The Haylou Solar smartwatch (it’s
pronounced “hello”, by the way) has reached its crowdfunding goals and will
start shipping on May 18 later this year. By the way, if you thought that the
name “Haylou” was not the best, just wait until you find out that the watch
called “Solar” has no solar cell.
No, you only get a 340mAh battery. To be
fair, that battery will last a fairly impressive 30 days, half that if you have
the 24-hour heart rate tracking enabled. Not bad at all. Naming aside, this is
actually a great smartwatch as you get plenty of hardware for not much money.
The Solar is CNY 150 - US$ 21 or € 20. That’s
smart band money, but you get a large 1.28” circular LCD with 240 x 240px
resolution. The watch body measures 45.3mm across and comes with 22mm silicone
straps. The body itself is metal.
It’s also IP68-rated, so you can take it
in the shower and even swim in the pool with it. As mentioned, it has heart
rate tracking and multiple exercise modes (no swim tracking, but still). The
watch can also track the quality of your sleep and help you with some breathing
exercises.
The Haylou Solar (LS5) connects to your
Android or iOS smartphone over Bluetooth 5.0 and does the usual smartwatch-y
things – notifications, music controls, weather info and son on. Note that this
runs proprietary software rather than Google Wear OS or similar. You’ll be
using the Haylou Fit app to sync the watch with your phone.
Haylou was one of the first companies to
join the Xiaomi ecosystem, by the way, though it mostly focused on audio
accessories until releasing its first smartwatch last year (the Solar is its
second). And if you're thinking that this pricing is too good to last, it
probably is.
