Amazfit GTR 3 series new products released: Huami, which was scared by the giants, scared me

Author | Yang Shanwu

Editor | Charlie Fang

Huami was "scared" by the giants.

——When asked "how to face the competition from giants such as Apple and Huawei", Huang Wang, founder, chairman and CEO of Huami Technology, quoted this evaluation of Huami by investors.

Perhaps this is the question that has been asked for 8 years, ever since Huami started making smart wearables, pushing the "watch factory" Huami to develop its own chips, sensors, algorithms, and systems.

At the 2021 Global Annual New Product Launch Conference on October 12, Huami restructured the brand of Amazfit, releasing a new brand image, slogan and Chinese name "跃我", as well as new products such as Amazfit 跃我 GTR 3 Pro, GTR 3, GTS 3, and TWS noise-cancelling headphones Amazfit 跃我 PowerBuds Pro Chinese version.

There were three firsts at the conference: Amazfit GTR 3 Pro was the first domestic launch of the blood pressure monitoring function on the watch side, and the GTR 3/GTS 3 series was the first launch of Huami's self-developed BioTracker 3.0 PPG biosensor and self-developed operating system Zepp OS. The emergence of the blood pressure monitoring function made Huami, the "watch factory", a dark horse again, and the launch of the first domestic native smart watch system marked the official closure of Huami's technology closed loop.

On the occasion of the brand's 6th anniversary, in addition to the Chinese name "跃我", Amazfit, like all brands hoping to innovate, created a more youthful and colorful logo, a geek-flavored smiley face image incorporating algorithm symbols, and a new slogan "UP YOUR GAME, born upward".

Historically, there have been very few digital brands that have only English brand names and have maintained an upward trend in China. Now, there is one less such example.

The unsolved mystery about the name of Amazfit has changed from "when did it have a Chinese name" to "why does it have a Chinese name only now".

Regarding the choice of timing, Huang Wang said that after the epidemic, everyone hopes to live with a more positive mental outlook, and the Chinese market is also the most dynamic market; in addition, this year is also a year for Huami to showcase its technology and R&D investment, so it chose to renew the brand at this point, just as the connotation of "跃我" is to be born upward and surpass oneself.

This press conference confirmed Huami’s nickname of “Master of Involution” in the smart health circle.

The core upgrade of Amazfit GTR 3 is more comprehensive health monitoring and up to 21 days of battery life. Its appearance design has become more rounded, and a digital rotating crown that is almost standard on high-end smart watches has been added.

The function side is a linear motor that improves vibration by 60% and can provide 16 different vibration mode feedbacks. Even Apple, the "Vibration Master", calls it an expert. The new Zepp OS comes with 100 watch faces and 15 multi-modular dynamic watch faces, as well as corresponding AOD styles.

The Amazfit GTR 3 and GTS 3 are all equipped with the health sensors and algorithms that Huami is proud of. The third-generation BioTracker biological tracking optical sensor has an exaggerated 6PD configuration. The previous generation BioTracker 2 was called by Huami as "perhaps the most powerful wearable human optical sensor in the world", and the new BioTracker 3.0 PPG biosensor can confidently cross out the word "perhaps", which is the strongest in service.

The self-developed algorithms have also been upgraded across the board: the PeakBeats algorithm launched this year is close to Garmin's firstbeat, and can analyze maximum oxygen uptake (VO₂ max), recovery time (RT), exercise load (TL) and exercise effect (TE); the success rate and accuracy of the OxygenBeats blood oxygen engine and RealBeats heart rate monitoring have been increased to 98%; the SomnusCare sleep engine can combine with OxygenBeats to screen for suspected sleep apnea and comprehensively monitor different stages of sleep.

Blood oxygen monitoring, which only became popular last year, is still at the level of "having this function" in the industry, but the GTR 3/GTS 3 series has made blood oxygen detection fast and normalized, and has "rolled" blood oxygen detection to the level of 15-second quick measurement + 24-hour monitoring. With the increase in health monitoring functions, Huami also "incidentally" released a one-click measurement function, which can simultaneously measure five health indicators including heart rate, blood oxygen, pressure, respiratory rate and heart health in 60 seconds.

Amazfit has also improved even the most basic sports algorithms: the ExerSense algorithm released in June last year has increased the number of sports that can be intelligently identified and automatically located to 8. The categories of sports mode monitoring have increased from 12 at the beginning to 90 in GTR 2, and then to more than 150 in the GTR 3/GTS 3 series. When you open the sports mode list, you will be surprised to find that chess and e-sports are all in it (companies put black question marks on the spot); then you will be even more surprised to find that the algorithm even subdivides different chess sports such as Go and chess.

The Amazfit GTS 3 is a lightweight square dial product. Its core functions are the same as those of the GTR 3, but its form and focus are different. Its core upgrades are a larger screen with a larger screen-to-body ratio, a lightweight body compressed to 8.8mm, and an increased battery life of 12 days.

There are many things worth mentioning about the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro. As the first Pro version of the GTR series, its core upgrade is the screen, with speakers, Wi-Fi, more advanced strap materials, and the first watch-side blood pressure monitoring function in China.

The flexible screen and new packaging technology allow the GTR 3 Pro to achieve the highest screen-to-body ratio of 70.6%. The same body size can accommodate a larger 1.45-inch screen with higher resolution and peak brightness. It even has more dials, more than 150, and more dynamic dials and module dials, once again illustrating the truth that "only by spending more money can you become stronger."

The most popular feature of Amazfit GTR 3 Pro may be the country's first non-invasive, cuffless watch-end blood pressure measurement function (already installed in the engineering machine, and the official version will be OTA later). Huami's self-developed PumpBeats blood pressure monitoring engine can detect blood pressure in 30 seconds.

The GTR 3 Pro's 6PD sensor is combined with the PumpBeats blood pressure monitoring engine (which means a more accurate sensor plus a more powerful AI algorithm). The official blood pressure monitoring accuracy is less than 5.3 mmHg for both diastolic and systolic pressure.

What does less than 5.3mmHg mean? This has reached the level of medical-grade Class A blood pressure monitors. The blood pressure monitors used by doctors in hospitals are mainly Class A and Class B+, and many of the blood pressure monitors people use at home are only Class C. Unlike the heart rate and blood oxygen detection functions that were always ridiculed as "gamer accuracy" back then, the blood pressure monitoring function that first appeared on a domestic watch has reached the medical level in accuracy.

The second question that follows is a question that many creators of new features will encounter: Do ordinary people need blood pressure monitoring on a daily basis? The answer lies in the direction of cooperation between Huami and hospitals.

According to the official blood pressure measurement accuracy, Amazfit GTR 3 Pro can replace the blood pressure monitor used in most occasions. Moreover, the watch can be worn for measurement 24 hours a day, and the application scenarios and imagination space are incomparable. For example, the press conference mentioned that GTR 3 Pro can detect the timing of blood pressure measurement and measure it autonomously in the future, which can be used for "screening of hidden hypertension". Huami is also cooperating with three major hospitals including Peking University First Hospital to conduct screening research on hidden hypertension.

For all wearable devices that are strictly limited by size and battery life, "function and battery life" are at the two ends of the seesaw: real smart watches can install apps, but the battery life problem has never been solved; watches with embedded RTOS systems have a battery life of at least 1 week, but their functions are indeed extremely limited and they are still ridiculed as large bracelets.

Domestic manufacturers have also tried to circumvent the "function and battery life" seesaw. The most exaggerated OPPO Watch 2 uses dual chips + dual systems for soft switching, but it can only achieve 4 days of daily battery life. The solution given by Huami Zepp OS is to start from scratch and tailor it for smart watches.

If OPPO Watch 2 uses hardware to stack up functions and battery life, then Huami rewrites a system to exchange software workload for functions and battery life. The original smartwatch operating system is essentially the same as the mobile phone system, and it is like a small horse pulling a big cart on a watch, so Zepp OS chose the same FreeRTOS microkernel as Amazon's IoT operating system, plus the Zeus framework similar to WeChat applets for function expansion. It not only has a developer toolkit (declarative and descriptive JS APIs), but also has its own app store.

The difference of microkernel makes Zepp OS occupy 55MB of space from the beginning, which is only 1/28 of watchOS and 1/10 of Amazfit OS. This is the first reason. The second reason is the extremely low performance requirements. Zepp OS can run on everything from low-performance MCU to high-performance SoC, and it is extremely power-saving. The official announcement shows that the running power consumption is reduced by 65%, the battery life is increased by 190%, and some interfaces have an animation smoothness of more than 60FPS.

In the app store, which is the symbol of the true intelligent system, Zepp OS’s current third-party cooperative apps include NetEase Cloud Music, GoPro, Flight Manager, TCL Remote Control, etc. Zepp OS’s own apps have also turned to its own Zeus watch applet framework, including calculator, SOS warning light, real-time heart rate, calorie calculator, color discrimination (to help users check their color discrimination ability), BMI Calc, tooth brushing, weight management, pregnancy assistant, and many other apps.

Just like the mobile phone system is derived from the computer, and the smart watch system is derived from the mobile phone, Huami also plans to open Zepp OS to IoT manufacturers such as smart door locks and smart homes. After all, Zepp OS's FreeRTOS microkernel has IoT genes. Huami is now trying to open the entire framework of self-developed chips, sensors, operating systems, and voice control systems on smart watches to other manufacturers.

No one knows whether a new cycle of history will start with Zepp OS, but Zepp OS is definitely a deep enough moat, and compared to uncontrollable and high-cost hardware, the development of system software is more rational, profitable and sustainable.

By comparing Apple and Huawei, we can understand how much competitive advantage self-developed software and hardware combination will have. In the field of smart wearables, Huami is the only one to have completed the self-developed "chip + sensor + algorithm + system".

Finally, here are the detailed specifications of this new product:

1. Amazfit GTR 3 is available in Obsidian Black and Mica Gray, with rotating digital crown and 22mm pin buckle strap. The watch body is 45.8x45.8x10.8mm and weighs 32g. "Old friend" 1.39-inch round AMOLED screen, 454x454, 326ppi. Self-developed BioTracker 3.0 PPG biosensor + geomagnetic + air pressure + ambient light sensor, NFC + Bluetooth 5.1. 450mAh battery, 21 days of battery life, priced at 899 yuan.

2. Amazfit GTR 3 Pro is available in Obsidian Black and Wall Brown, with rotating digital crown + 22mm pin buckle strap, 46x46x10.7mm, 32g. 1.45-inch 480x480, 331ppi circular AMOLED screen, global brightness 500nit, maximum brightness 1000nit, supports AOD. First blood pressure monitoring function, self-developed BioTracker 3.0 PPG biosensor + geomagnetic + air pressure + ambient light sensor, NFC + Bluetooth 5.1 + Wi-Fi. 450mAh battery, 12 days of battery life, priced from 1,099 yuan.

3. The square dial Amazfit GTS 3 is still slim and light, with a single button + 20mm pin buckle strap, 42.4x36x8.8mm, and a weight of 24.4g. 1.75-inch 390x450, 341ppi AMOLED screen. Self-developed BioTracker™ 3.0 PPG biosensor + geomagnetic + air pressure + ambient light sensor, NFC + Bluetooth 5.1, 250mAh battery, 12 days of battery life, priced at 899 yuan.

4. Amazfit PowerBuds Pro, three microphones for noise reduction, maximum noise reduction depth of 40dB, right ear tube integrated with in-ear PPG heart rate sensor, built-in hearing detection mode. Headphones weigh 6.7g, charging box weighs 42g, IP55 protection level. Single unit with noise reduction on has a battery life of 5 hours and 45 minutes, 9 hours with noise reduction off, and 30 hours with headphone box, priced at 999 yuan.