Why you should (not) buy a smartwatch from the Action
The smartwatch has become so well established that even budget store Action sells one. This smart watch is much cheaper than the competition, but is it also wise to buy a smartwatch from the Action?
Read on after the ad.
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Want to buy Action smartwatch?
Good news for anyone who wants a smartwatch, but doesn’t have hundreds of euros to pay for it. Action has released a smart watch that costs only two bucks. The Denver SW-152, as the device is officially called, can do everything you can expect from a smartwatch.
For example, the Action watch has a built-in heart rate and blood pressure monitor to measure your health. It can also keep track of sports performance: useful during running, cycling and other sports.
There is even a blood oxygen meter on the watch. This promises to do the same as the oximeter of the Apple Watch: measure the oxygen level in your blood. A value that is too low can indicate health problems, such as breathlessness. Furthermore, the Action watch shows incoming messages, it is waterproof and you can even use it to track sleep performance.
The biggest plus, however, is the price. The brand new Apple Watch Series 8 starts at 499 euros, while the Denver SW-152 costs only 19.95 euros. There are also shipping costs (à 5.99 euros), which means you have a total of 25.94 euros comes. Bol.com also sells the Denver SW-152, but it costs 26 euros there.
The role of Action
Action is a retailer, not a producer. The watch is therefore purchased from Denver, a manufacturer of all kinds of electronics. Parties such as Action ‘only’ have to resell the items and are not responsible for the technology at the back, such as the accompanying smartphone app.
Convenience is also paramount in terms of warranty. If your Action smart watch breaks (within the warranty period), you will receive a new one. The defective copy will be returned to Denver, or simply destroyed.
Points of attention: pay attention to this
Sounds ideal, doesn’t it? It is important to be aware of what you are getting. For example, several reviews of the watch show that not all functions always work stably. Some models seem to be difficult to charge, while other watches have connectivity issues. As a result, for example, the bluetooth connection unexpectedly drops. Furthermore, wearers complain that the screen is difficult to read – especially in sunlight.
Privacy is also a point of attention. You have to download an app to connect the Action smartwatch to your smartphone. This one Lefun Wear is available for Android and iOS and is published by Teng Jinda. Very little is known about this developer, except that the company is based in Shenzhen (China).
Teng Jinda, for example, promises not to save user data, but it is not clear from the privacy policy (which is completely in Chinese) how this is done.
That is striking, because the Lefun Wear app requires a lot of permissions. For example, the app wants access to your calendar, contact list, phone history, phone storage and the ability to read, send and receive text messages.
Which is also not useful: the manual of the Denver watch contains a QR code to download the corresponding app. This leads to the app ‘Lefun Health’, while you need ‘Lefun Wear’ for this specific model.
Conclusion: To buy an Action watch or not?
Should you or should you not buy a smartwatch from the Action? You take a privacy gamble by getting this smartwatch. Of course, you can’t expect the Action watch to work with your iPhone as well as an Apple Watch.
On the other hand, you have a very affordable smartwatch with a number of useful functions. Not sure if a smartwatch is for you? Then you can consider buying an Action watch. Then you can later switch to a real Apple Watch.
Compare Apple Watch SE 2022 prices
At the time of writing, Teng Jinda has not yet responded to questions from iPhoned about the data policy. If we receive a response, we will update this message.
The Denver SW-152 is available at:
