Pebble Cosmos Luxe It has a 1.36-inch AMOLED display, Bluetooth calling capability, sensors to measure steps, heart rate and SpO2 level. It also grabs attention with its on-paper specification. Does this affordable smartwatch live up to the expectations and can its looks help it stand out from others in the segment? Know in this review.
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Pebble Cosmos Luxe Design
The Pebble Cosmos Luxe stands out in this price segment for several reasons. A round screen and polished finish are sure to grab your attention. There are two buttons on the right side of its 1.36-inch display, one that looks and functions like the buttons of a traditional mechanical watch. This adds to its attractive look.
On its left side, there is a grill for the speaker which can be used for audio by connecting with the phone via Bluetooth. Below the dial are optical sensors that do health and fitness tracking. Here the contact points of the magnetic charging pin are also found. This smartwatch also holds up against water and dust and is IP67 rated. Swimming can also be done in less deep water by wearing it.
The rubber strap that comes with it can be removed and replaced with a 22mm watchstrap. The accompanying straps are waterproof and comfortable to wear. Many points have been given on these for adjustment and good fit.
A microphone is also given along with two buttons on the right side. Its primary button or crown button controls the power, opens the app drawer, and takes you back to the home screen. It can also be rotated to scroll through the menus. The small accompanying button takes you straight to the workout menu and can be started quickly for tracking walking workouts.
Pebble Cosmos Luxe weighs 50 grams. It sports a 1.36-inch round AMOLED display with 390×390 pixels resolution with a peak brightness of 600 nits. Apart from Bluetooth 5 for connectivity, there is also step tracking, heart-rate monitoring and SpO2 monitoring sensors. The sales package includes a charging cable that plugs into the USB Type-A port. But the wall adapter is not available. The unit that came to me for review had a slight lack of alignment in the display. However, this did not affect the working of the watch.
Pebble Cosmos Lux Software and App
Budget smartwatches come with a basic software system and rely on Bluetooth connectivity for synchronization and other connectivity features with the smartphone. The Pebble Cosmos Luxe has its own software that covers its core functionalities, including watch faces, fitness and health tracking, and Bluetooth connectivity for calling from a paired smartphone.
Making good use of the AMOLED display, the Pebble Cosmos Luxe features an Always On mode that shows the time on the screen even when the watch is on standby. You can choose between analog and digital for this. You can also turn it off if you want to extend the battery life further, but I like it for a quick time check.
Tapping doesn’t wake the screen, but its lift to wake feature does wake the watch up as soon as it’s picked up, or it can also be woken up by pressing one of its two buttons. You can swipe from top to bottom for quick settings. If you want to check notifications of supported apps, then you can swipe from the bottom to the top. Swiping from left to right takes you to main apps, and swiping from right to left takes you to widgets.
In its built in apps, you get telephone, contacts, workout, workout record, heart rate, sleep, blood pressure, blood oxygen, stress, message, weather, music and many more tools like calculator and stopwatch etc. You cannot install any other app in the smartwatch. Some of the apps that do exist work on their own and some require connecting to the FitCloudPro app via Bluetooth.
With the help of the telephone app, you can use the watch as a wireless handsfree. With the Contacts app, you can quickly place a call by creating a favorite contact, dial the number directly from the dialer, and call record keeps the details of the calls. There’s also a voice assistant app that relies on Bluetooth, but it didn’t work when I tried to use it.
The FitCloudPro app handles the connection between the smartphone and the watch. It can also be used to customize the settings. The apps from which to receive notifications can also be selected. Google Fit can be used for many more things than just linking data.
This app stores fitness data from your watch and lets you quickly activate all the sensors to get a combine report of your heart rate, stress level, blood pressure and blood oxygen. I found it very useful. This app is good and I did not face any connectivity problem during the review.
You can change the watchface by long pressing on the home screen. It comes preloaded with 9 watchfaces. You can use the tenth watchface from the Companion app. The watchfaces preloaded in it are quite nice and match with the look of the watch. The FitCloudPro app offers a large collection of watchfaces that can be loaded onto the smartwatch.
Pebble Cosmos Lux Performance and Battery Life
This smartwatch stands out from such affordable smartwatches due to its design and AMOLED display. Its screen is its most attractive feature, on which you can easily see the time and date and also read the notifications clearly.
Its always on display mode and color level is good. But the deep black element of the AMOLED display is not visible in it. This may be because the user interface is always flashing which does not allow the black color to shine evenly by closing the pixels. Nevertheless, its sharpness and details are quite good.
The watchfaces are well designed. Live widgets are provided for steps, heart rate, weather and battery level. There’s nothing you can do with widgets though. It is also a capable device for fitness tracking, as the company has said that the best sensors have been used in it. However, I did not feel anything like exceptional tracking in it and it performed like other fitness tracking devices in this price segment. I saw the same error margins and flaws as I saw on the Realme Watch 2 Pro and Just Corseca Ray Kanabis.
It has several workout modes that have been optimized for tracking activity. These include some common modes like walking, running, climbing, swimming and cycling etc. Apart from that there are also sports modes like basketball, badminton, football and volleyball. For the review, I measured walking workouts and climbing stairs.
Manually I counted 1000 steps and Cosmos Luxe counted 1042. It got an error margin of 4 percent. In the long run, it started counting 65 steps per 1000 steps more than the Apple Watch Series 5. The distance measure was the same as that of the Apple Watch. But it made a big difference to the Apple Watch in burning calories in the same workout. It showed more calories burned.
Heart rate tracking was fine. But the blood oxygen level readings were quite different from the pulse oximeter. The watch also shows readings for blood pressure, but as I have advised in earlier reviews, the smartwatch’s optical sensors cannot be relied upon for readings.
One of its big features is to use the watch as hands free during the call. It connects to your smartphone like a Bluetooth headset or speaker, and you can play music right on your wrist. It worked well for calls, I held the watch close to my mouth, and it worked fine for short calls. You might not like this approach for long calls.
It has many useful apps that can be used as tools. It has a remote to play music on the smartphone, alarm clock, stopwatch, timer, calculator and a ring feature so that you can find the smartphone by ringing if you lose it. Push notifications for apps work well, sleep tracking works fine as well, with light and deep sleep details as well. Connectivity was also stable.
Its battery life is also good for its price. It lasted for 5 days in normal use with a single charge. In which I did fitness tracking quite often, occasionally used Bluetooth handsfree and there was always on display mode.
our decision
In a price segment that has a plethora of options, this smartwatch differentiates itself through its sleek design, amoled display, and decent pricing. It gives the experience of a good smartwatch in the budget. There is scope for optimization in software and interface and the display could have been put to better use. The additional features that come with it like Bluetooth hands free function and many good watchfaces make it a good choice as a fitness tracker to buy under Rs 5000.
If you want more accurate fitness tracking then here it can disappoint you, in which case you can look for Mi Band 6 or Realme Watch 2 Pro. Its Bluetooth calling function and design does more justice to its price.
