IMILAB is one of the many subsidiaries of Xiaomi that develops smart home and security devices. The brand mainly concerns with cameras, but recently other gadgets have begun to appear under the IMILAB brand. Today we will talk about the IMILAB KW66 smartwatch and find out how smart is it and what it can offer to a potential user.
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At the time of this review, the IMILAB KW66 smartwatch is selling for about $50 on Chinese stores.
In terms of functionality, the IMILAB KW66 offers a classic gentleman’s set. It displays time and date, counts the number of steps taken and the distance traveled. In addition, calories burned and heart rate and sleep are monitored.
Of the sports modes, there are 13 types of activities: running, walking, cycling, mountaineering, yoga, skipping rope, tennis, baseball, basketball, badminton, football, rugby and table tennis. There is no GPS module in this watch, and therefore they cannot draw a route map in some of the modes by themselves. If there is a need for this, then you need to take your smartphone with you and start the workout from the smartphone.
There is also a stopwatch, alarm clock, playback control and camera control, and Where’s My Phone. Of course, notifications as well: notifications from apps, for calls and text messages, as well as reminders of activity. True, it is virtually impossible to interact with them. Just view the content, and, in the case of calls, reject then if you want.
IMILAB KW66 come in a thin oblong box made of white cardboard with a minimalistic design. The contents is simple: a watch, a cable with a USB plug for charging the watch and a small user manual. There is also a black cable with a total length of about 60 cm with a pair of magnets and charging contacts
The first thing that I liked about the IMILAB KW66 smart watch is its design and materials. It so happened that in this price category, for the most part, different smartwatches are in many ways similar to each other. And this is mainly due to their rectangular, and sometimes even square shape with rounded corners. At the same time, it is not an easy task to find round and inexpensive watches.
Of course, in a global sense, round watches are quite widespread. Here you will find both Samsung watches and Huawei models, too. However, all of them are very different. In the affordable segment there are not so many round models – a sad notion for people who prefer classic wristwatches.
And now, IMILAB KW66. It’s a round watch with a diameter of 45 mm in a zinc alloy case with a matt dark gray finish. The front part is covered with so-called 3D glass, or glass with rounded edges, if you like. The combination is excellent in my opinion and the watch looks more expensive that it is. On the reverse side, IML finish is applied. In simple words, it is something like a scratch-proof plastic.
On the one hand it’s glossy, but it collects less scratches. On black, they are not visible at all, even with a careful examination in the light, I did not find even one. On the silver one in the center, you can see individual tiny scratches, but again, there are very few of them. And I like this material much more than the back material in the Amazfit Bip or Realme Watch. It does not collect any dirt during prolonged wear.
The build quality and fitting of all elements is excellent, no rough joints, nothing is pressed or crunched. After all, IP68 standard is there for a reason, so at least washing your hands and taking showers is possible. The button on the side is practically monolithic – it doesn’t dangle at all.
Let’s quickly go over the layout of the elements. On the front there is only a display, and no unnecessary inscriptions. On the right side there is a metal button, only one. At the back there are four screws that secure the cover, sensors in the center, two contact points for charging, and many different markings.
The band is silicone, soft, and, in our case, black. The band width is 22 mm, and it is easily replaceable. The range of adjustment is relatively wide, the clasp is metallic, black with a silver IMILAB logo. The quality of the band is generally good, but in some places the coating starts to wear off. It attracts dust like a magnet.
The dimensions are standard – 45.3 x 45.3 x 12.7 mm, the watch does not look too massive. It weights 54 grams, which is heavier than the Amazfit Bip or Realme Watch, but it’s understandable why. It’s a pleasant burden, so to speak. In general, I did not notice any problems, except that I would like an oleophobic coating on the front glass. Since it’s not there, the screen gets real dirty real fast.
The IMILAB KW66 smartwatch can be bought in different colors and with different strap colors. In addition to the dark gray, like ours, there are silver and gold. But I can’t say anything about the availability of certain options, but a dark gray color seems to be the most widespread.
The watch has a touch screen, 1.28-inch with a resolution of 240 × 240 pixels. The pixel density is 265 ppi, and the matrix is TFT. Of course, the screen does not look super-large compared to the overall dimensions of the watch.
As for the resolution… it is enough. At a normal distance, when you check the time or read notifications, and you won’t see individual pixels. But up close the lack of clarity of fonts and individual icons is noticeable. The brightness is decent, in most cases the average level is enough. But on a very bright sunny day, I think there will be certain problems with readability under direct sun.
The screen offers good color rendition, but there is only a slight fading of the dark tones if you look under the certain angle. But there is no distortion of white like it happens with Realme Watch.
The screen turns on either by rotating your wrist or by pressing the power button on the side. The first method works fine, although some mistakes do occur. But the button, surprisingly, does not always turn on the screen from the first press. Sometimes you need to press the button 1-2 times in order to activate the display.
The IMILAB KW66 smartwatch has a 340 mAh lithium polymer battery. The manufacturer proudly claims 30 days of battery life. That’s good, right? But, unfortunately, not all promotional materials indicate that this is for standby mode only. And I do not understand at all why operate with such numbers. After all, you wear your watch every day. Why do we need know to how for how long it can lie idle? This is a marketing ploy, plain and simple. However, by examining the device page more closely, you can find a more honest indicator – 15 days with daily use.
Well, my watch lasted full 11 days. Close enough to the declared number and I do believe that in some cases you can get all 15 days. It is still important to understand that during this period I used it more than usual. I was studying the capabilities, interface, checked the work of the declared functions. So I think it will last two weeks. And yes, it’s with heart rate tracking features enabled, notifications and alarms.
A cable with two magnets and charging contacts is used for charging. From a laptop port, the watch can be fully charged in two hours. And I almost forgot – the charge is taken into account in 25% increments. Also, the watch does not in any way remind of a low charge level, so you have to monitor this yourself.
The control is tied to taps and swipes on the screen. The button on the side does several things. First of all, it returns to home or previous screen, a long hold opens the shutdown menu, and you can also start and pause the stopwatch with the button.
The main screen shows, of course, the dial. If you hold it down, you will be able to change the watchface. There are 6 pre-installed unchangeable watch faces in total, plus one that was selected via the companion app. Swipe down opens the quick action curtain – you can see the date, watch battery charge, and the status of the watch’s connection to the smartphone. It’s also possible to search for a smartphone, change the brightness of the display, set the Do not disturb mode and go to settings. Swipe up to open a list of recent notifications. In total, up to 10 of them are stored, and by scrolling to the very bottom, you can remove them in one fell swoop.
Swipe to the left to view the main informative windows. The first one displays the steps taken, distance and calories burned. Further is the heart rate measurement, which shows the current, maximum and minimum for the last 24 hours. There is also a detailed hourly schedule, and by clicking on the arrow below it, you can scroll through it from 0:00 to 12:00 and from 12:00 to 24:00, respectively. This is followed by the statistics of the last sleep.
Next, we see the training menu and, as already mentioned, there are 13 activities here: running, walking, cycling, mountaineering, yoga, skipping rope, tennis, baseball, basketball, badminton, football, rugby and table tennis. When you choose any of them, a three-second countdown will start, and a training window will appear with the current time, heart rate, training time and directly statistics on this activity. By pressing the button, you can pause the workout and then either continue or stop it.
The last window that goes after the workouts is music control: play/pause, switch tracks forward and backward, as well as the status of the connection to the smartphone. That’s all – there is neither the ability to adjust the volume, nor display the name of the current track.
The last thing left is a list that opens with a swipe to the right. In fact, 90% of the items of this menu are the same items we saw earlier. It’s just that if you need to get faster to any of them, you can immediately select it in the list. Since there is no point talking about again, let’s talk about other, previously unmentioned items. There are few of them: there is only a stopwatch and settings. There is no playback control in the list. You will have to get to it with swipes to the left and you will need to scroll right to the very end, since the order of items cannot be changed.
The stopwatch is ordinary, but you can control it with a button, which is convenient. There is also nothing special in the settings: shutdown, reset, service information and a QR code that leads to the GloryFit app.
All in all, a fairly simple uncomplicated interface, but in my opinion it’s very feature-poor. There is no timer, no weather, no alarm list. The translation of the UI to many other languages is done poorly, with many menu items left untranslated.
Notifications barely work. There is no structuring of the content, if there is text and something is written on a new line, then it will be displayed together with the last word from the previous line. Absolutely random hyphenation, sometimes there are spaces in the middle of the word… and that’s not all.
If a notification comes from the apps that are not supported by the watch, then first the name of this application is written, then immediately after a colon and without a space the title (or the name of the contact, for example), and after that, after a space, – another colon and only then the content. The screen barely fits 10 words, and half of the screen’s real estate is always empty.
If the watch knows what app has sent the notification, then an icon is shown instead of the name and thanks to this a little more content is placed. There are only about 20 supported apps, mostly official clients of the most popular social networks and instant messengers, but there is no Telegram, for example.
You configure IMILAB KW66 through the GloryFit app. The same one Fobase Air Pro uses. It is compatible with both Android and iOS. The initial setup is simple: we set up our profile and add our gadget to the app.
The app itself is divided into 4 tabs. The home page includes, all of a sudden, weather and daytime activity. The latter can be viewed in more detail – statistics for both the week and the month. Below the current heart rate and information about the last sleep are displayed; detailed statistics for a certain period are also available for them.
The Sports tab does not need any additional description. In it, you can start various workouts, which, moreover, can be accompanied by voice alerts. You can also set goals for these same workouts: distance, time or calories.
The time is set in the Device tab. You can change the watchface. Their choice is relatively large and quite diverse: there are both digital and analog ones. There is even an opportunity to create your own watch face, but in fact you can only choose an image as a background and a font color, of course.
Further – monitoring the heart rate, setting up a call alert, choosing app with notifications, reminders about long period of inactivity, alarms, the option to activate the screen with your wrist and the Do not disturb mode. It’s bad that there is no way to set the heart rate monitoring time, it can only be turned off completely. Plus, there are also items for resetting the settings to factory settings and updating the device software.
In the General settings there are the following options: photo (remote control of the camera), find a fitness tracker, SMS notifications, set the screen time when it is activated (from 5 to 15 seconds), time format and device language.
The last tab in the application is Me. It includes personal profile settings, training plans and other system settings such as units of measurement, as well as various information.
Xiaomi IMILAB KW66 stands out primarily thanks to its design and materials. But in terms of features, this is the most common fitness tracker. The watch provides a rather limited set of functions, and the implementation some of them is sometimes inferior to even those trackers.
So why choose this watch? If the form factor of a compact fitness bracelet is absolutely not for you and you want a large screen, for example. The battery life of the device is also good and can be a decisive factor for the purchase, but I personally do not see any other reasons to pay attention to this watch.
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