CES 2021 Highlight: Smartwatch Range From Amazfit Joined By Newcomers

The smartwatch industry, like electric cars, has pressured many legacy companies to make (in many cases reluctantly and/or halfheartedly) attempts of their own. However, in both cases, it’s still the rookies who are making the bigger splashes and forming the future landscape.

One of the CES 2021 highlights came from Amazfit’s introduction of the GTR 2e and GTS 2e, which joins its already diverse smartwatch range, further expanding the portfolio of this smartwatch company that knows a thing or two about making disruptive wearables.

More than a fitness tracker, less than a full WearOS smartwatch

Ever since its humble, but surprisingly popular beginning with the Amazfit Bip, which took the world by storm with its low price and 45-day battery life while retaining an LCD screen, the China-based smartwatch company became a major force in its own niche. It’s located in this zone that is smarter than basic fitness trackers yet has a much longer battery life than a full WearOS or Apple Watches.

Their foothold on the niche became even firmer with the release of the Amazfit GTR and GTS, which had premium smartwatch features like the AMOLED colored screens and heart rate monitoring but still amazingly retained its 30 day+ battery life.

Last year, however, saw the second generation of GTR and GTS models nudge towards the smartwatch segment with fuller features - but at reduced battery life, even though they are still running Amazfit’s own custom software.

Back to essentials with the GTR and GTS 2e

That is why the introduction of GTR and GTS 2e was a significant move, just like adding the missing stone to make a five-piece line in a Gomoku game, the 2e additions filled up the gap left by the second-gen watches to retain Amazfit’s dominance in the niche.

The "e" in the 2e does not stand for "economic," as one might expect, but rather "essential." The 2e variants see the elimination of many "non-essential" functions from the GTR and GTS 2 such as Wi-fi, speakerphone, and the 3GB internal storage for music. The result is a cheaper price ($139 vs $179) and a longer maximum battery life - back to its iconic 45 days.

The 2e watches are for the people who fell in love with Amazfit because of its simplicity, affordable price, and a battery life that makes recharging a non-issue.

Upcoming LTE version

Amazfit doesn’t plan to stop there in its bid to diversify this winning formula. It has also announced that an LTE version of the GTR 2 will be released later in 2021, which will extend its reach into the full-fledged smartwatch niche further.

Final Verdict

Riding waves that Amazfit has created with the GTR and GTS, the wearable maker is broadening its accommodation across a spectrum of needs that different users have. One thing that we can say for certain is that Amazfit is accelerating the process of ditching traditional watches while ushering in a new era with affordable smartwatches that need to be recharged less while being able to do more. It is setting trends not unlike what Tesla is doing to the automotive industry.

This impact the Amazfit is making on how consumers think about watches is why we’re awarding its range of smartwatches with our Best of CES 2021 award. We look forward to seeing how Amazfit will continue to transform the wearable industry in the near future.