I wouldn't describe myself as someone who loves working out. For me, working out is something I should do rather than something I want to do. Except yoga — I love yoga with all my heart.
I also adore looking at data, stats and graphs (ironic, as I passed high school math by the skin of my teeth), so I need to have one of the best fitness trackers strapped to my wrist at all times. I've been using the Amazfit Band 7 since August 2024 and love it, so when Amazfit announced the Helio Strap, I knew I had to test it out.
Even so, when I found out that the Helio Strap was a screen-free Whoop dupe, I was a little skeptical. Surely having no screen defeats the whole purpose of a smartwatch? Ah, but the Helio Strap isn't a smartwatch — it's purely a fitness device. Here's why I'm now a Helio Strap convert.
Second-to-none sleep tracking
When I go to bed, I'm excited to see my sleep score in the morning. Yes, that's precisely how lame I am.
As much as I love the Amazfit Band 7, the Helio Strap is much better at sleep tracking. The Band 7 is just $49, compared to the Helio Strap's $99 MSRP, so you'd hope the latter would be better, but it's a welcome improvement nevertheless.
The Helio Strap manages to catch all the times I wake up during the night, even when it's for a minute or so. Even if I don't get up. For example, a couple of nights ago, I got rudely awoken at 4.30 am by some guys arguing outside. Even though I didn't get up and I fell back to sleep in seconds, the Helio Strap caught this short wakeup.
That's an example of my sleep graph, taken from a more relaxed night of sleep.
As you can see, each sleep stage is tracked accurately. One of my major cons with the Band 7 was that it told me I had awful REM sleep every single night. Even when I felt like I'd had a great night of sleep, or I'd done my sleep routine, or I'd sprayed lavender on my pillow. The Helio Strap feels more accurate, as it doesn't tell me to "pay attention" to my REM sleep.
I also love how accurate the sleep heart rate tracking is. I don't know if I should be admitting this here, but the Helio Strap has really made me realize how much alcohol impacts your sleep. I don't drink that much, but when I've had a glass of wine or a beer, the Helio Strap can really tell. After drinking, my heart rate takes longer to drop to below 60BPM, or it never does.
As a result, I'm more wary of having a random glass of wine after about seven o'clock, as I know how much it'll impact my heart rate.
Because the Helio Strap doesn't need to expend energy keeping a screen lit, it can dedicate more computing power to accurate sleep and exertion tracking. I'm much more satisfied with the Helio Strap's sleep tracking than my previous smartwatch.
I'm so much more in the moment
When I was using the Amazfit Band 7, I found myself checking the watch during workouts. For example, at my yoga classes, I was checking the time every ten minutes or so. During runs, I was constantly checking how many miles I'd run to calculate how much longer I had to work out for.
This is obviously not conducive to a positive workout environment — especially not for yoga. Yoga is all about leaving worries and responsibilities behind and spending time for yourself. It's not for checking the time and stressing about how you only have fifteen minutes to get to the office before 9 am.
As a result, I find myself so much more involved in my activity with the Amazfit Helio Strap. As there's no screen, I'm pretty much forced to think about nothing but the actual workout. During yoga, I'm pushing myself further, and while running, I'm focusing on controlling my breathing and improving my gait.
Now that I've used a screen-free fitness tracker, I don't see myself going back to any other model. Unfortunately, screen-free fitness trackers are few and far between now: it's the Amazfit Helio Strap or a Whoop.
Whoop is, disappointingly, very expensive and relies on a subscription model rather than a one-time purchase. I know I will never, ever buy a Whoop, as I don't have enough money for it, and even if I did, I don't care enough to spend almost $400 a year (every year) on a fitness tracker.
Especially not when the Amazfit Helio Strap is right here, and it does basically all the same stuff for under $100. This screenshot from the Zepp app shows just how many fitness features this $99 tracker has.
As you can see, there's a brand-new feature called BioCharge, which tracks your energy, exertion, and readiness levels throughout the day. This obviously goes up and down depending on your activity level. So if you go on a 10-mile run, your BioCharge will drop dramatically and tell you to rest, but if you spend the day relaxing on the sofa, it'll tell you to do some activity.
These features are incredibly helpful, especially for the price. I can't believe the Helio Strap has so many features at this price point — the main thing the Whoop 5.0 does that the Helio Strap doesn't is an ECG.
A few quirks, though
Even though I love my Helio Strap, I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's perfect, because that would be a lie. It's not perfect. But for $99, it's so darn close that it scares me.
The Helio Strap struggles with automatic workout detection, which is one of the things we praised in our Whoop 5.0 review. Even so, I think this is a worthy sacrifice to save $300 (per year), as I just manually started workouts from the Zepp app.
Another issue is that the Helio Strap is quite bulky: as you can see from the image above, it's as long as my wrist is wide, and looks a bit weird on me. The Whoop wearables look much better, but again, this is a price I'm willing to pay to be subscription-free.
What do you think? Would you go for the budget Amazfit or stick to the premium brand Whoop? Let me know in the comments.
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