The Haylou company is less known in Israel, when in the last few months I reviewed two types of its headphones (S35 ANC model and PurFree Lite). Besides headphones, another category that the company is active in is smart watches. The RS5 is its new smart watch, sold at an official and discounted price of NIS 145 ($40), it offers a solution for those looking for a basic watch with a smartphone connection and less focus on monitoring sports activities.
Design, screen and interface: sporty with 2 straps
The RS5 comes in a sporty look with a rectangular screen and two straps included in the kit. It is one black strap made of silicone and the other made of fabric in several shades of green. Personally, in terms of comfort, I preferred the fabric strap, when the straps can be replaced relatively easily (with a little effort). The watch is also IP68 waterproof, so there is no problem getting it wet.
The screen comes in size 2.01 inches, it is large and allows for a large and comfortable display, when its technology is AMOLED that shows rich shades with a strong black color. The lighting is also strong, but what I was missing here is a lighting sensor, which knew how to change the intensity of the lighting automatically, because you have to change it yourself through the settings every time the lighting is too strong or weak.
Haylou has integrated its interface here, which includes support for displaying messages and conversations identified in Hebrew, but with menus in English. It is very nice that Haylou has invested in adapting the watch for the use of Hebrew speakers, so that it can be purchased from abroad without a problem.
The interface itself is simple to use and there are no special surprises here from other watches. Swiping to the right from the main screen reveals various widgets for the number of steps, heart rate, sleep time, the weather and more. Swiping the screen from the top reveals shortcuts to various settings, swiping from the bottom shows the latest notifications and swiping to the left shows a floating menu with access to the sports activities, weather, dialer and settings.
The watch also has a physical button - a dial, which allows you to navigate the menus in a more convenient way than using a touch screen.
I liked the notification method of the watch less, first of all, every time I moved away from it a little and came back, I received an annoying notification including an indicator on the screen and a vibration when it was connected, and the message display from WhatsApp was also not easy to read and was messy, not to mention that it is impossible to respond to messages at all, not even with pre-prepared response messages.
The watch also offers the management of phone calls through it (using a Bluetooth connection to a smartphone), because it includes a speaker and a microphone. I had no trouble having a conversation with the phone, but I would have liked a little more power from the speaker.
Sports and health: Mainly for daily step measurement
The RS5 does offer monitoring of 150 types of sports activities, but it doesn't have GPS, so going for a run, cycling or any other activity that requires distance monitoring is pointless.
Yes, there is a heart rate sensor here that allows you to follow this figure during training, step monitoring that will help you reach your daily number of steps, sleep monitoring (which I did not use, because I am not comfortable sleeping with a watch) and measuring blood oxygen and stress (pressure).
The heart rate sensor was a relatively good surprise, in rest mode it was almost the same as the one in the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, on the other hand, when I started an activity and increased my heart rate, it took time to make changes compared to the Samsung watch.
Battery: Long battery time
Haylou promises a battery time of 9 days or 15 days in battery saving mode, according to my usage, this seems to be true, not even in saving mode.
Price: NIS 145 ($40 on the company's website and NIS 170 on AliExpress)
Bottom line, the RS5 is a basic smartwatch that runs its own interface (which means no external apps to install). It is simple to use, has a large screen of good quality with strong lighting, but it has no light sensor and no GPS, so the sports activities monitoring capabilities are very basic (there is a heart rate sensor). The price of the watch makes it attractive as a first smart watch for children or for those who mainly want a watch that connects to a smartphone and allows you to make phone calls.