Haylou Solar Smartwatch

Budget Smartwatches have started flooding the market. The revolution comes as smartphone manufacturers slowly roll out these devices to build their wearables ecosystem. The Haylou LS05 Solar Smartwatch backed by Xiaomi is a value smartwatch with a sub- PHP 2000 price. But at that price range is it any good?

- Gabriel Pe

DESIGN

The Haylou Solar is definitely a good-looking smartwatch when you consider everything about it. The unit itself is composed of a metal body with rubber watch straps. You can remove the watch straps but there’s no official band customization support as far as I know.

The watch face is a 1.28-inch TFT touchscreen with 240 x 240 resolution. On the side of the watch is a button that functions as the return button in most cases. The back is a heart sensor that is covered by plastic and the charging pins.

HARDWARE

The Haylou Solar has an ultra-low dynamic optical heart sensor and accelerometer. The watch doesn’t offer many connectivity options except Bluetooth 5.0 and the magnetic proprietary charger. The always-on heart rate sensor does much of the device’s heavy lifting, with it the watch offers 12 sports modes and sleep monitor.

The Haylou Solar displays basic information such as the time, your heart bpm, your total sleep time, your steps, calories supposedly burned, and total distance traveled. The companion Haylou Fit app does it one better, providing in-depth statics of your activities.

USER EXPERIENCE

Prior to getting the Haylou Solar, I had my doubts on the effectiveness and longevity of cheap smartwatches being sold online. Among the highly sought-after smartwatch on the different e-commerce platforms was Haylou’s LS01 smartwatch, a sub-PHP 1500 smartwatch.