Letscom Smart Watch Review

The Letscom Smart Watch is a low-priced GPS watch with basic functionality and features, including activity tracking, pedometer, heart rate monitor, and music control. While we think this a good buy for those in the market for simplicity, buyers are warned. The GPS on the watch itself is far from accurate when it comes to treed and covered trails. The app is simple and functional but lacks many features and doesn't cross over to different ecosystems like Strava or Garmin Connect.

Performance Comparison

Features

Simple and easy to use, this watch offers all the right features you'd want for basic activity tracking, GPS-based activities, alarms and timers, and heart rate monitoring. While fine for everyday use, this wasn't a favorite of ours for tracking runs or other sports, even though you can.

The Letscom uses the VeryFitPro app, which is simple to use but has limitations. You can only see the stats for the activities that you do, that day. We tried several times, but could not figure out how to access these stats for days past. There is a journal feature, but that doesn't show a map or other information that we would have liked to see.

The app also has a map. If you are engaging in an activity, the watch itself will give you a breadcrumb trail or your route, but no mapping information. If you are tracking through the app, you can see a detailed map. That said, the information is stored for a single day, then you can't see it anymore.

This watch also, unfortunately, doesn't integrate with other software ecosystems like Strava or Garmin. While we used it for daily tracking and sports, it's far from a favorite because of its lack of accuracy (that we'll discuss later), limited data tracking, and its poor feature platform that doesn't integrate well with other apps.

Battery Life

Battery life is average, with GPS juice being pretty short. With regular activities and use, the Letscom will last you about one week. Without any smartwatch functionality, it boasts 30-days of life, but this is a setting we wouldn't use. The manufacturer claims 8 hours of GPS battery life.

During our GPS battery test, we wore this watch for a 1.5-hour bike ride with regular settings and GPS running on the watch itself. It went from 80% to 40% in just two hours, showing that GPS battery time is quite poor. The battery life is extended if you track your activities through your phone instead, which, we think, negates the purpose of having a GPS watch in the first place. During our sitting GPS watch test, it lasted for four hours before turning off and going into battery power save mode. As a result, the manufacture claims are far less than what we experienced in our testing period. We tested with only the watch itself, not tracking through the app.

Charging time takes about 90 minutes, and it uses a specific Letscom cord with a magnetic interface. Unfortunately, you can't charge and continue to exercise. The watch will lock on the battery charging screen and won't track anymore once plugged in.

Ease of Use

We do appreciate how easy this device is to use. Out of the box, set-up is simple. We just downloaded the app and followed the steps after the watch and app automatically paired. It uses only a touch screen and a small button on the right, so accidentally pausing a workout rarely occurs. Since this watch only has a touch screen, we found ourselves having to remove our gloves to use it during the winter or while biking, which unfortunately took some points off its score.

The touch screen is smooth and reactive, but there is a small half-second or so lag time when scrolling from screen to screen. When you scroll down, you see all fitness tracking data for the week and the day, including steps, calories burned, and distance traveled. The last screen shows the summary for the day. Swiping to the right allows you to see all the different features of the watch. “Sport” will take you to all activities. If your activity isn't there, you can go to the app and add it in.

While using the Letscom, we were a little annoyed that the screen kept turning off after 5 seconds, forcing us to hit the side button, which sometimes stopped our activity and reverted to the main screen. We spent over half an hour searching the web and watch for a setting to change these features and sadly couldn't. We also couldn't ever get the music control feature to work properly. This watch is simple, but some components are more difficult to figure out than others. This seemed to be the overall pattern: limited settings and modularization of experience - something many other watches excel at.

The screen looks to be about the same size as the Apple Watch series, but it's actually a bit smaller. The screen is only 24mm across, and the text isn't very bright, especially in really bright sun. It's very difficult to see while running.

Accuracy

The accuracy of the GPS and heart rate monitor is below average. It's not surprising given the low cost, but we weren't impressed. We tested the GPS while walking, biking, and trail running in areas of service and without. We tested the heart rate monitor by measuring our heart rate separately and then comparing it to what we saw on the watch. It's important to note that the company does recommend using the app to measure GPS as the antenna on your smartphone is much better than the one in this watch.

During our bike ride, we rode into a canyon and across wide-open areas. We also road into town, descending 2200 feet. The measured distance is 10.8 miles. The watch reported back 10.3 miles, with no descent data. This loss of 0.5 miles is approximately the length of the no-service and tight canyon zone. On another day, we took it trail running. It turned on, and after running 6 miles, it reported only 3 miles. This particular run was in the forest with treed areas. Our verdict? GPS accuracy is terrible when there is any kind of physical barrier or treed area. In those cases, just run the activity through the app on your phone instead.

For heart rate data, sometimes it was right on, and other times, it was completely off. We saw the range of heart rate deviation from 100% accurate to being off by 20 bpm. As a result, the heart rate information is not one that we would trust.

Design

Sleek and simple, we like the design. It's very lightweight (1.2 oz) and feels quite comfortable for all-day wear. The strap is interchangeable but is made from a harder plastic than you'd see with higher-end silicon straps. Our main tester's wrist is fairly small, and she had no problem cinching it down to try and get accurate heart rate data.

The interface on this watch is crisp, with a little lag time between touch screens. The font is also analog-looking and a little dated, but it works. It's far from the sexy stylings of the Apple Watch, though it's clear the Letscom tried to imitate it. We appreciate its lighter weight and the design as they make it easy to wear all day.

The measured dimensions that we observed are 35 x 42mm for the body, 9mm in thickness, and 1.2 oz. The screen size is a lot smaller than the body, with a width of just 24mm. This is a lot less than the manufacturer claim of 33m. Expect a smaller face than you'd expect as the screen has a border that takes up room and isn't functional.

Value

Excellent value — it's hard to find any watch for such a low price. While the accuracy of the GPS is questionable, this watch does offer some great features for an incredibly low price. It's not designed to be the most accurate or high performing, but if you're looking for a basic fitness tracker with some GPS functionality and you exercise outdoors where the GPS signal is clear, this one will work for you.

Conclusion

If you seek a simple fitness tracker with the ability to track activities using GPS, the Letscom Smart Watch offers incredible value. While it isn't very accurate, it can be paired with your phone to track activities through its app, which works well. If you want a super low-priced GPS watch with decent functionality and very few bells and whistles, consider this one.