I bought my watch. I didn't get it for free and the only motive for my review is to provide a more balanced review of this watch. I have a Samsung Galaxy Watch as well and my interface for the mobile app is with a Note 9. If I had the option of buying my Access watch again, I wouldn't in all honesty. I am fairly tech savvy and I find the Gear OS interface and operating system clunky and harder to use than the Tizen interface & operating system on the Samsung.
I was so excited to receive this watch, I obsessively tracked my package and rushed home knowing it was waiting. This is Thursday evening. The joy and excitement were short lived though. Upon opening the package I immediately noticed the crystal bezel, while pretty, was not nearly as colorful or intense as the packaging and marketing implied. This is not a huge issue, but I wanted to mention it in case someone is choosing to purchase this watch based on the looks alone. I took the watch and began set up. Oh the nightmare this became. Powered the watch on and started linking it to the Gear OS app on my phone. Now I normally use quite a bit of Google based technology. Gmail, Maps, Calendar, Drive, etc. and I happen to have 2 gmail accounts and with the initial set up checked both of them to feed the watch. This was a mistake. The watch is only able to recognize one profile so while trying to load both and would alternate between loading until I selected a single profile. The battery while running the set up functions drains faster than you can set it up. I opened the watch and started working with 62% battery and at this stage the battery was at 29%. I'd been working with the watch for 15 minutes. I'd managed to pair my phone and load a watch face. Not any customization yet. I decided to step away and let the watch charge a bit at this point. Lost a star for that. Took a break for about an hour and came back to an almost fully charged battery, I have to say this watch charges super fast and quick. This is one area where the Access beat the Galaxy watch, it definitely charges faster.
I wanted to test out some features so I decided to remove a couple of bracelet links to allow me to wear the watch. I used a kit I have and was able to remove them without much issue. I did have issues when I took the band off the watch though, it took two people to attach the band again. It has a double quick release and neither myself or my husband could get it back one solo. One pinched the release while the other moved the band into place. Definitely not easy. I am not athletically inclined, but I do try to walk enough to off set my sedentary job. I noticed pretty quickly that the pedometer was off, by about 1/3. I would take 100 steps according to my phone, but the watch only read 63. From what I've read in reviews this is fairly common and is not limited to Wear OS. My Galaxy smart watch also has this issue, to a lesser degree but not by much. No stars lost for that.
I managed to get the watch ready enough to wear to work the next day, Friday. Fully charged the watch overnight and placed it on at 6:30 am, and started my day. I am able to get texts messages on my watch and emails. However responding to them is a tad tricky. The keyboard is so tiny that my slim hands can't respond without major typos. Since the main reason I have a smartwatch is to communicate with my kids while not needing my phone out and in hand, this is a problem. I am able to swipe the keyboard, which aides in better accuracy it's still not fabulous. I used my watch sparingly as I noticed the battery drained fast. Almost as fast as I could charge it, because by 4 pm, not even 10 hours later the watch battery was drained and the watch died. Definitely lost a star here. When I got home from work I placed the watch on the charger and left it till the next day. I rarely give up on the first go, so I strapped the watch back on.
The battery drained much slower that day. Used it the same but the drain was much more manageable and I didn't need to put it back on the charger until bed. I have never been able to sleep with a smart watch on, they are drained by bedtime and to use it the next day it has to charge. No biggie, that I expected. This issues are with the watch hardware alone.
The Wear OS app on the phone is a joke. The only thing I can do with my phone and my watch is to Bluetooth pair it, change a watch face or delete and unpair the two. Seriously. With my Samsung I can do as many customizations on my phone for my watch as I can do on the watch itself, they work like an extension of each other. If you want to change or customize anything on the Wear OS, you have to do it on the watch. Change settings or download an app? On the watch only. It's irritating to me, definitely a star lost there.
However by today, Monday, I had issues with touch screen not registering my touch input. And being that I couldn't access my settings or features with my phone the only thing I was able to do was unpair and erase the phone and start again. It's been a nightmare. I have now paired and unpair the watch 3 times since starting this review, the battery was at 85%, it's now at 21% less than an hour later. At this point, nothing is registering on my phone, the battery life isn't visible and the watch itself isn't charging or registering finger gestures. It's also incredibly hot to the touch. Definitely not worth the money or time it's taken to be this frustrated by a piece of equipment. My google assistant is stuck on the watch currently. I am letting the battery drain completely in hopes it will respond better, I am pretty sure this is getting returned.
EDIT: I called Amazon that afternoon and they sent out a replacement watch. Received the new watch and was pleasantly surprised, up until this morning when the touch screen stopped responding. Second watch, same issue. I am hoping Amazon will stand behind the return I am sending in. This watch is pretty but that's all it is. Definitely will not be purchasing another smart watch from Michael Kors or Fossil as they are supposedly the manufacturer.
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