70mai Saphir

The 70mai Saphir is a sports focused smartwatch released in November 2020. The manufacturer of this watch, 70mai, is a spin-off company from Xiaomi. 70mai is well known for their dash cams but are newcomers to the smartwatch space. That being said, 70mai is the manufacturer behind the Xiaomi Mi Watch and Xiaomi Mi Lite. All 3 watches have nearly identical user interfaces and are quite similar to one another.

Based on the internal photos, the 70mai Saphir appears to using a Ambiq Micro AMA3B (Apollo3 Blue) processor. This processor can be found in numerous mid-tier smartwatches. While the watch responsiveness is OK, it is not the fastest we have seen and it does sometime lag.

This watch is using a proprietary operating system for 70mai smartwatches. While there are some available apps, the number is minimal and you do not have access to a 3rd party app store such as the Google Play Store. This is a significant disadvantage and is common drawback for any smartwatch using a proprietary operating system.

Design

The 70mai Saphir has a rectangular watch face design and like many rectangular watches resembles an Apple Watch. The watch has a aluminum case and is available in black, silver or gold. The overall build quality is quite good, especially at this price range.

This smartwatch is not too big at 50.1 x 37.3 x 9.8 mm and weighs 32g. The watch is slim with a thickness of  9.8 mm. It is comfortable and can be worn while sleeping.

The Saphir comes with a 22mm fluoroelastomer interchangeable strap. Fluoroelastomer is a synthetic rubber strap that is supposed to be more resistant to heat, moisture and oil than silicone. Like the watch itself, the strap is good quality and feels comfortable to wear.

You can interact with the watch using the touchscreen and 2 physical buttons. The touchscreen works very well but it does occasionally lag. The user interface is a bit simple looking but it is easy to navigate and fonts are easy to read.

The 70mai Saphir has a 5 ATM water resistance rating which allows for swimming and showers. Salt water or chlorine could be problematic so make sure to rinse, wipe and dry the watch after swimming.

Screen

The screen of the Saphir is one of the highlights of this smartwatch. The large 1.78″ AMOLED Touchscreen, with 368 x 448 pixels and 326 PPI pixel looks amazing. Indoors the display is excellent while outdoors, while not perfect, is quite readable.

The Saphir uses Sapphire Glass to protect the screen. This is a premium glass that only a few smartwatches currently utilize. That being said, the bezel-less design offers less protection against screen scratches and scrapes when compared to watches where the bezel protrudes past the glass surface. While the bezel-less design is sleeker, it may not be as durable as some other sport focused smartwatches.

The watch has an always on screen option but this has a some impact on battery life. The watch allows for custom watchfaces and there are quite a few watchface options to choose from.

Battery

70mai claims that typical usage battery life is 10 days, watch mode battery life is 20 days and GPS mode battery life is 0.9 days. Real world battery life is approximately 6-7 days, while not best in class, is reasonable.

Connectivity Features

From a connectivity perspective, the 70mai Saphir has limited functionality when compared to full featured smartwatches. The watch can only receive notifications and there is no ability to respond to notifications from the watch.

The Saphir has a microphone that allows for the Alexa voice assistant. Note that Amazon is not available in all regions, so you may need to set the region to the United States for this to work.

There are a number of functions missing from the Saphir that are typically found on full featured smartwatches. The Saphir:

• Does not have a microphone
• Does not have the ability to answer or place calls via Bluetooth
• Does not have internal storage for music and cannot be used to play music via bluetooth
• Does not have a blood oxygen sensor
• Does not have NFC for payments

In addition, the Saphir does not have a camera or cellular connectivity. On the positive side, it does come with built-in GPS. GPS connectivity is not the fastest but accuracy is pretty good.

Health and Fitness Features

The Saphir comes with 6 sensors: Accelerometer, Ambient Light, Barometer, Compass, Gyroscope, Heart Rate Monitor (HRM). These cover quite a bit of fitness functions but limited health areas. These sensors allow you to track the following 9 metrics: Calories, Distance, Fitness Level, Heart Rate, Sleep, Steps, Stress, Swimming, VO2 Max.

Also included are 17 different sports modes. Heart rate accuracy at rest, casual activities or steady state runs is relatively accurate. For casual tracking, this may be adequate but could be a concern if you are looking for high tracking accuracy for your sports or fitness goals. However with interval training, short bursts of activity or high intensity training, accuracy is poor.

Tattoos, hair, sweat and even skin color are factors that impact accuracy as well. This is a common problem with nearly all wrist based optical heart rate monitoring. While there are a few exceptions that do a pretty good job on heart rate monitoring, such as the Apple Watch 6, serious trainers should look into a chest strap for best heart rate accuracy.

70mai Health App

The 70mai Saphir uses the 70mai Health app, a newer app which currently has limited features. It is very similar to the Xiaomi Wear app and both require improvements to become well rounded health and fitness apps. You can see how the 70mai Health app ranks on our Smartwatch Apps Page.

Known Issues

Buttons Stop Working

There have been numerous complaints that the physical buttons on the watch stop working. While this does not appear to be widespread, there are no known solutions to this problem.

Internal Photos

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Verdict

The 70mai Saphir is an average fitness focused smartwatch with great screen, premium build quality and decent battery life. Drawbacks include no notification reply ability, no 3rd party apps, no SpO2 monitoring and no NFC. Another negative is that the 70mai Health app is immature.

Specifications

Published: February 22, 2021