Smartwatch Noise ColorFit NAV is a great fitness buddy for Rs 3,999

We’ve all heard the saying ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’. Well, some people need a bit of a nudge to get going. And that’s what a fitness tracking smartwatch does in these lockdown times when the natural tendency is to be sedentary. It shakes you up a bit by showing you how few steps you have walked, how little you’ve been active, and pushes you to get moving – without being pushy and off-putting.

But not everyone can afford those A-list smartwatches of Apple, Samsung and Huawei or even Oppo that cost as much as a mid-range to higher range smartphone itself. That’s where the ColorFit NAV, produced by Indian wearables maker Noise, is a catch. It costs just Rs 3,999 and will be available on Amazon the day the Amazon Prime Day sale starts on August 6.

Download the NoiseFit X, enable Bluetooth on your phone, sync your Noise ColorFit NAV watch and you’re good to go.

The Noise Colorfit NAV has as many as 10 sports modes to keep you fit. Based on your choice of activity, the smartwatch runs a proprietary algorithm to track your various parameters such as heart rate, the duration of the exercise or activity and the calories burnt, in the case of say yoga, to determine if you fulfil your preset goals. As anyone with a fitness tracking smartwatch will tell you, it feels rewarding to have achieved those goals.

If you choose outdoor walking for instance, the Noise Colorfit NAV tracks all these parameters in addition to the distance covered, the number of steps and your pace. Equipped with GPS, the Noise ColorFit NAV, where NAV stands for navigation, also shows you the route you took. Also, no need to worry about a bit of rain or sweating it off on your workout. The IP68 water resistance rated watch is well protected from the moisture.

Synced as the watch is with your phone, you can control music play options on your phone through the device on your wrist without disturbing your workout midway. You can skip tracks and control volume from Noise Colorfit NAV once you have chosen your ideal music app and playlist on your phone.

Similarly, you can get notification from your social media such as Whatsapp, Instagram and Facebook apart from email, incoming call and missed call alerts. The quick reply options, which you can edit and preset on the NoiseFit X app, is a convenience when you don’t want to keep reaching for your phone for unimportant notifications. For incoming calls, however, while you can reject the call, it does not come with a preset SMS response option.

With all these features and a good looking square dial, the Noise Colorfit NAV scores a whole lot of points, especially at its price point. There is, however, one small glitch that needs fixing from my experience of four days of using the watch. The sleep tracker seems out of whack.

Where I hardly get 6 to 7 hours of sleep, the watch tells me I’ve been asleep for 11.4 hours on one day and 11.9 hours on another day. Looks like my lifestyle, working at a desk all day, or my reading and Netflix watching time have been giving the watch the wrong impression that I’m asleep. To get more accurate sleep tracking, you’re supposed to set your sleep and wake up time on your app. So I did. While the wake up prompt is good, where the vibrations work like an alarm, the prompt to sleep when it’s time to hit the bed actually achieved the opposite. I had drifted off to sleep before my set time and the vibration from the watch prompting me to sleep actually woke me up and left me awake for the next one hour!

In any case, while you may not be getting an accurate sleep reading if your lifestyle is quite sedentary like mine, the embarrassing readings have certainly shamed me into getting more active, just as the steps and activity duration tracker have nudged me to exercise more. Not a bad thing, I’d say.

As for the rest of the features, the Noise ColorFit NAV comes with 12 changeable watchfaces, which you can switch at a touch, varying from bright to mellow ones. Just hold the watchface for five seconds and you can change the look between the 12 featured ones. Noise also promises to have cloud-based watchfaces soon.

The display of the square shaped dial is also a pretty good one with a 1.4-inch and 320x320 resolution screen. The transition is smooth from one screen to another, moving through the menus, featuring various functions, including activity, workouts, sleep, heart rate monitor, weather, alarm, timer, music, settings and so on.

One of these is a breathe function, assisting you in mindful breathing by vibrating when it’s time to exhale. It’s a meditative experience as you don’t have to keep count while inhaling and exhaling and just have to wait for the prompt from your watch. Good for a few minutes' break between work, or first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

All in all, if you’re that person that needs a bit of a nudge to get off your couch, the Noise Colorfit NAV smartwatch at Rs 3,999 is a great fit. And yeah, you can pair it with Google Fit too.