppose, you may determine it out. ‘Dial middle’ is the place watch faces are saved within the app. ‘Synchronous dial’ means ‘Set up this watch face on the watch’. The phrase ‘Reminder’ within the app needs to be ‘Notification’.
Getting the telephone and Ultra2 to pair up for watch-based telephone calls was a little bit of a problem however as soon as accomplished I didn’t must repeat the method in the course of the overview interval. The instructions don’t match what I skilled and noticed on the telephone so it could take others a number of tries, utilizing your individual instinct and re-starting the telephone and watching till the 2 units play properly collectively. I’m not itemizing my steps right here as a result of I believe that by doing the plain issues a number of instances, the 2 units lastly paired for watch-based telephone calls.
The font used to show textual content messages is kind of old fashioned. It seems like a font that dot matrix printers used to provide. Given the LCD display capabilities of the Ultra2 this appears a design flaw that may very well be simply mounted with a software program replace.
Textual content messages get truncated to 2 screens so if it’s a protracted message, you get to see what suits on two screens of message content material.
Solely a small subset of apps on a telephone will be capable to set off notifications on the Ultra2. Certainly one of my largest wants for a smartwatch is to ship silent notifications from all of my most essential apps. For instance, my climate apps give important notifications throughout extreme climate. The Ultra2 can’t obtain these notifications. Powerful for me if I’m in a quiet assembly and essential notifications can’t attain me with out maintaining a hand on my telephone to really feel it vibrate.
Google Maintain is among the few apps allowed to work with the Ultra2. Many notifications from Google Maintain reminders didn’t set off watch notifications.
Why doesn’t the Ultra2 reliably settle for notifications from any app on the telephone? This appears to be an ordinary with most good smartwatches lately.
When a textual content message arrives to the telephone, the Ultra2 does a single brief vibration. That’s approach too straightforward to overlook. There isn’t a customization of the incoming textual content vibration aside from a common setting for low, medium or excessive vibration power, however the buzz cannot be made any longer. One fast ‘bzzt’ is it. And generally with an incoming textual content the Ultra2 wouldn’t even give a single buzz. It missed fairly just a few. Textual content notification seems to be a low precedence for the Ultra2.
Sporadic notifications from the Ultra2 however, as with each good watch I’ve owned, the Ultra2 notifies for the primary textual content from a sender however until I deleted that sender’s authentic textual content there have been no extra notifications if the dialogue with that sender continued. If I delete each textual content that arrives, subsequent texts from the identical sender do (often/generally) notify on the watch. With one puny ‘bzzt’.
WhatsApp is one other of the few apps which are purported to transmit notifications to the watch. The watch would usually do late vibration notifications for a WhatsApp dialog that was nicely underway, having not notified me of the primary three or 4 messages in a thread. And sometimes the watch didn’t vibrate in any respect when a WhatsApp message got here to my telephone.
When the Ultra2 Bluetooth calling function is turned on, some sounds that might usually come from the telephone speaker, come by way of the watch speaker. It’s fascinating if you first hear it however it isn’t customizable. If I do a telephone search utilizing Google Assistant, the result’s spoken by way of the watch. But when I stream a podcast, the sound comes from the telephone speaker.
On the finish of a timer, the watch provides three temporary vibrations. That’s higher than the one fast vibe for textual content messages, however extra vibe customization decisions are a important want for this watch.
There are 5 watch faces constructed into the watch and 97 within the ‘Dial Heart’ part of the app, and I’m not loopy about any of them. I discovered one I didn’t hate. Most of the faces function cartoonish background artwork or numerous major colours, as a substitute {of professional} design and visibility of the watch palms and digits.
You’ll know the hour and squint for the minutes with this one.
There are a number of analog watch faces with darkish palms on darkish backgrounds. A number of digital faces have white minute digits and a darker hour digit colours or vice versa, which hampers outside readability. I practically misplaced curiosity within the Ultra2 after just a few hours since I didn’t discover a watch face I actually favored.
Should the minute hand be pink?
It’s exhausting to inform the time at a look with this one.
How a couple of easy, straightforward to learn, medium sized digital face, and an inexpensive wanting analog face with white palms and a darkish background? I didn’t discover a face that I might wish to pair with enterprise outfits.
Whenever you look carefully on the watch faces you surprise if the Ultra2 is designed to be a teen’s watch. Nevertheless it’s a reasonably large watch. Possibly an enormous teen?
‘Dial middle’ often confirmed the 96 watch faces. However generally I’d go there and it was empty. A compelled app shut, and reopen, made the faces present up once more, however why?
Syncing a brand new watch face often went at a standard tempo however there have been events when a easy face took over 5 minutes to obtain. A type of events was from the watch having been off, so it shouldn’t have been a case of low reminiscence. Occasional sluggish processor perhaps? Turning the watch off and again on often mounted this drawback.
The GloryFit app has a setting for a ‘Delayed reminder’ that may be set for 1 to 10 seconds. When any sort of notification comes that isn’t manually dismissed, the Ultra2 -sometimes- says ‘Incoming name’ in an digital feminine voice. Shouldn’t the watch simply vibrate? If I don’t dismiss a timer that has counted down, the watch often says ‘Incoming name’. I turned off Delayed reminder and left it off.
All alarms that vibrate on the appointed time additionally play that eerie voice saying ‘Incoming name’. Listening to that voice popping out of a deep sleep makes me seize my telephone, as a result of certainly a name is coming in? Nah, that’s simply the alarm announcement. So – why does it say ‘Incoming name’?! Assist stated to set the watch to ‘Mute’ within the settings and mine is ready to Mute already.
Whereas the Ultra2 works with Android telephones, Assist shouldn’t be but prepared to offer Android-specific help solutions to Android customers.
I set ‘Items’ within the GloryFit app to ‘British’ (it comes set to ‘Metric’). The climate app on the watch continued to point out temperatures in Celsius. I restarted my telephone and the watch and the Celsius show persevered. A lot for that setting within the app.
The Ultra2 watch ‘Voice Assistant’ app is in place to set off your telephone’s voice assistant like Siri or Google Assistant. I’ve discovered Google Assistant to be so wonky that I don’t use it.
Most trendy smartwatches supply an ‘at all times on show’ however not the Ultra2. The alternatives are to show the face on with a press of the crown button, or use the ‘flip the wrist’ function to activate the display. There was often a couple of one second lag from turning my wrist as much as view the time and the display approaching. With some faces there was a two second lag to test the time. Not cool.
It appears gimmicky to me for train watch makers to checklist dozens of ‘sport modes’. Whether or not I select ballroom dancing or badminton, what’s the watch actually measuring? Coronary heart charge and period of exercise, proper? I miss out on a profit to selecting ‘hockey’, ‘leaping’ or ‘basketball’ since about all a smartwatch can do is measure coronary heart charge, perhaps oxygen saturation, and period of the train. I concede that it could be helpful to maintain observe of particular exercise sorts for ‘journaling’ functions. On today I performed ping-pong, on that day I golfed, and so forth. However health apps are infamous for dropping consumer’s knowledge so that you higher maintain a written journal elsewhere, no matter machine you’re utilizing.
The step counter within the Ultra2 appeared fairly correct. It might generally barely overcount a 100 step take a look at. E.g. It might credit score me for 104 steps once I actually did 100 steps whereas strolling and swinging my arms very usually / with out exaggeration. Different instances it was on the right track or can be just one or two steps over the precise step rely for a 100 step take a look at.
The resting coronary heart charge monitoring was fairly correct with the Ultra2 every time I checked it with the watch and in contrast with a handbook rely. When in comparison with taking my pulse manually whereas the Ultra2 did its factor, the counts had been both proper on, or fairly shut.
Exercising coronary heart charge was not correct with the Ultra2. On the finish of fifty leaping jacks the Ultra2 confirmed my coronary heart charge at 53 BPM. That was approach off. My handbook rely indicated 130 BPM. A minute after I finished exercising the watch and handbook rely converged.
After 25 pushups, the Ultra2 confirmed my coronary heart charge at 134 BPM, however it was really 116.
The Ultra2 seems to be unable to do correct coronary heart charge monitoring throughout train.
Bluetooth calling appears to be primarily what this watch was designed for and that perform works very nicely. Individuals I known as couldn’t inform I used to be speaking to them by way of an exterior machine. Their sound was clearly audible to me by way of the Ultra2 speaker.
It’s wonderful that the watch is showerproof given the openings within the case for the microphone and speaker, however, so it’s.
For some purpose, solely 109 of my 238 contacts are proven within the contacts of the GloryFit app. Contacts have to look within the app to be movable to the watch. Sorry Mother, I can add Poison Management and our tree service to the Ultra2, however not you. As much as 100 contacts will be synced to the watch. Simply not my Mother. When you manually enter a telephone quantity to name, at the least it’s within the Ultra2 Telephone Log and will be simply known as with just a few faucets.
Battery life is sort of at all times over-claimed by producers. I used the Ultra2 in ‘wrist flip’ mode to test the time, used countdown timers when cooking or for different duties, had a every day get up alarm, checked step counts, and made a few telephone calls a day utilizing the watch. In two days the watch went from a full battery to 35%. The Ultra2, like another smartwatch, will give an extended time between fees the much less you employ it.
What I like
- The Ultra2 measurement, weight and strap made for snug put on.
- The watch is bathe and sweat proof, and needs to be okay for floor swimming.
- The watch is sweet wanting and seems to be nicely made.
- Bluetooth calling labored completely with the Ultra2.
What I’d change
- Vibration customization. Length of vibes and repeats needs to be adjustable.
- The GloryFit app wants an overhaul in language correction, function provides and tweaks, and operation fixes
- Extra correct and full pairing directions for the Bluetooth calling function.
- Professionally designed watch faces with some deal with readability and ease.
- Assist Android telephone customers.
Closing ideas
It’s tough to suggest the HiFuture Ultra2 watch given the shortcomings I skilled with it and since it fails to ship present smartwatch options and performance. For those who can overlook the faults of the Ultra2 and wish a ‘telephone name watch’, it comes at a value which may not break the financial institution.
Value: $59.99
The place to purchase: HiFuture
Supply: The pattern of this product was offered by HiFuture.
