The smartwatch market in India is vast. From premium players like Apple, Samsung, Garmin, and more, to affordable brands like Noise, Boat, Amazfit, and the likes, there are smartwatches for every kind of user in India. PLAYFit is a new brand that has been founded by Micromax co-founder Vikas Jain. PLAYFit aims to be a leading homegrown wearable brand and already has a portfolio of products that include smartwatches, fitness trackers, true wireless earphones, portable speakers, and more.
PLAYFit launched its PLAYFIT Dial smartwatch recently at a sticker price of Rs 4,999. The smartwatch comes with several features that users will only expect from a higher-end smartwatch like an SpO2 sensor, sleep tracker, and more. The PLAYFIT Dial comes in competition with similar offerings from brands like Noise, Realme, and more. I have used the smartwatch for about a month now, and in this article, I will tell you what I like about it, what I don’t like, and if you should spend your money on the PLAYFIT Dial smartwatch. Let’s go.
In terms of design, the PLAYFIT Dial has an Apple Watch-like design with a rectangle dial (almost square). The smartwatch has golden borders around it and one button on the right side. The screen is slightly curved around the edges and has minimal bezels, with a slightly thick chin, and there is a speaker grille on the left side towards the bottom. The strap on the PLAYFIT Dial is replaceable and it comes with a standard black silicone strap that feels sub-standard in terms of quality.
The PLAYFIT Dial goes with a safe design approach that has worked for many brands in the past. This design, however, is quite familiar. While it looks decent, the PLAYFIT Dial doesn’t have as sleek a look as the company may have hoped. It is still a seamless design with no intrusions or out-of-place elements – there is just one button on the whole watch. The quality of materials used is also decent for this budget. The watch, however, feels slightly heavier than other options, but that could be because of the composite metal that the company has used on the PLAYFIT Dial’s body.
DISPLAY
The display on the PLAYFIT Dial is a 1.77-inch IPS display. The display on the smartwatch is just average. It is not the best in terms of quality and the image is not the sharpest we have seen on a smartwatch in this segment. The display is bright enough for both outdoor and indoor usage, and users can set the brightness as well. Under bright sunlight, however, you will have a hard time seeing dark colours and with smudges on the screen the visibility drops as well.
The colours on the PLAYFIT Dial’s display are not the most accurate and details aren’t as sharp as we have seen on other budget smartwatches in this segment. However, it is just enough to get the job done and the touch panel works quite well. 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 their 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. We took a while to figure out which Bluetooth option to connect to in order for the PLAYFIT App to read the smartwatch. It took a while for us to actually get the smartwatch connected to the phone and to show up on the app.
The only physical sensor on the back seems to be an Optical Heart Rate Sensor with a green infrared light. The PLAYFIT Dial smartwatch also comes with an SpO2 monitor that tells you the blood oxygen saturation. Here, it uses the light to determine the colour of your blood to tell you the oxygen saturation. When compared with a pulse oximeter, the smartwatch’s readings were similar. The heart rate monitor also turned out to be rather accurate and matched the readings of a pulse oximeter during my test.
The step counter on the PLAYFIT Dial is also accurate and mostly counts steps that you are actually walking. At times, it felt that the smartwatch is showing more steps than I actually walked, but that could be due to various reasons. There are other health-related features like different workout modes that you can turn on and off during your workouts. The sleep track, during my usage, did not work accurately. There were times when it did not show any data after a good night’s sleep, and at times it just gave a random reading.
As mentioned above, the connectivity options on the PLAYFIT Dial are complicated. While the watch does show notifications and incoming calls, it also has the option of taking calls directly from the watch, which is a great feature, if implemented properly. If you want to take calls directly from the watch, you will have to be okay with playing each and every media on the smartwatch like a Bluetooth speaker or headphone. If the speaker mode is on, the PLAYFIT Dial will play everything on its speaker, including calls.
