Google is pursuing the smartwatch trend with its Android Wear platform and Apple is trying to make their Watch a helpful addition to the iOS platform. The performance majorly depends on the software. The Noise Loop Lite relies on a third-party app called Fundo Wear, which strangely requires you to create an account via your social media accounts to set up the watch. The Loop Lite is powered by a MediaTek MTK2502 chipset. Lastly, you cannot install additional smartwatch apps on it, although you can get a few outdated app-lings from the MediaTek SmartDevice app. However, we expect Noise to work on software updates and added customisation options to keep its users happy with their budget spending. Smartwatches asking for a lower price generally fail to deliver the satisfaction that users expect from it.Expensive smartwatches have their own dedicated smartphone app to easily configure/control the smartwatch.One major gripe in this department is the micro USB port — it takes a lot of ‘nail strength’ to open the rubber flap. Noise has clubbed that with 128MB of RAM and 64MB storage.28-inch IPS LCD circular touchscreen display as the dial.Short messaging is a pain. And the worst part is that you have to immediately mute the watch. Additionally, we also did notice that if you receive more than one message, you cannot read any messages at all. Overall, the Loop Lite is an affordable way to raise your status quo within your social circle, with its premium build and svelte aesthetics. But the enormous price still remains the main discouraging factor.Noise also provides a tasteful leather belt that imparts a sense of premium-ness more than what some expensive Android Wear watches fail to provide. One unique highlight of the Noise Lite is that you can initiate Siri or Google Assistant on your smartphone using a dedicated app.Should you buy the Noise Loop Lite? If you are looking for a highly affordable wearable, then cheaper fitness bands should work for you which sport a simple utilitarian display. The watch tries to resemble the likes of the Samsung and ASUS counterparts. Do note that a puny 64MB storage means your Loop Lite will run out of breath after just two apps installed. The display has a notable legibility even under bright sunlight and has broad viewing angles while being pretty responsive in taking inputs. You can control audio playback on your smartphone, via Bluetooth, and also click pictures with the remote camera shutter feature.And now for what you geeks would want to read. Dial down one of these a little and you can move towards Noise’s claimed standby life of three days. The Loop Lite believes in this philosophy too, with a premium metal body holding its round dial. The two major reasons for this are the monumental price tags and lack of absolute necessity.
Then there’s the watch’s OS interface, which looks good at first glance but lacks the finesse of its expensive rivals. However, do note that the volume of the speaker is pretty low and using it to answer calls on a public street or noisy environments is a put-off. Though most look tempting with an array of features scribbled on their specification sheets, most of them barely manage to deliver the ‘smart’ side and barely manage to stay as a modern digital watch. You only have a choice from a selected number of template messages to reply. During our use, we were finally unhappy with this behaviour and preferred to use it in vibration mode rather than an audible alert. We commend Noise for working on providing a decent and basic smartwatch experience; however, the company needs to work on a better software to make this device more refined. While the company has done this to ensure the water resistance, using pogo pins would have been appreciated. As for basic smartwatch functions, it manages to put on a decent show — you can choose between four good-looking watch faces (you need to press and hold on the dial to change it), theres a gesture-based navigation system similar to expensive smartwatches and one can check out notifications from the smartphone. Despite that, a bunch of prominent names in the world of technology keep on pushing for a more acceptable form of watch-based wearable. Therefore, this chipset is destined to provide decent performance while sipping power from puny batteries very slowly. Despite that, you do get a lot of ‘smartwatch’ features for less than half of a full-fledged smartwatch. It features two buttons China SMF batteries on one edge — one is the ‘power button’ and the other a sort of ‘Enter’ or ‘OK’ button. However, eager smartwatch enthusiasts (common, there are people who fanboy over these things) will notice that it ‘co-incidentally’ looks pretty identical to Samsung’s Gear S3 smartwatch. There’s no option to enable health tracking sensors to work in the background — you need to fire up the pedometer or heart rate apps to record your steps or monitor your pulse respectively. Lastly, the OS seems lagging with want for more speed — but thanks to the puny RAM and processor power, the watch is just about manageable.
However, despite cribbing about its imperfections, the Loop Lite is a great wearable considering the budget price. The notification tunes could have also been a bit more subtle — when you receive a message the watch goes ‘look-at-me-I-am-a-smartwatch-notifying-you’ out loud. All seems good until you focus your attention on the software ecosystem. Sadly, we wished if it was more voice operated rather than tapping on an icon to ask for an assistants service. Of course, you can choose the apps on your smartphone that you want to show notifications, but there’s no major control over the extent to which the watch can display notifications. Most of them are actually extremely tweaked versions of the old Android OS (such as Jellybean) running on obsolete smartphone hardware. You will see a micro USB port on the opposite side (we will come to it later on), and the usual heart rate sensor on the bottom. After all, a wristwatch, whether analogue or digital or smart, has to add to your attire. However, the Noise Loop Lite came with the intention of tinkering our thought a tad bit. The Loop Lite is fuelled by a 380mAh power reservoir, which easily lasts for two days when constantly kept connected to the smartphone, with vibrations turned ON, display brightness turned up max, make/receive short calls and keep motion gestures enabled.We assumed the same thought with the Noise Loop Lite smartwatch — a seemingly great-looking smartwatch-esque device made by an Indian startup for the price of an entry-level smartphone — Rs 4,999. You will occasionally see text and other parts of the display’s content creeping out of the edges.Before we jump on to its functionality, we have to talk about its aesthetics. Though you can read an entire message on the display, you cannot reply back properly.(Also published on Deccan Chronicle).We cannot reach our conclusion without talking about the battery life. For starters, there’s no option to add or download new watch faces or dials, which means you will get bored after just a few days of using it. With Android Wear out of question for the company (probably to keep the price low), Noise has gone for their own firmware (OS) tweaked for a watch’s interface, which resembles a modified version of Android
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