Haylou R8 Review: A Mixed Bag of Impressions
A budget smartwatch with an excellent build quality and connectivity — held back only by a relatively below-average software experience.
Any smudging/shadows/reflections you see on the display are purely in the camera and only visible due to bad photography on my part or the lower refresh rate. The display is excellent on this watch and without any issues.
📋Summary
The Haylou R8, with its excellent build quality, connectivity, and bright display paired with the wide range of watch faces offers great usability as a watch — but is held back by a less-than-average software experience and a somewhat inaccurate health tracking.
Pros
✅Decent build quality
✅Excellent visibility even in direct sunlight
✅Can double as a bluetooth speaker, albiet a weak one
✅Can be used to make/attend calls
✅Wireless charging
✅100+ watch faces (and the option of creating custom ones)
✅Connectivity — No disconnections
Neutral
🟦Average battery life
🟦Sleep tracking is just fine
Cons
🔻Haylou Watch smartphone app feels like a half-baked solution
🔻Software experience feels like a step down fom the previous watches
🔻May feel bulky
🔻Metrics are not really accurate.
Edit #1 — December 9, 2023
I reached out to Haylou for confirmation about the device. They acknowledged the inaccuracy in the health tracking and have confirmed that they are working on an update which will integrate the R8 with the Haylou Fun app and enhance its functionalities significantly. Once the device updates, I’ll review the changes and update the review.
The full image gallery of the watch can be found hosted on the embedded Image BB gallery below.
Disclaimer: Haylou sent this device to me for free, but my review remains unbiased.
🎉Introduction
Features
- 1.43" AMOLED Display (466x466 pixels 60Hz)
- Military-Grade Toughness
- Bluetooth 5.3
- 100+ Sports Modes
- 150+ Watch Faces
- 24/7 Health Management
- 20 Days of Battery Life
- Wireless Charging
- Voice Assistant
- Bluetooth Call
- Health Tracking: Heart rate, SpO2, Blood Pressure, Sleep Tracking, Stress Monitor
Colors
The watch is offered in Black, and Silver colors. My unit is in Silver.
Pricing & Availability
The device is available primarily on AliExpress but I have seen listings on other platforms as well.
AliExpress: USD 40
📦Unboxing
Shipment
Haylou sent the package via AliExpress and it arrived in the country relatively quickly (~2 weeks) but it got held up at customs and they ended up charging me half the cost of the device. Nevertheless, the box itself was safe in a layer of bubblewrap.
What’s in the box?
At this price point, there are absolutely no extras in the box —
- Watch with strap already attached.
- Wireless charger (magnetically locks into place).
- Manual.
🏭Design & Controls
As soon as you open the box, you’re greeted with the watch sitting in the middle with a sticker on it to represent a dial. Once you take that out, you find the charger underneath it with the manual.
The design does initially look striking, especially in the silver color. The dial has a metal frame textured as brushed aluminum that’s raised higher than the chassis. The body is also made from a metal but the finish is sort of like matte. The underside of the watch has a glossy finish with the sensors present. The silicon strap provided is a 24mm quick-release one and is likely one of the most comfortable ones that I’ve used as it didn’t irritate my skin or cause any issues. It also matches well with its light gray color against the watch’s silver frame.
Overall, the watch is built like a tank and feels like it can take a beating.
For the controls, you get 3 buttons —
- Top Left (Button) — Only use for this is Back and Lock Screen.
- Bottom Right (Button) — Shortcut for Sports/Activity
- Top Right (Crown + Button) — Acts as Back + Menu / Use for navigation
All three controls have excellent tactile feedback and they didn’t get mushy or rattle around during my use. The left button does feel like an unnecessary addition as the same thing could’ve been implemented in the crown, however, it does give the watch a certain aesthetic.
One thing to note is that while the Haylou R8 is not uncomfortable to wear, it is heavy compared to other ones.
📱App & Watch Software
Since I have used Haylou smartwatches previously, I scanned the QR code assuming it would lead me to install the Haylou Fun app. However, that was not the case. Apparently, for the R8 and the S8, they have released a new application — Haylou Watch.
When you first launch Haylou Watch, you expect it to offer a better experience than Haylou Fun which had a number of complaints. However, that’s not the case. While the pairing process is quick and the connection remains stable, the overall user experience is not so great as the entire thing feels like another white-label rebrand app. Here’s a summary of what’s good and what’s bad with the app:
The Good
- Status page shows all the data on a single dashboard.
- Over 100 watchfaces offered.
- Custom watches allow you to design your own with backgrounds, 6 different analog faces, 4 different scales and 1 digital face with 7 different colors. You can also add 4 metrics in static positions.
- Camera Control
- Ability to add a phonebook — quick dial options
The Bad
- Dark theme is permanent
- No way to customize the Status page apart from reordering the cards
- No option to configure the health tracking
- No option to set or define the Always-on-Display
- No option to hide/configure the cards on the watch
- No connection to any third-party platform like Strava or Google Fit (Haylou Fun does have Google Fit integration)
Moving on to the watch’s software, it’s clear that Haylou is changing their approach to their smartwatch lineup, because the software being used is completely different from their previous ones — Specifically the RS4 series. While the RS4+ used its 60Hz display to offer smooth animations with no choppy frames, the R8 does not provide a similar experience. Scrolling through the settings or menus is a drag as you see frames being jumped.
From the watch face, you can swipe down to see the quick settings, with the date and weather. The available options are (not configurable): Find Phone, Always On (not the AOD, but this option simply keeps the watch face on for the time you set,) Alarm, Brightness, QR code for Mobile app, Settings, and Do-Not-Disturb. Swiping up from the watch face, shows all the notifications in a very congested manner. Each app gets its own icon which is nice and you also have a permanent Clear App button.
Swiping either left or right shows you the cards — you have 9 in total and you can hide them or rearrange them from the watch only. The cards only show basic info and they don’t act as shortcuts sadly. You do get the option of changing the menu layout with 5 options, which you can see below ~
For the apps, the watch only carries the standard ones — apart from health tracking, you can find Alarm Clock, Timer, Stopwatch, World Clock if you want to track other timezones,) Stock Market, Calculator and Calendar. You then also have the dialer to make phone calls and a phone book where your stored contacts show up. There’s one more thing — AI Voice. This allows you to trigger the Google Assistant on your Android device (or your default Virtual Assistant) and since the watch does have a microphone, you can send commands through it. The hard part of this is you have to open the menu and scroll through it — which is a pain — to find the AI Voice option as there’s no option to assign it to one of the buttons or even add a card for it, which is a real shame.
🏃♂️Activity & Health Tracking
Now, Haylou has built a lot of options for tracking in the R8 — you have the regular heart rate, SpO2, Stress and Sleep, and you also get blood pressure montioring. There’s no way to adjust or disable any of these features. Heart rate, stress and sleep tracking is automatic, but SpO2 and blood pressure have to be manually triggered. Unlike the Galaxy Watches, you don’t need to calibrate the R8 — which eventually gives you values which can be anywhere between 10–50% off. And that stands for all the metrics in the watch except for Sleep tracking and SpO2.
Here’s a short comparison between the Haylou R8 and the Xiaomi S1 Active for the same freestyle activity.
Here’s another comparison between the same watches for a walk.
This difference appears to be consistent across the board for multiple activities. The saddest part is even if you’re sitting and you move your arm around a bit, the Haylou R8 counts it as a step. Another important thing to note is that this watch doesn’t have built-in GPS and relies on your phone — so unfortunately, on all workouts, you can’t rely solely on the watch.
Sleep tracking generally works fine, but is unable to track day-time naps or even continue tracking if you sleep after 6 AM.
⌚Connectivity, Calls, Display, & Battery
While the R8 does have some issues, it had the quickest pairing with the app that I have seen — it was almost instantaneous. To add to that, it never lost connection — I never missed any notifications and the watch lit up everytime my phone received a notification. Calls made from or received on the watch have a decent quality. There’s obviously little to no noise cancellation, but it’s still doable. A cherry on top is the fact that you can use your watch as a bluetooth speaker — not that it gets very loud — but the sound doesn’t tear at any stage. Even the volume maxed out, the watch admirably handles it very well.
The display on the watch gets excessively bright. Throughout the day, I had to keep the brightness at the lowest level and at night, even that was bothersome. The upside to this is that it’s visibility in sunlight is excellent.
On a full charge, the watch barely lasts 3 full days before requiring a recharge. Going from 0 to 100% roughly takes 2 hours. This, I believe can be massively improved if Haylou allows us to control the activity tracking.
🫱Verdict
The Haylou R8, with its excellent build quality, connectivity, and bright display paired with the wide range of watch faces offers great usability as a watch — but is held back by a less-than-average software experience and a somewhat inaccurate health tracking. At the full price of 40 USD, it’s hard to recommend it, but if you’re not looking to track a whole lot of activities, it’s actually a decent smartwatch — especially if you can get it on sale.
Pros
✅Decent build quality
✅Excellent visibility on display even in sunlight
✅Can double as a bluetooth speaker, albiet a weak one
✅Can be used to make/attend calls
✅Wireless charging
✅100+ watch faces (and the option of creating custom ones)
✅Excellent silicon watch strap
✅AMOLED Always-On-Display works great
✅Connectivity — No disconnections
Neutral
🟦Average battery life
🟦Sleep tracking is decently accurate
Cons
🔻Haylou Watch smartphone app feels like a half-baked solution
🔻Software experience feels like a step down fom the previous watches
🔻May feel bulky
🔻Metrics are not really accurate
Alternatives
Here’s a short list of alternatives which you can purchase at a similar price range which may offer more value.
- Haylou RS4+
- Amazfit Bip 3
- Xiaomi Band 8
- Poco Watch
- Huawei Band 8
- Xiaomi Watch 3 Active
