Smartwatches are becoming more common and companies are making it easier for you to own one. Maimo, owned by Xiaomi Ecosystem company 70mai, is not new to smartwatches as it already has three smartwatches in its portfolio. The latest Maimo Watch Flow looks to be the improved version of the Maimo Watch, and retails for S$119. As part of a launch promo, Maimo is offering a limited discount at just S$97 (after $12 voucher), from 20 Oct to 11 Nov. What’s more, they are also gifting one unit of YESOUL M1 Spinning Bike worth $399 to one lucky customer.
Unboxing
In the box, you will receive the following items:
- Maimo Watch Flow smartwatch
- USB magnetic contact charger
- Quick guide
Build quality and design
Maimo Watch Flow comes in three colours: (1) Metallic Black, (2) Sky Blue, and (3) Vanilla Cream. The unit I have is the Vanilla Cream model. Despite the affordable price of S$119, Maimo did not cheap out on the materials used for the watch frame. Maimo Watch Flow has a stainless steel watch frame that is more durable and gives it a more premium look compared to the aluminium alloy found on other budget smartwatches. Having said that, stainless steel being shiny might not fit your taste if you prefer a more understated matte finish. In the near future, Maimo says that there will be 8 more straps for you to use with Maimo Flow. But it’s still nice to see Maimo using durable materials. Maimo Watch Flow still manages to keep a relatively lightweight at 26 grams.
As for build quality, I don’t have any complaints. The only button located on the right side of the Maimo Watch Flow is nice and tactile. The rubber strap is soft and feels really comfortable on skin. The strap offers many locking points so you can really find a fit that is just nice for comfort. I also like how the loop has a little knob to lock into the last hole of the strap to prevent the strap from dislodging easily. Maimo Watch Flow also has a water resistance grade of up to 50 metres.
Screen
Yet another upgrade from the older Maimo Watch is the display. The new Maimo Watch Flow utilises a 1.6″ AMOLED screen (320*260p) which offers deeper blacks and punchier colours all round. The screen also has anti-finger print coating too.
Maimo Watch Flow has an option to turn on always-on display to leverage the AMOLED display. Depending on the watch face, the always-on display will become a minimal look of the face. Some watch faces are designed to have a minimal always-on look, but I found the four watch faces that came pre-installed reverts to a generic minimal look.
Speaking of watch faces, you can download a large variety of watch faces (up to 100+) from the Maimo Fit app which are categorised neatly. You can even customise your own watch face with the images you have in your phone’s gallery, or upload an image of your outfit and let the AI of the app generate a matching watch face.
Alternatively, there is also “Raise to wake”, which is the default setting. I found that it takes a bit longer than I would like for the display to wake when I turn my wrist. But for S$119, I think the speed is ok. Personally, I would use the Maimo Watch Flow with the always-on display. You can find a comparison of the “Raise to wake” with the Apple Watch Series 6 below.
Performance and key features
Like the Amazfit GTR 2e, Maimo Watch Flow opts to use its own operating system to run the watch. Whether this is good or bad depends on how long Maimo decides to keep the watch updated with software updates. This also means the type of apps you get on the Maimo Watch Flow is limited to what Maimo decides to add or support. Right off the bat, this means no apps such as Spotify.
User experience of Maimo Watch Flow is pretty decent. It doesn’t have the smoothest of UI navigation but it is relatively simple to use. Swipe from the left to access a summary page, swipe from the right to access the widgets which can be customised to your liking. Swipe from the top to see your notifications, and swipe from the bottom to access control center for quick settings change.
Maimo Fit app
With features such as heart rate, stress, and sleep monitoring, you’ll need the Maimo Fit app to be able to view these metrics. On the home screen of the app, you will find a quick view of all the health and fitness statistics. You can re-arrange the tabs in any way that you like.
Tapping into the cards will give you greater detail into each metric. Let’s go through some of the key card features below.
Exercise tracking
Maimo Watch Flow has 116 sports modes to choose from. I mainly tested the Maimo Watch Flow exercise tracking with outdoor run so I can test the GPS during the run. When starting an outdoor run, Maimo Watch Flow does seem to take a while to lock on to a GPS position. This is a slight annoyance as I have to stand and wait for the GPS to register. For a S$119, I wouldn’t nitpick so much as it is already great that there is built-in GPS.
During the run, Maimo Watch Flow will display the elapsed duration of the run along with the distance, your heart rate and pace. You also have the options of choosing if you want to be notified whenever you hit a distance milestone or when you have run for a particular duration. Once you are done with your run, you have to press and hold 3 seconds on the stop button to end the workout. The workout will be logged and sync-ed to the Maimo Fit app for more detailed analysis.
Comparing the results of the run with my Apple Watch Series 6, the metrics recorded on the Maimo Watch Flow is quite close to the Apple Watch Series 6. Total distance was slightly off by 2m, but the overall heart rate measurements is quite similar. Do note that you don’t get elevation measurements on the Maimo Watch Flow. The images in white are from the Maimo Watch Flow, while those in black are from Apple Watch Series 6.
Continuous heart rate monitoring
Maimo Watch Flow is able to perform continuous heart rate monitoring, and you can also set alerts to warn you if your heart rate exceeds a particular rate. You can get an insightful graph of your daily heart rate and a summary of key metrics such as average, resting, and min & max heart rate.
Sleep monitoring
Maimo Watch Flow also tracks your sleep and smartly categorises it into the 4 key stages of sleep – (1) Awake, (2) REM, (3) Light sleep, and (4) Deep sleep. The app uses those data to compute a sleep score. There is also a time chart to show you the cycles that you went through in your sleep.
Other features
You also get other health related features such as stress monitoring and menstrual cycle tracking, along with quality of life features such as notifications from phone, music control, and ability to ping your phone or watch.
Battery life
Maimo states that the Watch Flow can last up to 12 days of typical use with GPS and continuous heart rate monitoring, and 20 days for basic usage. And in my time of testing, the battery lasted about 7 days before hitting 20% from regular day use of tracking exercises and monitoring my heart rate and sleep. I have also configured always-on display to be turned on during working hours of my day.
Having such as long battery life is indeed very convenient as you do not have to charge it so often. And if you do, the Maimo Watch Flow charges via a magnetic contact charger on the back of the watch.
Conclusion
At the promo price of S$97, the Maimo Watch Flow is an appealing purchase for anyone looking to add some health monitoring to their daily lifestyle. The continuous heart rate monitoring with up to 12 days of battery life is very convenient for new users. And not to mention having built-in GPS for tracking your runs is something rarely seen on budget smartwatches, so kudos to Maimo Watch Flow for having it.
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