REVIEW: U Watch U8 Plus Smartwatch

Review: U Watch U8 Plus Smartwatch

By: Christopher “Synther” Wilson

MSRP: $32.03  http://www.gearbest.com/smart-watches/pp_126176.html

The wearables market is still in its infancy and is mostly dominated by hands-free Bluetooth headsets.  But there are other wearable devices coming out.  First it was the experiment with Google Glass that fell flat on its face (snicker...snort…) and then came the Smartwatch.  Smartwatch sales are off to a slow start with only 700,000 units shipping in 2014.  The reason for this is threefold: 1.) Price.  Smartwatches and wearables in general, are astronomically overpriced versus their functionality.  2.) Functionality.  They simply don’t do enough on their own to justify their high price and there are no must have apps.  3.) People and their strange sense of privacy.  This is honestly the most perplexing of the three.  People go on and on about how wearables allow others to invade their privacy and then turn around and use a credit card to purchase their groceries.  Fully knowing that their credit card allows for manufacturers and stores to track their purchases and…you guessed it…invade their privacy.  I’m not going to directly say that people are stupid…but if the tinfoil hat fits…

The U Watch U8 nails the first problem by keeping the price down to a minimum.  The second problem is debatable and I still do not find any “must have apps” on the watch, but the price is low enough for the functionality that it at least evens out.  And the U8 doesn’t have a camera, so people can tuck their tinfoil hats back into the pizza box where they belong.

The U8 comes with a number of functions built in and a number of functions can be added via the Android 2.3 or higher app.  Apple iOS users will be out of luck for the additional functions, which consist of notification pushes from literally ALL of your apps.  The watch connects to your phone via Bluetooth and will then sync the date/time.  It will push phone calls and SMS natively and push other app notifications via the Android app.  The U8’s home screen consists of five pages that can be swiped to either left or right with four functions per page, not unlike the screen on your phone. 

Some of the more useful functions of the watch are direct access to your phonebook from your wrist, making or receiving calls directly from your wrist (or denying calls), reading SMS messages, seeing who sent you an email and the subject, reading Facebook IM messages, or any plethora of other notification messages.  And, of course, checking the time and date.

Unlike some of the more expensive Smartwatches running Android natively, you only get four watch faces available on the U8.  These consist of two analog and two digital faces.  The default digital watch face has direct access to the phone dialer, pedometer, and Bluetooth.  Unfortunately, these three functions cannot be changed and I’m hard pressed to find a reason why I would want direct access to my Bluetooth from the watch face.  I feel that access to the Phonebook or even the Sleep Monitor would have been a more useful button to place on this watch face.  The only other complaint that I have about the digital watch faces is that you can change the time format from 12-hour to 24-hour but there is no way to change the date format.  Instead, the date format is permanently set to “military/international” format with the day/month/year rather than month/day/year. 

This is really only a problem in the United States because we’re the only ones that want the month first.  Still, I feel that there is enough of a market that this should have been an option.

The analog watch faces are fairly elegant and remind me a lot of a Seiko and Bulova watch.  They maintain an elegant and minimalist watch face and may be a bit more of use for dressing up or just for people that prefer an analog watch.

The bottom of the watch consists of three buttons.  From left to right: Apps, Volume, and Back.  On the right side of the watch, you’ll find a physical “Home” button that powers on/off the watch as well as brings it to life from standby.  I’ve found that the Volume option has multiple functions.  One controls the volume of the watch itself while another controls the volume of apps and voice calls.  But there is no real indication of which is which.  It’s a little hard to explain, but you’ll find the functionality of it once you power the watch off at night and it does it’s little song and dance saying “ByeBye” in a room with a couple of sleeping people.  You may want to turn that down to the 2 or 0 setting.  It’s loud.

As I mentioned in passing, the U8 Plus also includes native apps for a Pedometer (passometer) and a Sleep Monitor.  These can tie into the Android app and give you a fairly detailed look at your “workout” or the quality of your sleep.  The U8, apparently, has a motion tracker in the wrist to accomplish these feats but it is fairly simplistic.  The Pedometer allows you to adjust the width of your step but I’ve found that it seems to over calculate the number of steps taken.  For example: The mailboxes in my apartment complex are maybe a block from the front door of my apartment.  While I suppose it is possibly accurate, I find it hard to believe that I took 597 steps one way to get to the mailbox.  I also noted that the Pedometer will register steps just by shaking your wrist.  So, I find it to be a good tool for at least showing you that you’re doing something, but don’t expect a lot of accuracy from it.  It can still be a fun gadget though.  The Sleep Monitor seems to work on the opposite effect and assumes that if you don’t move, then you must be sleeping.  By this regard, if you play Eve Online and wear the watch on your left wrist, it would have to register you as being in a coma.  Or if you roll around a lot in your sleep, you will be told you have had little sleep.  Again, a fun gadget, but not very accurate.

Packaged with the U Watch U8 is a short USB cable, thus allowing you to charge the Smartwatch, and a watch band removal tool.  This is a nice little bonus, since the U8 can take any 22mm watch band.  The band that comes with the watch is a fairly good padded neoprene but if you want something a little classier (and less sweaty) you have a plethora of options available.  The U8 Plus is also “life water” resistant.  This means that you shouldn’t worry if you get some rain on it or a little water from washing your hands, but don’t wear it in the shower or dunk your wrist in a bucket of water.  I’ve found that battery life will last anywhere from 18 to 28 hours, depending on how many notifications you receive or how many apps you have vibrating your wrist.

I found two “Easter eggs” in the U8 that I have yet to fully explore further.  The first is that you can’t reply to SMS messages directly from the watch.  However, when the message first comes in and displays, you can hit the Apps button and a “Reply” is on the menu.  But this option does not come up when you go to the Messages app.  Tapping on Reply produces a keyboard that consists of about five or six letter and is clearly incomplete.  A friend of mine and I suspect that if you have voice to text enabled on your phone, you could likely speak to the watch and send a text this way.  However, I’ve yet to try this.

The second “Easter egg” was found when I plugged the U8 into my PC to charge it.  The U8 does not come with a replaceable battery, so there was no reason to pull the back off the watch.  When plugged into a PC, the U8 comes up as a USB hard drive with no memory card inserted.  This causes the little techy voice in my head to tell me to pull the back off and see if there is a slot for a micro SD.  That could be a pretty cool way to pack your personal files around!  But, again, I’ve yet to explore this further.

In conclusion, I have to say that the U Watch U8 Plus is a great little Smartwatch that functions exactly as I would need it to function.  I get to feel a little like Dick Tracey talking into my wrist, hang up on people with amazing ease, and get Twitter messages as needed without pulling out my phone.  For functionality and price, I give the U8 a 6 out of 10 stars and recommend it to anyone that wants a little bit of hands freedom from their Smartphone.