Amazfit Balance 2 Smartwatch Review - The Ultimate All-in-One Golf Watch?

As the official global Hyrox supplier of smart wearables, Amazfit has now branched into the world of golf, specifically with their new Amazfit Balance 2 Multi-Sports smartwatch.

Amazfit - owned by Zepp Health, a health technology company dedicated to serving the health, wellness and fitness community - is now looking for growth in the golf industry, while leaning on its incredible range of smart wearables and insights to ‘Up Your Game’.

While the Balance 2 offers over 170 workout modes, this review focuses mainly on its golf features, plus thoughts and feedback from someone that hasn’t used any type of smartwatch previously.

Technical Specs

From a technical perspetive, there is a lot to talk about. With so many different sports modes and the easiest thing to do would be to point you in the direction of the Amazfit website – in particular the Balance 2 Watch page. 

When I received the watch, it came with two different colour rubber straps – red and black – which are very easy to fit and change yourself.

The watch itself is lightweight and comfortable, and its sharp design will suit all users. The watch face can also be changed via the Zepp App which you will need to download to manage the watch’s use and performance data.

The 21-day battery life is a huge advantage over other ‘Smartwatches’, so I am led to believe, and the scratch-resistant display also means you can put this watch through its paces without fear of damaging its face.

The pro-grade waterproofing means you can train, play or use confidently. Whether it’s a deep-sea dive or golf in the rain.

From a purely golf viewpoint, there are over 40,000 pre-loaded courses that you download via the app and sync with the watch, and the course is there in a flash. Balance 2 gives you the full in-round golf experience you'd expect with any GPS watch, distance to the green – with movable pin position - hazards, hole layout, score tracking as well as some swing metrics and so much more.

I’m going to break down my findings with the Balance 2 into 3 different categories – Golf, Fitness/Wellness and General use to share what I have found personally since using it, but as mentioned above, there is so much more to the Amazfit Balance 2 than you would ever need.

Golf Features

To get set up ready for golf, you simply select golf via the Zepp app, which you need to download on to your smartphone and pair to the watch, to download the course data from a list of more than 40,000 courses worldwide.  This is a quick and easy process and once the download is complete it syncs with the watch instantly.

Once you have selected the golf function on the display of the watch itself, you get a quick round set up where you decide if you want to keep track of your scores (tracking hole scores, greens in regulation, putts and penalties), and which tee box you are playing and your round handicap.

From there, the layout on screen initially is the full hole layout and yards to the front, centre and back of the green.

By swiping the screen from right to left the display will change to show distances to each individual hazard – whether it's bunkers or water – as you play the hole and another really cool feature is when you’re in a position to be hitting into the green, the final screen is an enlarged map of the green, and a movable pin locator on the green will enable you to have a more precise distance to the pin location, as well as the usual front, middle, back of the green numbers.

Another super cool feature is that the watch will also give you some basic swing analysis feedback based on its movement through the swing. Hand speed through the ball, tempo and swing plane are all measured by the watch during the swing on each shot.

At the end of each hole, you are prompted to record your score, if you had chosen to do so, before moving onto the next hole.

During the course of the round, the Balance 2 will also monitor heart rate, energy levels, steps, calories burnt, amongst other metrics that you would find with most fitness wearables and it will offer a report on this at the end of the round, via the Zepp app that includes your score, a movement map and a heart rate graph, to name a few.

It’s also worth pointing out that there is no subscription required for the golf function with the Balance 2.

Health/Wellness

On top of using this watch during physical activity – whether it be Hyrox, Golf, Mountain Climbing, Deep Sea diving or just a walk with your dogs, tracking things like steps, heart rate, calories burned has become such a staple part of many users' routines. Whilst the Balance 2 offers all these functions and much more, just everyday life has been an eye-opener for me.

As someone that has never used a smartwatch before, I wanted to dive headfirst into this world and chose to wear this 24/7 in order to track everything, including my sleep.

Sleep is something I have a bad relationship with. As much as I love it, I never seem to get enough – and the Balance 2 has really backed this up for me. Rarely do I manage to bank more than 6 hours sleep. I also have a breakdown of how much of that is deep sleep and how often I wake during the course of my sleep. All this info is tracked via the watch and reported back via the Zepp app.

From there, my energy-level dip and how I feel during the day are precisely mirrored by what the watch tells me.

Other functions I have found interesting are the stress level monitor, heart rate monitor and the reminders that the watch gives you when it's time to get up from your chair and give your legs a little stretch.

I will keep repeating that this probably only scratches the surface of what is offered. If you are someone who wants to keep tabs on all these bits and more, then Amazfit Balance 2 would be a great way to do just that.

Smart Watch Functionality

Other benefits I have found include being able to quickly view notifications that I would usually go to my phone for. I'm now doing this via the watch, whether that’s an email that needs urgent attention, a WhatsApp from Mrs H asking what I want for dinner (or tea, for the northerners amongst us) or a call coming in which can be answered via the watch too.

I could bore you to death with how having a smartwatch has impacted my everyday life, I’m just happy that it’s the Amazfit Balance 2 that found its way to me, to do it.

Round Up

To summarise, retailing at £299 represents incredible value for what this watch has to offer.

While I fully respect a company trying to bring their product into an industry that is already populated by other OEMs offering Golf GPS watches, where the Amazfit Balance 2 stands out is for golfers that may also carry out other sporting activities like running, cycling or any type of fitness work. If you’re in the market for a golf GPS watch and have zero interest in other health/fitness/wellness features, then there may be a cheaper alternative golf specific GPS available. If you’re in the market for a smartwatch and play a bit of golf, this could be the one for you.

Most importantly, if you're in the market for a smartwatch that can tick every box of tracking any type of fitness, health, wellness as well as general smart watch use and a golf GPS then the Amazfit Balance 2 will tick every box, and should not be overlooked when making a purchase decision.

It's comfortable, lightweight, easy to navigate and the super-long battery life is another in a long list of advantages of the Balance 2 by Amazfit.

To find out more and buy online, visit here.