One of the best budget smartwatches I've tested provides a surprising amount of health data

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• The Amazfit BIP 5 is available on Amazon for $75. 
• It’s a solid budget smartwatch that integrates with the Zepp app, providing a breadth of health and fitness data. 
• It’s not the most precise health tracker on the market, and its competitive price is most evident in its physical design. 

In a crowded marketplace of expensive smartwatches, Amazfit’s BIP 5 is an inexpensive option that uses the Zepp app to provide lots of health data. Amazfit’s lineup of smartwatches runs the gamut of price points from the Balance to the recently released T-Rex 3, and the BIP 5 is the latest budget option. 

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So, what do you get from a $75 smartwatch? An element of what you might expect from a low-cost device, but with some good surprises, too. The BIP 5 is informed by Amazfit’s lineup and is carried by Zepp, the comprehensive software that works more or less the same across all of the tech giant’s smartwatches. 

I went hands-on with the BIP over two weeks, wearing it regularly to the gym, as well as a work trip to Europe, and found this watch to be a solid fitness companion. Even though the watch doesn’t have the most high-end hardware, the Zepp app makes up for it with loads of metrics and customizability.  

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The first thing I’ll say about this watch is the battery is great. I didn’t even bother bringing the charger when I went to Europe for six days, nor did I need to. I’ve been getting away with charging it about once a week. 

The physical design is the other immediate thing that stands out about this watch. It looks like a sub-$100 smartwatch, but that isn’t necessarily bad. The 1.9-inch face is chunky, and the wristband it comes with is basic, but at least it’s customizable. The display doesn’t compare to high-end AMOLED displays found on other smartwatches, but it’s functional and stutter-free.

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It’s ultimately a neutral-looking watch that neither attracts nor repels attention, and there’s something to be said about that fact when other smartwatches insist on selling themselves as style pieces.

In terms of durability, this is not a watch you want to take with you in the pool or shower. It has an IP68 rating, making it splashproof, but not submergible. I live in New York, so even though I love the outdoors, I’m not someone you’ll find running in the rain. Instead, I prefer a smartwatch that has solid fitness measurements in the gym, coupled with good sleep tracking.

Regarding the BIP’s fitness tracking, I had mixed results. I took the watch to the gym and found that the “workout mode” doesn’t really work for me. When in this mode, the app wants you to keep your heart rate up in a certain range, and will alert you to keep moving when it gets too low.

The problem, in my experience, is the heart rate monitor is not entirely accurate. The device constantly insisted my heart rate was too low, urging me to “keep moving” even though I was mid-stride on the treadmill or mid-squat on the rack. I can see this being useful for someone focused on high-intensity interval circuit training, but unless you adjust the parameters, it might be too intrusive for athletes who know their way around the gym. 

In addition, the device can’t always tell when I’m sitting or standing. I use a standing desk in the office and at home, so I’m standing at least half of the day, but the BIP can’t always tell the difference. 

There are over 120 different sport measurement modes on the BIP, so there’s no way I could try them all, but the ones I did try — like rowing — were helpful but not necessarily game-changing. 

That said, the watch measures a wide array of metrics with Zepp’s PAI score. The “personal activity indicator” is a metric that awards you points every day based on cardiorespiratory measurements from all sources (not just designated workouts) with the goal of totaling up to 100 for the week. 

Personally, I really like Zepp’s PAI system and think it makes sense to evaluate your health and fitness levels from a broad perspective, not just as random metrics in a vacuum. 

Runners will also love the built-in GPS, which can generate maps of your routes and a set of metrics surrounding your workout, such as records, achievement predictions to chart progress, and workout templates. 

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The core features of the BIP 5 are health-centric, so there aren’t too many special features here in the way of connectivity, but the ones it does have are at least useful. For example, if you’re playing music on your phone, you can control playback with the watch, and it does have Alexa support, allowing you to give commands via the watch if you have a smart home setup. 

Regarding its sleep-tracking capabilities, the BIP 5 is again carried by the Zepp app, which is comprehensive and packed full of data. This makes it a great budget option for people who are primarily interested in monitoring sleep, but don’t necessarily want a full-fledged fitness watch.

Every morning, Zepp produces a progress report with a grade, including extended AI-generated narrative reports that put your sleep habits into more context. However, the metrics are not wholly accurate. Zepp often thinks I’m asleep when I’m not, and sometimes says my sleep was worse than it actually was. 

One thing that Zepp emphasizes is routine sleep and wake times, and it can harshly judge deviation from that pattern, even if you get a good night’s sleep. There were nights when it would give me a 75-80 score rating and chastise me for shifting from my sleep schedule, even though it was a weekend or I felt well-rested.

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However, the device does a good job of catching things that disrupt sleep, even if you’re unaware. For example, in one instance I had a late-night cocktail, and the next morning it asked me, “Hey, I noticed your heart rate took a while to drop last night. Did you eat late or have alcohol before bed?” Busted.

In this case, it did disrupt my sleep, so this level of insight was surprising and smart when I didn’t necessarily expect it: an overarching theme to the watch’s capabilities. 

ZDNET’s buying advice

If you’re looking for a budget smartwatch that can do a little bit of everything, but your life doesn’t depend on ultra-precise monitoring, Amazfit’s BIP 5 is one of the best on the market. Its integration with the Zepp app immediately makes this $75 smartwatch feel like it’s double the price. 

Additionally, if you’re someone who doesn’t want to wear a smartwatch 24/7, the battery life on the BIP 5 is fantastic, and although it’s not the classiest smartwatch on the market, it gets the job done.