Domestic wearable maker Fire-Boltt has been making a lot of noise (pun unintended) in the Indian market with its affordable yet feature-rich smartwatches. Take, for instance, the new Collide. The Fire-Boltt Collide has features and specifications that even some of the more premium smartwatches do not have. It comes equipped with a Blood pressure monitor along with Bluetooth calling, 70 different types of sports modes, 100+ watch faces, a heart rate sensor, and more.
Despite that, you can get the Fire-Boltt Collide at just Rs 3,499. Does this mean that the Fire-Boltt Collide is a good buy for its price or is there more to it than meets the eye? Check out this review to find out.
Design and display
The Fire-Boltt Collide design helps it stand out among the sea of similar-looking smartwatches. You see, unlike the usual rectangular or circular dial shape, the Fire-Boltt smartwatch features a squarish dial, with flat edges and curved corners. This makes it quite noticeable. The wearable is available in a bunch of colour options. I was sent the Matte Black variant for review, which comes with matching black straps and a golden accent around the display, adding a pleasing contrast to its overall look. The wearable is fashioned out of an aluminium frame that adds a premium look to the watch and contributes to its lightweight design. To give you some perspective, the Fire-Boltt Collide weighs just 38 grams, making the device comfortable to wear all day long.
While the watch is IP68 water and dust resistant certified, I find its build quality slightly underwhelming. The wearable picked up scratches rather easily. Be that as it may, the Collide smartwatch is equipped with decent-quality silicone straps, enhancing the comfort level for prolonged usage. The straps are gentle on the skin, and their quick-release pins make it easy to swap them with other straps of similar size. Moving on, the watch has a rotating crown on the right fascia for easy switching between watch faces. The crown also doubles up as a power/ home button and provides tactile feedback when pressed or rotated.
Although the Fire-Boltt Collide smartwatch has a square dial, it actually ships with a round display that measures 1.32 inches and features chunky bezels. For the price, the display is acceptable. It has all the basic features such as a decent 360×360 pixel resolution, satisfactory 500 nits brightness, and a reliable raise-to-wake gesture. However, like many other budget smartwatches, the wearable lacks an auto-brightness feature, necessitating manual adjustment based on lighting conditions. Furthermore, the display exhibits touch issues at times and requires multiple taps to perform certain actions. This inconsistency in responsiveness can be frustrating for users.
Features
| Bluetooth calling | Yes |
| Health trackers | Blood pressure monitor, VP60 sensor for heart rate monitoring, SpO2, Sleep monitor, activity tracker |
| Sports modes | 70 different types of modes, including running, treadmill, walking, sit-ups, cycling, football, cricket |
| AI voice assistant feature | Yes |
| Sedentary reminders | Yes |
| Text messages and notifications alert | Yes |
UI and app connectivity
The UI of the Fire-Boltt Collide is similar to other smartwatches in its segment. The wearable features a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate. Swiping right on the home screen reveals all the pre-installed apps, which can be viewed in a list, grid, or bubble format. Left swipes provide access to widgets such as step count, health rate, sleep, weather, music player, and more. The notification panel can be accessed by swiping up while swiping down pulls the quick control menu. Navigation apart, the watch has several nifty features such as sedentary reminders, 100+ watch faces, voice assistant functionality, and more. The watch also allows you to play games and password-protect the device, but I find them somewhat gimmicky.
Moving on to the app connectivity, the Fire-Boltt Collide pairs with your smartphone via the GloryFit app, which is available for download on both Android and iOS devices. The app offers a seamless pairing process with the smartwatch using the QR code method. The app UI is clean and tidy with all the vital information available up front on the home screen. While the app takes a few seconds to sync data, it offers a bunch of customisation options to the watch’s interface, as well as its tracking abilities.
Usage, performance and battery
In real-life usage, the performance of the Fire-Boltt Collide smartwatch is satisfactory. I did not experience any lags or significant slowness while switching between the screens or launching apps. Additionally, I was highly impressed with the watch’s fitness tracking capabilities as it came close to accurately measuring my pulse rate, blood oxygen level, and the number of steps walked. The sleep tracker on the FireBoltt Collide is fairly accurate as well. It does not include resting time in the sleeping hours, unlike other smartwatches in the budget segment. While the wearable may not have a REM cycle tracker, it can still break down sleep into two categories: deep and light, providing some insights into the quality of your sleep from the previous night.
The blood pressure monitor is a valuable addition to the watch, providing a convenient way to obtain a basic idea of your blood pressure. However, it is important to note that it is not intended for medical purposes. Although the measurements were not as precise as those obtained from a medically-certified blood pressure machine, they were reasonably close. To give you some perspective, the BP machine recorded my blood pressure as 125/80, while the FireBoltt Collide displayed a reading of 118/74 at the same time.
As stated above, the Fire-Boltt Collide has plenty of sports modes to offer; however, their usage is hindered by touch issues. The Bluetooth voice calling feature works as advertised, allowing you to receive or make calls using the smartwatch as long as your smartphone is around. However, the wearable tends to relay audio from media files as well, and unfortunately, there is no option to turn that off without disabling the Bluetooth calling feature. Consequently, I chose not to use the feature. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that the watch’s speaker quality is average at best, and the microphone tends to produce muffled sounds.
The Fire-Boltt Collide lasted almost up to its claimed battery life of 7 days on a single charge for me, without Bluetooth calling and sports mode. The wearable packs a 300mAh battery, which takes over an hour to charge from 0-100 percent using the proprietary charging cable provided in the box.
Verdict
Despite the listed MRP on the e-commerce platform or the product’s box, the actual selling price of the FireBoltt Collide is Rs 3,499. The smartwatch has a few issues that need to be considered. Firstly, the speaker quality is sub-par, and enabling the Bluetooth calling feature plays media files from the connected phone, which can be inconvenient. Secondly, the touch sensitivity of the device is not optimal, making it challenging to navigate menus and select options accurately.
If you can overlook these drawbacks, the Fire-Boltt Collide can be an excellent choice in its price range. It offers an interesting design, accurate fitness tracking capabilities, and decent battery life. Additionally, the wearable includes a blood pressure monitor, which sets it apart from other smartwatches in its segment and adds value to its features.
Editor’s rating: 3.5 / 5
Pros
- Striking design
- Good battery life
- Decent tracking ability
Cons
- Build quality could have been better
- Display has touch issues
- Speaker and microphone are average
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