I just tested the Amazfit Active 2 — 7 things you should know about my favorite smartwatch under $100

The Amazfit Active 2 promises an impressive slate of features and onboard tech for the money including an all-metal case design, bright and immersive AMOLED touchscreen, comprehensive health and fitness tracking tools, high-end navigational chops and nearly a week of battery life.

On paper, it appears to be one of the best cheap smartwatch models in 2025. But does the Amazfit Active 2 live up to the hype? I spent several weeks with the Active 2 on my wrist to find out.

What follows in this Amazfit Active 2 review are the seven biggest takeaways from my experience, including insights into the build quality, wearability, user experience, holistic tools, fitness tracking tech, onboard maps and battery performance.

Amazfit Active 2 review: Specs versus the competition

Amazfit Active 2 review: Price and value

The Amazfit Active 2 debuted at CES 2025 with two versions on offer, both available through Amazfit directly as well as at major retailers like Amazon. The standard edition costs just $99 while the premium model is $129.

What does the extra $30 get you? An upgraded, tougher-built sapphire crystal protecting the screen rather than tempered glass and a sturdier stainless steel case instead of aluminum.

The higher-end option also comes with both a black leather strap — which is pretty snazzy but definitely not workout appropriate — and a sporty silicone strap in black. The standard edition only comes with the silicone option in your choice of black or orange. Note: for this review I tested the premium edition of the Amazfit Active 2.

Amazfit Active 2 review: Design and wearability

My partner said that the Amazfit Active 2 looks like a cross between an Apple Watch SE (2022) and the latest Google Pixel Watch and I agree. It's worth noting that Amazfit changed the shape of the device from the original Amazfit Active, which was square and decidedly more like an Apple Watch knockoff, to a circle.

I'm a fan of the subtle faux tachometer around the bezel but wish it were a little more pronounced. As a whole, for a smartwatch costing between $99 and $129, itlooks way classier than it has any business being.

The Active 2 almost wears, dare I say it, elegantly on my 6.5-inch wrist. The screen is a respectable 1.32 inches and maxes out at an impressive 2,000 nits of brightness, the same as the $299 Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 and $349 Google Pixel Watch 3.

The premium version weighs a manageable 31.7 grams while the standard edition is 2 grams lighter. Both models are just 9.9mm thick and easily slide under a shirt or jacket sleeve. The case diameter is just under 44mm but I feel like the Active 2 wears more like a 40mm watch.

Amazfit Active 2 review: User experience

The Amazfit Active 2 runs on the brand's own Zepp OS, which is not without its quirks/rough spots/bugs. Tasks that I take for granted on the latest watchOS and Wear OS devices are seemingly unavailable, such as viewing which apps are currently running to close those not needed.

Similarly, when using the much-advertised maps apps, there's no pinch-to-zoom or swipe-to-move-around functionality. I also encountered an annoying bug where the top third of the map is dimmed out for the first 30 or so seconds you have the app open, obstructing your view (see below).

The Active 2 doesn't have a Wi-Fi antenna and some of its core features, like the onboard AI voice assistant, require you to have your smartphone nearby with the companion Zepp app running to work properly. That's hardly ideal.

Swiping from left to right is supposed to return you to the previous screen but I frequently found myself stuck in various apps or menus, unable to navigate elsewhere via the touchscreen. Fortunately, the two physical buttons on the side of the case are responsive.

Users can customize the secondary function of the top button, which is activated via a long-press and the primary function of the lower. Oddly, there's no way to assign a long-press function to the lower button or reassign the upper's primary function. By default, a short press of the top button brings you to the app view and a short press of the lower button opens workout tracking, something I left as is.

At first, I set the upper button's long-press custom function to open the AI voice assistant, but after finding it pretty useless — more on that below — I changed the function to open the map view instead.

Amazfit Active 2 review: Navigation tools

One of the biggest selling points of the Amazfit Active 2 is support for offline maps with turn-by-turn directions, something normally only found on far pricier smartwatches like some of the best Garmin watch models, including the Fenix 8 and Forerunner 965.

In my testing, the Active 2's navigational tools turned out to be a mixed bag. Offline maps are pretty straightforward, though. To download one, you'll need to open the companion Zepp app on your smartphone and head to 'Map' under the Active 2's device settings. There you can select a region to save to the Active 2.

By default, the map view shows a roughly 20 x 30-mile view of your current location but you can zoom that view out to include greater coverage. I live in Seattle, Washington and downloaded the default area, a task that took roughly 15 minutes to complete. Onboard storage is somewhat limited, so, it's best to be mindful of your map size and number of maps saved.

Amazfit also supports a ton of ski maps worldwide, so, if there's a ski area in the region you've selected, you have the option to download and save it to your Active 2 as well.

Offline maps on the Active 2 are limited in their usefulness. This isn't like running Google Maps or Apple Maps on your watch. As noted above, scrubbing around and zooming in is far from a fluid affair.

Fortunately, most streets in the app are named, as well as parks and other green spaces. However, there's little by way of a contour view, and common points of interest, like the Seattle Space Needle, lack labels. More importantly, you can't select and navigate to a specific point within the saved map view, which is a major bummer.

To get turn-by-turn directions, users need to generate their own navigational file (GPX, TCX or KML) in a third-party app and then import it into the Zepp app on their smartphone. It's a needlessly complicated process for the average user and far from intuitive. Worse, the turn-by-turn directions aren't anything worth writing home about.

In my testing, the Active 2 reminded me to make crucial turns on my uploaded route roughly half the time. This is to say, I definitely would not rely on it for navigation. The app also has warnings for deviations from the set course. By default, you'll need to wander a full 50 meters in the wrong direction before receiving said warning, though this can be adjusted to 20 meters, which is much more useful.

Similar to my experience with turn-by-turn navigation, deviation warnings popped up roughly 50% of the time I intentionally wandered off my route.

The one navigational feature I did find useful is backtrack for routing back to an outdoor workout's starting point. While the turn-by-turn portion of the feature is hit-or-miss, the visual map is indeed helpful/accurate.

Amazfit Active 2 review: Workout and health tracking

Amazfit has been seriously awesome about adding support for popular workout types and activities, from HYROX racing to skiing and snowboarding. With more than 160 to choose from, the brand is leading the pack in this regard, up there with the likes of Garmin.

I tracked a lot of workouts with the Active 2, including walks, hikes and snowboard adventures. I also tested its accuracy directly against other popular wearables.

The Active 2 delivers all the post-workout stats you'd expect from a modern fitness-focused smartwatch, including insights into heart rate, pace, distance, calories and more with pretty solid accuracy. There is one exception, though, and that's elevation gain data.

When I tested the Active 2 vs. Apple Watch SE in a 7,000-step walk test comparison, both devices measured similarly accurate step counts, distances, heart data and pace. However, the former measured my climb as 152 feet greater than the latter.

Similarly, when I pitted the Active 2 vs. Fitbit Sense 2 in a 6,000-step comparison, the Amazfit device schooled the Google device in step-count accuracy but still over-inflated my climb. It also generated questionably low heart rate data, something I additionally noted when comparing the Active 2 versus the Samsung Galaxy Fit3 fitness tracker.

Other than those two examples, though, the Active 2 provided heart rate data in line with what I've come to expect. For example, while wearing the Active 2 during my solo snowboard day, my max heart rate clocked in at 179 bpm, which is right around my known max.

From detailed post-ride maps to a buffet of charts and graphs, I'm impressed by the snowboard/ski-tracking features on this $99 wearable. The Active 2 also has enough battery to easily GPS track even the fullest day of skiing or boarding.

Beyond workout tracking, the Active 2 has all of Amazfit's latest and greatest health monitoring tech, including onboard blood oxygen saturation measurements, which take 30 seconds and seem accurate enough. In my five attempts, it measured my SpO2 levels at between 98 and 100%.

Users can also measure their body temperature, heart rate and stress levels all with a few taps of the finger. Better yet, the device's "one tap" app churns out an Spo2, breath rate, stress level and heart rate reading all at ounce and in under a minute.

Most of those sensors provide seemingly accurate results except the body temperature sensor, which consistently said I was in the low 80 degrees Fahrenheit... i.e. close to death. However, a note within the app says that the tool is not meant to reflect your actual internal body temperature but instead "measures local temperature, which is impacted by environmental and other factors. It is not the same as the body temperature." Well, okay then.

I wore the Active 2 to sleep for a week and found the morning insights useful though not terribly detailed, especially compared to sleep reports from brands like Samsung, Garmin and Oura.

Like the competition, the Amazfit Active 2 presents you with a daily sleep score out of 100 along with details on how much time was spent in various sleep stages and REM, any sleep disturbances and total time spent asleep.

Similar to other popular fitness-focused wearables, the Active 2 also provides a daily readiness score that's out of 100 and takes into account sleep quality along with previous workouts and holistic trends.

All of these wellness tools seem accurate enough (minus body temp). But the results are best taken with a grain of salt. Similarly, advanced health metrics, including sleep HRV, training load and the PAI score are light on details and context which means they're not all that actionable or useful to the average user.

Amazfit Active 2 review: AI and smart features

Again, to actually use the built-in AI assistant, you'll need to ensure that the companion Zepp app is open on your phone and the Active 2's Bluetooth connection is up and running. The Active 2 does not support Wi-Fi.

The AI assistant is great for opening apps on the device or adjusting settings. However, when I tried to reply to a text from my partner via voice, I ran into all sorts of hurdles and was ultimately instructed to download and signup for some service called Beeper to unlock the function. No thanks. Note: I tried this with an iPhone, so the functionality may be less cumbersome with an Android device.

When I asked the onboard AI the current price of a popular stock (with the Zepp app open on my phone), I was informed that this wasn't possible and asked if I'd instead like to view my recent workout history. Uh, no thanks.

You do get mirrored smartphone notifications (SMS previews only) for both iOS and Android devices. You can also make and answer calls from the wrist, something I didn't expect from such a budget-friendly device. The same goes for NFC support for tap-to-pay. Other smart features I found useful include the onboard voice memo app. Sadly, there's no way to export saved audio files; you can only play them back.

Ultimately, compared to the latest watchOS and Wear OS options, the selection of smart features and non-wellness/fitness-oriented apps on the Active 2 is downright barebones.

Amazfit Active 2 review: Battery life

The Active 2 isn't a full-featured smartwatch like the best Apple Watch models or the best smartwatches for Android but it does boast better battery life than most of the competition.

Amazfit says the Active 2 battery should be good for roughly ten days with typical use, five days with heavy use and 21 hours with GPS tracking.

I got about six days' worth of battery life per charge while testing the Active 2 with the always-on display turned on as well as "wake on wrist raise" and screen brightness set to auto.

During my battery test period, I wore the Active 2 nightly for sleep tracking and most of the day while I worked and did errands. I also spent a bit of time testing out the navigation functions, like backtrack, turn-by-turn guidance and offline navigation. Plus, I tracked a handful of workouts, sampled all the holistic tools (numerous times) and messed around with voice memos and on-wrist calling.

GPS battery life is better than advertised from my experience. In each of my three walk tests with the Active 2 — each ranging from an hour to around 90 minutes — the battery drain was between 0 and 1%.Meanwhile, my chillier three hours of snowboard tracking drained roughly 10% of the battery.

The Amazfit Active 2 also recharges pretty quickly: It takes a little more than 2 hours by my count. That said, you'll need to provide your own USB-C cable and wall converter because the Active 2 only ships with a small magnetic charging puck.

Amazfit Active 2 review: Verdict

Ultimately, the Amazfit Active 2 is ideal for budget-minded folks who want a svelte, easy-wearing smartwatch with decent health and fitness tracking tools. For $100, the holistic insights impress, even if smartwatch features are limited compared to the latest options from Apple, Samsung and Google.

It's also a decent choice for the smartwatch/fitness tracker curious crowd, whether you're rocking an iPhone or Android device. However, while the Amazfit Active 2 is my favorite smartwatch for under $100, it's worth considering what you can get for a bit more dough.

On the watchOS side, the current-gen Apple Watch SE is a far more powerful wrist-based companion than the Active 2. Often on sale for $50 or more off — knocking the cost down to within $100 of the Active 2 — it offers loads of useful apps, both third-party and native including personal favorites like on-wrist translations and Apple's Check In safety feature. But it lacks the Active 2's SpO2 sensor and many of the more nuanced outdoor sports tracking modes.

Likewise, you can find the previous-gen Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 for less than $100 more than the Active 2 — and you should choose it over the newer Galaxy Watch FE — with arguably better health and fitness tracking tools and a similar level of smart functionality/apps to the Apple Watch SE 2022. Keep in mind, though, that neither of these options can touch the Active 2's battery longevity.

In 2025, Amazfit is the budget smartwatch brand to beat and the Active 2 is my favorite sub-$100 model available today.

Even though its software needs some refinement and certain tracking tools could benefit from recalibration (namely, elevation gain data), the features on offer represent great value for the money. Plus, IMHO, the physical design manages to be more refined on both the wrist and the eyes than even Apple and Samsung's latest offerings.