Lava Prowatch ZN review: a promising start

Published On: April 27, 2024

Domestic smartphone maker Lava has forayed into the smartwatch segment with its Prowatch ZN. This debut smartwatch from the company boasts of being the first in its segment to feature Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Additionally, the Lava Prowatch ZN is equipped with a high-accuracy PPG sensor for continuous heart rate tracking, fitness tracking, and blood oxygen tracking. Besides these features, the watch also offers several essential functionalities, including a variety of watch faces, an always-on display, Bluetooth calling, up to 8 days of battery life, and more—all at just Rs 2,599.

We decided to take the smartwatch for a spin to evaluate its performance and value. Read this Lava Prowatch ZN review to find out how it fared in the real world.

Table of Contents

Design and display

The Lava Prowatch ZN flaunts the traditional circular dial design, fashioned out of zinc alloy that feels both lightweight and durable. There are a couple of buttons on the right spine. One of them functions as a rotating crown, similar to the ones seen on flagship Apple and Samsung smartwatches. The crown allows you to seamlessly scroll through watch faces, menus, and apps, with very satisfactory tactile feedback.

Facing up, the Lava Prowatch ZN sports a 1.43-inch always-on AMOLED display with 600 nits peak brightness, 60Hz refresh rate, 466 x 466p resolution, and 326 ppi density. The display is protected by curved Corning Gorilla Glass 3, providing a sleek finish. There is a noticeable bezel around the edges, which is common for a budget smartwatch. However, the display is responsive to touch and offers good visibility both indoors and outdoors. Additionally, the colours appear vibrant, and the text looks sharp considering the price point.

The Lava Prowatch ZN can be paired with both silicon and metal straps. We received the watch with silicone straps, which did not rub off well against my wrist initially but quickly became comfortable with regular usage. The wearable can match almost any attire and is suitable for prolonged use. I experienced no discomfort, even when wearing the watch to track my sleep cycle throughout the night.

Features

Talking about the features, the Lava Prowatch ZN can track your vitals, including steps, heart, sleep, and blood oxygen levels. Additionally, it is equipped with 110+ sports modes for almost every activity, including outdoor walking/running, mountaineering, cycling, elliptical training, basketball, and more. There are more than 110+ watch faces as well, out of which eight can be stored on the watch itself while the rest can be accessed via the compatible app.

Apart from this, the Lava Prowatch ZN boasts a speaker grille and microphone for Bluetooth voice calls, an AI voice assistant, quick replies, built-in games, smart notifications, a calculator, music playback controls, a stopwatch, and a timer, among other things. The wearable is IP68-rated against water and dust. This ensures that the watch can withstand immersion in water up to a depth of 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes, making it suitable for activities like swimming.

UI and app connectivity

The Lava Prowatch ZN comes with the industry-standard swipe user interface (UI), which is pretty simple, straightforward, and intuitive. You can directly jump to the sports mode via the button positioned lower on the right spine. The key can also initiate action and pause the ongoing sports mode. The rotating crown, on the other hand, can be used as a back button in addition to allowing you to scroll through the menu effortlessly.

The system animations feel smooth too. There was no noticeable stutter while scrolling between the screens and launching apps. The latter can be accessed via a simple left swipe from the home screen. A top-down swipe opens the quick settings menu, whereas a swipe-up opens the messages panel, which mimics notifications from your smartphone.

That said, the Lava Prowatch ZN pairs only with an Android smartphone via the compatible ProSpot app. The app requires logging in and some basic information such as the wearer’s name, weight, height, and goal to proceed. Once that is done, the app loads the home screen which presents all your health information collected from the watch in card format. You can further interact with the cards to dive into more details. Additionally, the app offers separate tabs, named My Goal, Settings, and Profile, which work as advertised.

While the overall interface looks clean and easy to use, it could benefit from a more modern design to enhance its appeal. Additionally, the app is relatively slow to load and fetch data from the smartwatch. Furthermore, the app failed to retrieve my sleep data. These issues are not major and can be addressed with a software update. I was using app version 2.5 on my device.

Performance and battery

The Lava Prowatch ZN is powered by a Realtek chipset, complemented by VC9202 and VP60A PPG sensors. These PPG sensors are reputed for accurately measuring heart rate, sleep patterns, and fitness levels. However, that data cannot be used for medical purposes. It should only be used to gain a general overview of your activity metrics. During my treadmill run, I found that the watch fell short by approximately 160 steps compared to the count displayed on the treadmill. This discrepancy in numbers is quite frequent among smartwatches, especially in the budget segment.

While the overall usage may not be snappy, the Prowatch ZN did not freeze or crash during my usage. The watch nicely displays the data as well, giving you a good low down of the calories burnt and distance covered with the number of steps walked. Additionally, it analyses your sleep from the previous night, categorising it into light, deep, and rapid eye movement (REM) stages. Talking about the Bluetooth calling feature, it works best in quieter environments. The microphone quality is acceptable for the price.

As for the battery life, the Lava Prowatch ZN promises up to 8 days of battery life with standard usage. This duration is said to be reduced to 2-3 days with Bluetooth calling, and the Always-on display further impacts the backup. Luckily, I didn’t find the need to use the Always-on display functionality as the raise-to-wake gesture worked fine for me and served my purpose. The wearable provided me with roughly 5-6 days of battery life on regular usage, which is impressive. I didn’t use it extensively for calls, but the wearable kept track of all my activities, including sleep and an hour-long workout, throughout the day.

Once fully depleted, the Lava Prowatch ZN can achieve a full charge from 0-100 in about an hour. A compatible charging cable is bundled in the box that attaches magnetically on the back of the watch. A power adaptor with a USB Type-A port needs to be purchased separately though.

Verdict

The Lava Prowatch ZN impresses with its overall design, display, and standout rotating crown. The wearable is also equipped with comprehensive health-tracking features for the price. However, the accuracy of its health tracking can be better. Furthermore, the app connectivity and user interface could benefit from more refinement. Having said that, the wearable delivers respectable performance and battery life. Furthermore, it offers a good selection of sports modes, supports Bluetooth calling, and boasts a user-friendly interface. This marks a promising start for Lava in the smartwatch segment. Hence, if you’re in search of a budget-friendly smartwatch with decent features under Rs 3,000, the Lava Prowatch ZN is certainly worth considering.