Riversong Motive review: Budget Apple Watch rival for the smart consumer

The era of smartwatches has started and basic digital/analogue wristwatches are witnessing a decline. Well, it’s only sensible when people are choosing a watch that not only shows time but apart from that, they are pretty multifunctional.

The modern man has one simple requirement that he wishes to track everything he does, from walking to running and from sleeping to playing an intense 1v1 game of tennis. He wants to know for how long he was active for, how many calories did he burn throughout, how many steps did he walk, and yada-yada. And these smartwatches efficiently do so, giving accurate information in return.

For all smartwatch enthusiasts and fitness freaks out there, we may have found the perfect “arm candy” that would accompany you while you indulge in all kinds of tasks. In for review, we have the Riversong Motive fitness tracker and smartwatch and below is our honest opinion on it.

Design, build

The watch is made out of zinc alloy metal and has a 2.5D tempered glass on the front which very neatly covers the top display. On the front, a 1.33-inch TFT colour screen display acting as the face of the watch and below in the centre is a single-touch button that helps you navigate throughout the watch’s user interface.

Design-wise, the watch looks very premium and because of its squared face and curved edges, it looks quite similar to the Apple Watch. No buttons on any side again give it that neat look with zero bumps on its surface. Now, on the rear is the heart rate sensor placed right in between and on top of it, almost on the edge is the magnetic charging pin.

You get a pair of different coloured straps to combine with the watch, we had a black strap and another one in sepia. The easily adjustable and customisable straps are made out of rubber/plastic material and are of good quality. The watch comes with IP67 waterproof certification and will easily survive if immersed into water into the depth of between 15cm to 1 metre.

Overall, the watch weighs around 299 grams and feels like any other competent watch should do. Made out of good and sturdy materials, we think the Riversong Motive is perfect in build quality and design terms.

User Interface

For navigating throughout the system inside the watch you have to use the single touch button given on the front panel. On the main interface, you can check the date, time, footsteps and heart rate. In total you have 3 interface options to select from, while 2 of them you’ll have to use as it is, the third one is customisable. You can choose any photo you want as your watch face and you can reposition the data to be shown on the watch screen anywhere. All these changes can be altered via the Riversong Motive mobile app.

For navigating on the watch’s menu, you simply have to tap the touch button given below and to enter an operation, just hold on to the same touch button. The UI is pretty basic, even a school going kid will grasp it.

When connected to your smartphone, all your real-time notifications pop-up on the 1.33-inch screen strapped onto your hands. You can view messages, check your social media notifications and even check out who’s calling you.

Features and performance

Riversong Motive sells itself as a fitness tracker and a smartwatch. So yes, it makes itself eligible under two close categories only because it is equipped with relevant features.

Starting off, we’ll discuss its fitness tracking attributes. The most basic thing any fitness tracking band does is that it counts the number of steps taken and the number of calories burned while also calculating the distance covered. And as expected, this watch does it too.

It also has a ‘sports’ menu which consists of different physical activities such as walking, running, cycling, skipping, badminton, basketball, and football. So whenever performing any of these listed activities, the watch enables a timer that continuously maps the heart rate using its HRS3300 photoelectric chip. Using the same it measures the user's heartbeats and calculates the number of calories burned in the time when you were performing a high-intensity activity.

With all of that, the watch can monitor sleep and also separately measures your heart rate, your BP and can give an estimated level of oxygen in your blood.

Apart from all the fitness features, there are many other cool things to do with the watch. One can check real-time messages, get notified during an incoming call that you receive on your mobile phone and also you can reject a call from the watch itself, sadly, you cannot receive. Other features also include controlling your mobile’s camera remotely through the watch and also navigating through your phone’s music playlist using the ‘player’ menu in the watch.

The features perform very well combined with its app and in our experience, we had no issues with it. One thing that we found very irritating was with the Motive’s mobile app. You cannot clear/remove the app’s notification slider from your mobile’s notification panel even after you close the app. The only solution is that you may have to disable the app from your end by denying it notification access from your phone’s settings.

Battery life and other specs

The watch is powered by a Nordic-nRF52832 chipset and comes with a lithium polymer 180mAh battery bank. The company claimed standby time is of up to 600 hours meaning 25 days. And in our experience on one charge with full day-to-day usage, it stays by your side for a week at the most.

The battery life is good for its purpose and to recharge it on a 5V charger it took us roughly around 2 hours of time to get it at 100 per cent from 0. The battery is pretty standard and it is what you expect from a watch priced at this budget.

Verdict

The Riversong Motive smartwatch packs a variety in fitness tracking and other useful features. The watch looks like a medium version of the Apple Watch and is made out of premium materials to ensure robustness and durability. Pretty neat to look at and at the same time full of multifunctional capabilities, the Chinese company’s wearable device is available at a price point of Rs 4980.

For what its worth for, the watch makes a good option if you are looking for making that switch from analogue to smart.