Pros
- Smartphone notifications work well
- Very bright screen
- Fairly accurate heart rate tracking
- Really affordable
- Fantastic battery life
Cons
- App isn’t intuitive
- Workout tracking not entirely accurate
- Sleep tracking not accurate
- No built-in microphone
- Only connected GPS
I’ll bet you didn’t know that Reebok makes smartwatches. The company is known for its athletic apparel, so it’s a natural fit. Reebok isn’t the first fashion and apparel brand to dip its toes into the tech waters. The company launched its ActiveFit 1.0 smartwatch in 2022 and followed it up three years later with the more advanced Reebok Pulse smartwatch. At just $170, it’s one of the most affordable smartwatches you’ll find with its feature set, a perfect gift for someone just getting started on their fitness journey who might appreciate the familiarity of the brand. I took one for a spin. Does Reebok have what it takes in this space?
About the Reebok Pulse Smartwatch
Developed in partnership with wearable technology company Vitalist Inc., the Reebok Pulse smartwatch focuses on athletics. You get basic tracking, including heart rate, steps, active minutes, calorie burn, sleep, and Sp02. It’s designed to help you manage workouts, activity, and sleep, plus keep on top of important vitals like heart rate and oxygen saturation. Along with automatic activity detection, it also connects to the Strava app for syncing workouts.
Equipped with a 1.43-inch AMOLED screen, the Reebok Pulse supports Bluetooth calling from your wrist, when your phone is nearby. It can run for up to 10 days per charge and uses a proprietary magnetic charger.
Use the Reebok Connect Smartwatch Health app to access stats, update settings, personalize the look, and more. The watch is just $170 and available through retailers like Costco Canada.
Reebok Pulse Smartwatch Review
The Reebok Pulse smartwatch is far more feature rich than I expected, but it’s not as accurate as premium smartwatches when it comes to tracking workout and sleep stats. Let’s break it down by category.
Tracking Exercise
There’s a limited section of workout type options from the watch itself. However, go to Manage Activity List in the app and you’ll find a wealth of other options that don’t seem to come up on the watch menu. Select and deselect for a more streamlined look, showing only workout types you want. I love being able to remove workout types I never or rarely do and only show the ones I do often. It means less scrolling when I head downstairs for a morning workout or outside for an afternoon walk.
Tap Record to record a workout from the app or do it from the watch itself. With Sport Recognition turned on, the watch can also sense when you’re doing common activities like walking, running, or rowing, and remind you to log it. However, I noticed it only kicked in about 20 minutes into a walk and unlike Apple Watch, didn’t backtrack to log the time it missed but only logged the 10 minutes after it recognize what I was doing. View workout stats in the app once you’re done. You can also connect the watch with Google Fit or Strava, but sadly, not Apple Health, to see all your data in one place.
In terms of accuracy, it’s hit and miss. For one 34-minute strength training workout, it logged 103 calories burned with an average heart rate of 103 bpm. For that same workout, my Apple Watch Series 11, worn on the opposite wrist, logged 147 calories burned and an average heart rate of 124 bpm. Both are much higher for Apple Watch, suggesting the Reebok Pulse didn’t pick up on the same intensity. (It should be noted that it’s worn on my non-dominant hand, the Apple Watch on my dominant).
For another short 10-minute kickboxing workout, the Reebok Pulse logged 63 calories burned with an average heart rate of 112 bpm while Apple Watch recorded 46 active calories burned and an average heart rate of 111bpm. An Oura Ring 4 I wore at the time same (on the same hand as the Reebok Pulse) logged 49 active calories and 112bpm average heart rate. This time, the Reebok Pulse recorded a much higher caloric burn than both.
Switching to a less intense 50-minute outdoor walk, Apple Watch said I burned 132 active calories with an average heart rate of 111bpm and had an average pace of 13’59” per kilometre while the Reebok Pulse noted 261 calories burned – almost twice as much – with an average heart rate of 112 bpm. Most oddly, it recorded a significantly slower pace of 16’44″/km (I did stop for short periods at red lights and to snap photos of earbuds I was reviewing) and a much shorter overall distance of 3.02km versus 3.56km with Apple Watch. I know the latter is the accurate distance as it’s a route I walk often and have tracked with many other smart rings and smartwatches. This is especially weird since the Reebok Pulse shows a map of the route yet somehow missed an entire half kilometre. It’s worth noting that it uses connected versus built-in GPS, which could explain the issue.
For good measure, I also tracked this same walk using the Oura Ring 4. The smart ring logged 148 active calories burned with an average heart rate of 113bpm, average pace of 13’23″/km, and total distance of 3.3km, much more in line with the Apple Watch. Bottom line: while the Reebok Pulse seems to accurately track heart rate, caloric burn might be slightly off, either under- or over-shot depending on the workout type. It’s still useful to record workouts and to give you a basic idea of heart rate zones and calorie burn. But the data should be taken with a grain of salt.
Sleep and Other Vitals
Reebok Pulse also tracks sleep including sleep stages, as well as vitals like Sp02. Tap the Measure button on the watch to get a real-time measurement of key vitals at any time. You can also check stress and do a breathing exercise.
Like with workout tracking, sleep tracking is hit or miss. Some nights, it was right in line with my Apple Watch and Oura Ring. Others, it was way off. One night, for example, it recorded exactly six hours of sleep but claimed it was entirely in light sleep with not a single minute in REM, deep, or awake stages. That’s highly improbable. For the same night, Apple Watch said six hours and 58 minutes with an hour and seven minutes awake, an hour and 51 minutes in REM, 34 minutes in deep, and the rest in light/core sleep. That’s a massive difference. Another night, it claimed I only slept for an hour and a half (!) while Apple Watch clocked six hours and Oura Ring 4 six hours and 27 minutes.
Having tested the Apple Watch against many other smartwatches and finding very similar results each time (with slight variations), this leads me to believe that the Reebok Pulse isn’t entirely accurate when it comes to sleep tracking. You can rely on it to get a rough idea sometimes, but the data is inconsistent and sometimes misses sleep altogether.
Watch Design and Navigation
The default watch face at a level 3 is really bright: I had to turn it down to 1. But this is useful to have when using the watch in bright settings like direct sunlight or conversely, in the dark at night. You can choose from different watch face options with unique and eye-catching designs – there are easily over 100 of them. I love that you can adjust the app layout in various ways as well, like in a circular or arc design.
Another appreciated feature is an always-on display, though this will consume battery life faster. But you can set it to show a black screen with just the time versus the full-colour screen, which is nice. There are so many other display options, like wake up by wrist and toggle effects, so you can really play around with it to get the look exactly as you want.
Scroll to the left on the watch at any time to see progress towards your goals in a rainbow arc design. You can see current and resting heart rate, Sp02 along with the ability to do a real-time measurement of individual metrics (though it doesn’t seem to work all the time), stress level (again, it’s inconsistent), sleep data, weather, and music playback controls.
Set message, phone call, and move notifications. Notifications from a connected smartphone are fantastic. It never misses a beat, and the buzzing vibration is like the start-up sound of a mini drill: it’s pretty loud and prominent. You can change it from Strong to Weak in the Settings menu on the watch, but it’s still jarring at times. I jumped more than once when it buzzed to advise me of a message.
You can dial out a call from the watch, the audio playing from the watch’s built-in speaker. But the watch doesn’t have a mic so you can’t converse from it with your phone in your pocket, so I’m not sure how valuable this feature is. Other handy features include a built-in alarm, weather app, stopwatch, timer, flashlight (it’s super bright and useful!), and find phone. A voice assistant control button can summon an assistant like Siri. But again, without a mic, you need to speak the command to your phone, in which case, you’re better off using the phone anyway. With Siri, it doesn’t work unless I add “Hey Siri” to the command either, so the button is sort of useless.
One of the watch’s strong points is battery life, which is fantastic. Even after starting a workout then forgetting to turn it off until a good eight hours later, the watch’s battery didn’t deplete. By the next evening, it was still at 83%. A day, a workout, and a walk later and it was still at 73%. By the next afternoon, it was still at 49%. You can easily get about a week per charge. With an IP68 rating, you can get the watch wet. I have showered with it on, washed dishes, and it’s fine.
Reebok Connect App
The app’s presentation is odd, with a half-circle that shows sleep data on the left side under Rest and activity progress on the right under Effort. It’s tough to interpret. I would have appreciated a simpler design that just lays it all out in a line list. It’s like the company is making an effort to be cute that isn’t necessarily intuitive.
You get a points breakdown, though it’s unclear what these points actually mean beyond that they relate to effort. I looked under Tips in the app to learn more, and it notes that you get more points per minute if you’re in higher heart rate zones, relating to a percentage of your maximum heart rate. There’s still no real context to use beyond seeing that you have reached your daily goal for points. Um, great? You also get awards as you exercise and meet goals.
View a history of all your workouts in the Training tab where you can also see details for each one, including duration, how many calories you burned, average heart rate, time in heart rate zones, and effort points. (Again, no idea what to make of these).
The app is sometimes slow to load and sync, stuck in a spinning wheel you need to click to get out of a screen and reload. It’s usually quick to load back up, but it’s a minor annoyance.
Should You Buy the Reebok Pulse Smartwatch?
The Reebok Pulse smartwatch is a beginner wearable with a decent set of features, more than I expected. It’s rugged and sporty looking and will be suitable for someone who just wants to log workouts and get basic vitals data, as well as notifications. Keep in mind that it’s not as accurate as other more premium devices in recording data like caloric burn and sleep. It uses connected GPS versus built-in, which can be less accurate and requires that you have your phone with you. If you’re a runner, you might prefer a smartwatch with built-in GPS instead.
There are no extra frills, hence the lower price point. But for some people, that’s all you want. The battery life, rugged build, and simple operation along with the customizable look are all pluses. The app experience isn’t as intuitive as with other smartwatch brands and it’s sometimes finicky, so keep this in mind.
For the price, the Reebok Pulse smartwatch is a decent option for teens or those who exercise and want to keep on top of training progress. You get accurate heart rate measurements but for everything else, I’d say it’s more like a rough estimate of metrics than it is an accurate one. But it’s decent enough for casual users.
Get the Reebok Pulse smartwatch from retailers like Costco for about $170 (on sale at the time of this writing for $110).