Active Gear Review is supported by its audience. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Amazfit, for those who haven’t been paying attention, has been steadily carving out its niche in the crowded wearables market. They’re not the flashiest, nor are they always the first to market with every bleeding-edge feature, but they’ve consistently delivered solid, value-driven smartwatches and fitness trackers. They’ve built their reputation on providing a robust ecosystem without demanding the premium price tags or the perpetually draining subscription fees that have become increasingly common with some competitors. And now, they’ve come out with the Helio Strap; a new device aimed at athletes who prefer a screen-free, data-focused experience.
What is the Amazfit Helio Strap?
The Amazfit Helio Strap is a deliberate departure from the smartwatch form factor, stripping away the screen and unnecessary distractions to focus solely on data collection for serious training and recovery. It’s built for those who understand that peak performance isn’t just about the sweat in the gym, but the smarts in the recovery. Think of it as a silent partner, meticulously logging your vital signs to provide the deep insights needed to truly optimize your training.
Core Features: What It Tracks and Why It Matters
This unassuming band is a data powerhouse. Worn day and night, it captures continuous heart rate every second, laying the groundwork for a comprehensive understanding of your health. Beyond heart rate, it tracks sleep, stress, blood oxygen levels, and provides metrics like exertion and fitness level. For workouts, it boasts 27 built-in sports modes, including smart strength training and even an official HYROX Race mode, detailing reps, sets, and rest periods. It’s designed to work seamlessly with the Zepp App, creating a holistic training system driven by data and insights. Essentially, it promises precision, endurance, and comfort, all without the nagging burden of a monthly subscription.
Zepp App: The Hub for Insights
The Zepp App is where the rubber meets the road with the Helio Strap. This isn’t just a data dump; it’s the analytical engine that attempts to translate raw numbers into actionable insights. It’s free, which is a significant win in a world increasingly dominated by paywalls for your own data.
BioCharge™: Real-Time Energy Management
Biocharge vs. Garmin Body Battery – Fairly similar and accurate most all of the time.
BioCharge™ is Amazfit’s answer to Garmin’s Body Battery, and frankly, it seems accurate and comparable. This metric helps you understand your energy levels throughout the day. It starts strong after a good night’s rest and gradually depletes with workouts, daily activities, and stress. The beauty of BioCharge is its dynamic nature; it constantly adapts, providing a real-time reflection of your physiological readiness. It’s a compelling metric that can genuinely guide your decisions on when to push hard and when to pull back.
Sleep Tracking: Decent, But Needs Fine-Tuning
Heart Rate on the Left is Correct and Right is Way Off – Also Sleep Score says things are great, but duration is fair.
Sleep tracking, a cornerstone of recovery, is a mixed bag here. While the tracking appears accurate in terms of duration and sleep stages (including REM), compared to other devices, the “sleep score” is almost universally positive. You could have a night filled with restless tossing and turning, yet the Zepp App will still dish out a commendably high sleep score. This renders the score itself largely meaningless for nuanced insights. It’s good for knowing when you slept, but not so much for truly understanding the quality of that sleep or how it impacts your recovery beyond the BioCharge metric.
Exertion Tracking: Needs More Depth
Exertion, as presented in the Zepp App, aims to quantify the daily stress and impact of workouts and movement on your body. The idea is sound, providing a sense of your accumulated physiological load. However, in practice, it can be a bit simplistic, often topping out at 100% even if you continue to exert yourself significantly beyond that point. This can limit its utility for serious athletes who might push far beyond what a 100% cap truly represents, making it less precise for tracking extreme efforts or comparing vastly different training days. It provides a general sense of how hard you’re working, but don’t expect it to be a finely tuned instrument for advanced periodization.
Workout Tracking: Manual Over AI
Workout detection is decent, but could still use some work.
Workout tracking is, as you’d expect, exactly what it sounds like. The Zepp App allows for both manual tracking and AI-driven recognition. Manual tracking is solid, providing a reliable record of your activity. The AI tracking, however, is merely “okay.” It might catch some common movements, but for anything nuanced or highly specific, you’ll want to take the reins yourself. With 27 built-in sports modes, including dedicated strength training and HYROX modes, the data captured is extensive, covering everything from heart rate to reps and sets. Post-workout, you get advanced metrics like VO₂ max, training load, training effect, and recovery time, which are genuinely useful for understanding your performance and guiding future sessions.
Accuracy: Reliable at the Wrist, Promising with Upcoming Bicep Option
The Helio Strap delivers surprisingly accurate heart rate tracking from the wrist in most scenarios. During running, gym sessions, and cycling, the tracking has been consistently solid, capturing effort levels and heart rate changes in real time. However, it can occasionally miss the mark during periods of rest—notably during sleep. In one instance, it recorded a resting heart rate of 69 BPM while other tested devices measured 48 BPM, likely due to looseness or movement during sleep.
The upcoming bicep band promises to enhance accuracy by positioning the sensor closer to the heart and reducing motion-related interference, but it has not yet been released or tested. For now, wrist tracking holds up well under most active conditions and integrates smoothly with the Zepp App for real-time sync and post-workout analysis.
Battery Life and Charging
USB C Magnetic Charging Puck
Amazfit claims up to 10 days of battery life on a single charge, which is a bold statement in this category. In actual testing, it comes in around the 7-day mark, which is still quite respectable. A full charge from empty takes less than 2 hours. This means less time tethered to an outlet and more time actually wearing the device, which is the whole point. The 5 ATM water-resistance rating also means it can handle a swim or a downpour without issue, withstanding pressure equivalent to 50 meters of static water depth for up to 10 minutes.
Comfort: Ready for 24/7 Wear, Better with Bicep Option
The Helio Strap is designed for comfort, a critical factor for a device meant to be worn 24/7. It’s lightweight and aims for a comfortable fit that moves with you. The current wrist-worn setup is generally good, but the forthcoming bicep band extension promises to offer an additional option for those seeking potentially greater accuracy during high-intensity training, though its real-world impact remains to be seen until it’s released and tested. By positioning the sensor closer to the heart and ensuring a more secure fit during intense movement, it should further minimize measurement interference, solidifying its place as a reliable heart rate tracker. This is a highly anticipated accessory that should unlock the strap’s full potential.
Amazfit Helio Bicep Band – Coming Soon
Is This a Whoop Replacement?
This is the million-dollar question, and the honest answer is: not quite. While the Amazfit Helio Strap enters the screen-free, subscription-free tracking arena that Whoop pioneered, it doesn’t offer the same depth of analytics or the hyper-focused recovery guidance that Whoop users have come to expect (and pay for). Whoop, despite its sometimes wild inaccuracies and exorbitant monthly fee, has built an entire ecosystem around “Strain” and “Recovery” that the Zepp App, while comprehensive, doesn’t fully replicate. The Helio Strap is a strong contender for its price point and subscription-free model, providing valuable insights. However, for elite athletes or those obsessed with granular recovery metrics and personalized coaching, Whoop still has a slight edge, albeit at a very steep cost. If you’re tired of Whoop’s financial demands but want some similar data without the screen, the Helio Strap is a compelling alternative.
Final Verdict
The Amazfit Helio Strap is a genuinely intriguing proposition. At only $100, it offers a surprisingly robust suite of health and fitness tracking capabilities without the dreaded subscription fee. It’s a device that caters to those who train hard and prioritize recovery, delivering solid data on heart rate, sleep, and activity. The Zepp App, while not perfect (the sleep score needs serious recalibration, and exertion could be more nuanced), provides a decent platform for understanding your health trends.
Is it flawless? No. The AI workout tracking is merely passable, and the sleep scoring is overly optimistic to the point of being unhelpful. If you’re looking for the absolute cutting edge in biometric accuracy and advanced physiological insights, you’ll still find more comprehensive (and expensive) options from brands like Garmin, Oura, Ultrahuman, Apple, Suunto, and Coros. With time and software updates, the Helio Strap will likely improve.
However, for a hundred bucks, you get a lightweight, comfortable, and highly capable tracker that provides genuine value. If your budget is firmly planted at $100 and you want something to start or continue gaining insights into your health and training, the Amazfit Helio Strap earns a recommendation. It’s not a Whoop killer, but it’s a strong, affordable competitor that makes tracking accessible to more people. Consider it a well-made tool for efficiency and a quiet companion in your fitness journey. For more info or to check one out for yourself, visit amazfit.com or amazon.com.