Reflex Active Series 40
Reflex Active
Big Screen, Bigger Price Tag Energy, Small Watch Price
Smartwatches used to force a choice: pay several hundred pounds for genuine smarts, or settle for a glorified pedometer with a screen bolted on. The Reflex Active Series 40 Blue Strap Calling Smart Watch sits squarely in the middle of that old argument and tries to dissolve it. For around £40, it promises an AMOLED display, on-wrist calling, GPS, and a health-tracking suite that reads like the spec sheet of a watch costing four or five times as much. The real question isn't whether it has these features — it does — but whether they hold up once you're actually wearing it through a working week. Having spent time with the Series 40, the answer is more nuanced, and more interesting, than a simple yes or no.
Design and Build: A Big Face for a Small Outlay
The first thing you notice taking this watch out of the box is the size of the display relative to the price. Reflex Active has built the Series 40 around a 1.85-inch AMOLED panel wrapped in a vibrant blue aluminium bezel, and the case itself sits at the larger end of the smartwatch spectrum — closer in footprint to a sports-oriented Android watch than a discreet fitness band. That's a deliberate choice. A bigger case means a bigger, more legible screen, but it also means this isn't a watch that disappears into a formal shirt cuff. It reads as sporty and technical rather than dressy, and it will suit people who want their watch to look like a piece of technology rather than a piece of jewellery.
The strap is soft-touch silicone in a matching blue, and importantly, it's a standard quick-release design — meaning you can swap it out for a different colour or material strap if you fancy a change further down the line, without needing tools. At roughly 40 grams, the whole package is light enough to wear overnight for sleep tracking without it feeling like a chore, which matters more than people expect until they've tried sleeping in a heavier watch. The one-size strap is built to accommodate the wrist sizes of most adults, though as with any silicone band, people at the very small or very large end of the wrist-size range should be aware there's no half-size adjustment beyond the notches on the strap itself.
Build quality at this price point is always a balancing act, and Reflex Active has clearly prioritised the display and the bezel finish over premium materials elsewhere. The aluminium ring gives the face a polished look in photos and in person, while the rest of the casing uses more affordable plastics. That's a sensible trade-off: your eye goes to the bezel and the screen, not the underside of the case.
The Display: Where the Value Genuinely Shows
If there's one area where this watch punches above its price bracket, it's the screen. AMOLED technology means each pixel produces its own light and can switch off completely, which is why blacks look genuinely black rather than the washed-out grey you get on cheaper LCD smartwatch displays. In practical terms, that translates to punchier colours on your watch face, crisper text in notifications, and noticeably better contrast when you're checking the time outdoors in bright sunlight — a scenario where a lot of budget smartwatches simply wash out.
The always-on display option is the feature that turns this from a "nice screen" into a genuinely useful everyday tool. Rather than having to flick your wrist or tap the glass to wake the display every time you want to check the time, an always-on mode keeps a low-power version of your watch face visible continuously, the same way a traditional analogue watch works. This is a meaningful convenience during meetings, while cooking, or mid-conversation, when a wrist-flick to check the time can look awkward. It's worth knowing that running the display always-on will pull more from the battery than leaving it in the standard wake-on-wrist-turn mode, so there's a genuine trade-off between convenience and endurance that you can tune to your own habits.
Reflex Active also leans into personalisation here, offering a wide library of downloadable watch faces along with the option to set your own photo as the background. It's a small touch, but it's the kind of thing that makes a budget device feel less generic on your wrist.
The dual-time feature deserves a specific mention for anyone who travels. Rather than manually adjusting the clock every time you land somewhere new, dual-time lets you keep your home time zone visible alongside your current location's time — useful for anyone coordinating calls back home, or simply avoiding the "wait, what time is it there?" confusion that comes with frequent travel.
Calling and Notifications: Convenient, With a Ceiling
The "Calling" in the product name refers to genuine Bluetooth calling functionality — the watch can make and receive phone calls directly, using your paired phone's connection, without you needing to dig your handset out of a pocket or bag. For quick calls while your hands are full, cycling, or simply when your phone is charging in another room, this is a legitimately useful feature rather than a gimmick, and it's rare to see it on a watch at this price.
Notifications work in a similar spirit but with an important limitation worth understanding upfront: the watch will show you incoming messages from apps like WhatsApp, social platforms, and your usual notification stream, but it's designed as a read-only mirror rather than a two-way messaging tool. You'll see that a message has arrived and read its content on the small screen, but you won't be typing a reply from your wrist. For most people this is exactly the right amount of on-wrist interaction — enough to decide whether something needs your immediate attention, without turning your watch into a tiny, fiddly keyboard.
A built-in voice assistant adds another layer of hands-free convenience, letting you issue basic voice commands rather than navigating menus by touch every time. Music playback control means you can skip tracks, adjust volume, or pause whatever's playing on your phone without touching it, which is genuinely handy during a run or a gym session. A remote camera shutter control rounds out the connectivity features, letting the watch trigger your phone's camera for group photos or awkward-angle selfies.
Health and Fitness Tracking: Broad Coverage for Everyday Goals
The Series 40's health suite covers the territory that matters most to the average user rather than trying to be a clinical-grade device. Heart rate monitoring runs continuously in the background, giving you a general sense of your resting and active heart rate through the day. Blood oxygen tracking (SpO2) adds a layer of wellness monitoring that used to be reserved for far pricier devices, useful for anyone curious about how their body responds to altitude, exercise intensity, or simply general wellbeing trends over time.
Sleep analysis tracks how long and how well you sleep, breaking down your night into different sleep stages, which can be genuinely eye-opening for anyone who's never quantified their sleep before. Step counting and calorie tracking handle the fundamentals of daily activity monitoring, while dedicated workout and sports modes let you log specific exercise sessions rather than lumping everything into one generic "activity" bucket. Cycle tracking is also included, extending the watch's usefulness for anyone monitoring reproductive health alongside fitness metrics.
It's worth setting realistic expectations here: sensors on a £40 watch are not going to match the accuracy of a dedicated medical device or even a premium fitness watch costing several hundred pounds more. Treat the numbers as directional and useful for spotting trends over weeks and months, rather than as clinically precise readings you'd rely on for a health decision. One practical limitation worth flagging: the watch doesn't alert you with a vibration or beep if your heart rate spikes unusually high, so if that kind of real-time safety alert matters to you specifically, this isn't the model built for it.
Built-in GPS is a genuine standout at this price. It means the watch can independently track your route on a run, walk, or cycle without needing your phone along for the ride — a feature that's often reserved for watches costing significantly more. Leave your phone at home, go for a run, and the watch will still map exactly where you went.
Battery Life: The Feature That Sets the Tone
Battery anxiety is the single biggest complaint people have about smartwatches, and it's here that the Series 40 makes its strongest case. With typical everyday use — meaning notifications, some health tracking, occasional calling, and a normal mix of display activity — you're looking at around four days between charges. Drop the usage down to a lighter routine, and that stretches out to as much as ten days on a single charge, more in line with what people expect from a basic fitness band than a fully connected smartwatch.
To put that in perspective: many premium smartwatches with similar AMOLED, always-on-display, calling, and GPS feature sets require charging every one to two days. Getting four days of typical use — and the option of a week and a half if you dial back the extras — is a real practical advantage for anyone who's tired of hunting for a charging cable every evening. When you do need to top up, a three-hour charge time gets you back to full, which is reasonable rather than exceptional, but perfectly workable if you charge overnight or during a lunch break.
The trade-off, worth repeating, is that features like always-on display and continuous GPS tracking will pull that battery estimate down. Think of the four-day figure as your baseline with the screen in its standard mode, and expect it to shrink somewhat if you're running always-on display around the clock or using GPS for long tracked sessions daily.
Software and Compatibility: Straightforward, With Minor Friction
The watch pairs over Bluetooth 5.2, the current generation of Bluetooth technology that offers a stable, power-efficient connection to your phone. It works with the Reflex Active companion app, available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and is broadly compatible with iOS and Android handsets — including current-generation phones, since it supports both platforms' more recent operating system versions. Setup, by most accounts, is straightforward: pair the watch, install the app, and you're tracking within a few minutes, without the multi-step account creation hassle that some fitness ecosystems put you through.
For runners and cyclists already embedded in a specific tracking ecosystem, the watch can connect with Strava, letting your activity data flow into an app you may already use to compare routes and times with friends. There's also compatibility with Samsung Health for Android users who prefer that ecosystem, though it's worth knowing upfront that switching to this watch won't pull in your historical data from a previous device — you're starting your tracking history fresh.
Who This Watch Is Genuinely Built For
- Anyone buying their first smartwatch who wants to try the category without committing serious money
- People who prioritise battery life and hate daily charging routines
- Runners, walkers, and cyclists who want phone-free GPS tracking without paying for a dedicated sports watch
- Buyers who want on-wrist calling and notification glancing without needing a full two-way messaging experience
- Anyone who wants a genuinely good-looking AMOLED display without the usual price tag attached to one
- Frequent travellers who'll get real use out of the dual-time display
Who Should Look Elsewhere
- Serious athletes who need clinical-grade accuracy in heart rate and sleep data for training decisions
- Swimmers — despite the water resistance rating, this watch is not recommended for swimming, so anyone needing pool or open-water tracking should look at a watch explicitly rated for it
- Anyone who wants to type and send full replies to messages from their wrist
- People who need automatic high-heart-rate alerts for safety or health-monitoring reasons
- Buyers who want a compact, formal-looking watch face rather than a larger, sport-styled case
- Anyone deeply invested in Apple Watch's ecosystem (Fitness app integrations, for instance, are built for Apple's own hardware, not third-party watches like this one)
How It Stacks Up Against the Competition
At the sub-£50 smartwatch price point, the Series 40's core competition generally falls into two camps: basic fitness trackers with small monochrome or low-quality colour screens, and slightly pricier "budget-smart" watches that match some but not all of this watch's feature list. Against the first camp, the Series 40 wins comfortably — the AMOLED display alone puts it in a different visual league, and few trackers at the true entry-level price include genuine Bluetooth calling or independent GPS.
Against watches a notch up in price, the comparison gets more interesting. Pricier alternatives often edge ahead on sensor accuracy, build materials, or deeper third-party app integrations, and some offer safety features like automatic irregular-heart-rate alerts that this model skips. What the Series 40 does particularly well relative to watches even at double its price is battery life — four days of typical use with the option to stretch to ten is genuinely competitive with, and sometimes better than, watches costing significantly more. If your priority list starts with "big, vivid screen, all-day-and-then-some battery, and genuine calling" rather than "clinical health accuracy," this watch's value proposition holds up well even against pricier rivals.
The Honest Trade-Offs
The case for the Series 40 is strongest when you frame it as a smartwatch for people who want the full feature checklist without the full smartwatch price. The AMOLED screen and always-on display genuinely deliver a premium look and feel that's rare to find this cheap, and the battery life removes one of the most common frustrations people have with the category entirely. Built-in GPS and real calling functionality are both features that plenty of pricier watches don't even bother including, so seeing them here is a meaningful part of the value story.
Where the watch shows its price is in the sensor accuracy and depth of features around safety and precision. The lack of a high-heart-rate vibration alert, the read-only nature of notifications, and the general understanding that health metrics here are useful trends rather than clinical measurements are all reasonable trade-offs for the price, but they are real ones. The case size and styling also lean sporty rather than universally flattering — a strength for some buyers and a mild drawback for anyone hoping for something more discreet. None of these are surprises for a watch at this price; they're simply the honest boundaries of what £40 buys you, and Reflex Active hasn't tried to hide them behind marketing gloss.
Final Verdict
The Reflex Active Series 40 Blue Strap Calling Smart Watch earns its place as one of the more compelling budget smartwatches around by refusing to cut corners on the features people actually notice day to day: a genuinely vivid AMOLED screen, an always-on display option, real Bluetooth calling, independent GPS, and battery life that can comfortably outlast a long weekend. It won't replace a dedicated sports watch for competitive athletes chasing precise training data, and it's not the watch for anyone wanting to reply to messages from their wrist or track laps in a pool. But for the much larger group of buyers who want their watch to look sharp, last for days between charges, handle calls and notifications with minimal fuss, and track everyday health metrics without a steep learning curve or a steep price tag, this is a genuinely easy watch to recommend.
What People Say
101 commentsEverything you need at a fraction of the price.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from a smartwatch priced at the lower end of the market but having worn it permanently for the last week, I can honestly say I was pleasantly surprised at how well the Reflex Active Amoled UHD model has performed.
The watch came ready charged and was quick and easy to set up once I had downloaded the Reflex Active Blue app (which is available from both IOS and Android app stores) and linked it to Bluetooth.
I then personalised the phone to my own requirements which included choosing my preferred watch face and sharing my contacts. This model allows the user to make and receive calls, so that is definitely a positive benefit.
The watch monitors steps, heart rate, blood oxygen levels, stress and sleep on a regular basis and then collates this information over a number of days, weeks and months via the app, enabling you to keep an eye on your progress.
You can record a wide range of activities including walking, running, treadmill, hiking, cycling, golf, yoga, Pilates, aerobic exercise, cricket, boxing and tennis. It is worth noting that whilst the watch is waterproof, it is not suitable for swimming.
I have worn the watch permanently for the last week. The battery performance is phenomenal and I still have 32% power remaining. I estimate that I will be able to get another few days use before I need to charge for the first time and this could be extended further by optimising the settings.
There are so many features that I haven’t covered, so it’s worth checking the Reflex website for a full list of everything it can do. I think it’s a great watch for anybody of any age and so reasonably priced, what’s not to like?
A ‘budget’ Feature Rich Smart Watch
I’ve used this watch for a couple of days and I’ve been really impressed by it, how well it works and how well it works with my smartphone, especially given its price range.
Whilst I’m sure some will focus on what it can’t do (Apple/Google pay for example), let’s look at what it can do! You can track your fitness (and it links with Apple Health too!), you can view notifications from your phone - as a start. That’s selling it short however, ‘tracking fitness’ covers many thanks - it acts as a pedometer (as well as all sorts of other exercise types from cycling to jogging and a fair few other things). It can measure your heart rate, monitor your sleep and track your cycle.
There’s a choice of different watch faces, all show off the screen to its best. The screen is bright, clear and well made, feels like it’d be hard to scratch and not too big on the wrist. The straps are replaceable, Reflex Active have a website that offers you alternative colours and styles.
Add to all of this a battery that looks like it’d last a minimum of 5 days, if not slightly longer and a build quality that feels like it could take some knocks, you’re onto a winner, it might be a ‘budget’ Smart Watch - but only in price, not in any other way!
So far so good although a little uncomfortable
Never have I had a smart watch that was so easy to set up. Simply download the reflex active app and follow the short steps and it’s all done. The watch tracks many different things including blood oxygen levels and stress along with the usual heart rate and activity. You can get notifications from all your apps to the watch which is really handy including emails. You can fully customise the watch face and add any photo/text you like, I thought this was great and super easy to do through the app. As for the battery life, I haven’t had it very long but it’s dropped around 20% in a day but they’re are settings I can change to preserve battery life so probably would last well over a week. The charger is a little magnetic clip that attaches to the rear of the watch. The only downside is that is isn’t the comfiest of watches, the clasp does dig in a little, loosened it off slightly but don’t want it too loose that it slides around my wrist.
Stylish Smartwatch with Room to Improve
I received the Reflex Active Spectra AMOLED Blue Calling Smart Watch and really liked it. The colour is vibrant, the watch feels lightweight, and setup was quick and easy. The strap is very smooth with plenty of adjustment holes, and it fits perfectly on my wrist — the small plastic slot on the strap holder locks securely, which I really appreciate. Battery life is good, and the overall feature set is impressive for the price.
However, I noticed a few downsides:
The app/watch didn’t show steps even though sharing was allowed with Samsung Health and Health Connect.
Touch sensitivity could be improved — sometimes I had to tap more than once or got the wrong selection.
The lift-to-wake gesture didn’t always work consistently.
During calls, the mic wasn’t very powerful, and my voice occasionally broke.
Overall, it’s a stylish, comfortable, and feature-rich smartwatch, offering great value with just a few areas needing improvement.
Nice watch for young kids or older people.
Nice looking watch however, build quality is not there. This is to be expected as it is at the lower end of the market entry.
Watch was fully charged. When I attempted to pair the watch to iOS iPhone XR this failed.
I reset the watch and then added the watch from my phones. Bluetooth option. Note I was using an iPhone XR. Even though my phone reported being connected to the watch. The watch app was still looking for a device to add!!
Restarted my iPhone XR and reset the watch
Still no joy.
I was able to pair the watch with a Samsung phone. I checked the heart rate and compared it with my more expensive watch there was a very big difference!! 20BPM
The blood oxygen levels readings were 1% out
The watch offers limited functionality.
Will not be a replacement for top end smart watches. Only worked with Android. Suitable for young kids or older people who just want a smart watch.
Nice watch and easy to use!
The packing is sleek and comes in a nice box that you can store wires in etc. The watch itself is very easy to use. You download the app, connect bluetoothband you are good to go. It is very easy to naviagtetheound the watch, making it suitable for all ages. I really like the shape and compact design as well as the blue strap. It is suitable for work and goes with pretty much any outfit too. I like the step feature the most but you can connect with your phone for incoming messages, measure your heart rate which is pretty accurate and blood oxygen levels. The watch chargers pretty fast and the charge lasts a decent amount of time. The charger is a bit odd as it uses magnets rather than being plugged in, so make sure it lays somewhere flat. All round good watch, nice features to play with!
Could be a great watch however it is inaccurate.
This could be a great smart watch -
Positives: great battery life, comfortable, light weight, clear screen, phone calling is cool but it also goes through the phone or you will need a chip in the watch. You can change the interface and has lots of widgets like steps, heart rate, stress level, blood oxygen level and weather etc.
Cons: I dont believe the step counter is very accurate as it seems i do about 300 steps for every 50 or so, i put my watch on the side and it recorded a heartbeat of 94. To set it up was abit of a faff as you download the app then for me i had to connect to my google fit and then had to go through settings to get it to sync up to the watch. If this watch was more accurate i would definitely recommend it as it has alot of potential and great features.
Pretty amazing
I am very pleasantly surprised about this smartwatch. It does pretty much everything the more expensive watches do. The large screen is a great asset and very clear to read. There are lots of watch faces to choose from and they are easy to customise. The strap is soft and a good length and as it has a classic watch fastening feels very secure on my arm. After syncing it worh my Iphone I was able to make and receive calls, texts and had whatsapp notifications. The only negative I found is I could not receive email notifications, but with the amount of apps on the watch this is only a minor concern. I record my daily activity, heart rate and blood oxygen levels and they do seem very accurate. I can honestly say this watch is excellent all round and I most definitely recommend
Finally the perfect smart watch!
I love this watch! It has all the features I need to keep me up to date on a daily basis! I can link my contacts meaning I can keep on top of texts, phone calls and emails during the day. It has different exercise modes which suits my daily workouts, records your daily steps, your stress levels, monitors your sleep & many other functions that I haven’t found with previous smart watches! The design is sleek, the strap is soft and doesn’t irritate my skin (which I’ve found with wearing plastic style watch straps in the past) it’s also very comfortable to wear when working out and also when sleeping to track my sleep patterns. The watch was easy to sync to my phone, easy to set up and the instructions were also straight forward too!
Superb watch - responsive and light
Battery life is brilliant - charged it over a week ago and it still has battery.
Nice bright, colourful display, which is also really responsive to touch. Having had a number of touch screen watches before, this is perhaps the most responsive I've used.
The sleep tracking is useful, and gives an indication of total sleep duration, deep sleep and light sleep.
Was really easy to set up via the app and on my wrist in no time.
Two useful features are a do not disturb mode and reminders for movement and to drink water.
It also has a find my phone feature, useful if you leave your phone around a lot.
Silicone straps aren't for everyone but if found it to be soft and flexible - really comfortable overall.
Great product
As a fitness enthusiast, I'm always on the lookout for a high-quality fitness tracker that can keep up with my active lifestyle.
The Reflex Active Series 40 Blue boasts a sleek and modern design that looks great on the wrist. The blue color option is particularly stylish and adds a touch of sophistication to the overall look. The tracker is lightweight and comfortable to wear, making it perfect for daily use. The silicone strap is soft and flexible, ensuring a snug fit that doesn't dig into the skin.
The battery life of the Reflex Active Series 40 Blue is impressive, lasting up to 7 days on a single charge. This means you can wear the tracker continuously without needing to recharge it every day.
A Feature-Packed Value Smart Watch
Key points:
Display and Design: a good size with an always on mode and crisp visuals.
Smart Features:
Calls from wrist, notification, music and camera controls
Health and Wellbeing: Heart-rate, sleep and steps
Value: Excellent price for what you get
Battery: typically 4 days
User target: this is a great entry smart watch which my 9 year old son used.
The watch has a lot of features and benefits which makes it a strong value watch as it delivers a lot of the essentials expected in a smart watch. Unfortunately after a few days of wear the watch has started to flicked on and off on the display which is frustrating and unsure how long the life expectancy of the watch will be.
Brilliant watch at a fantastic price
Great item. Fully compatible with iPhone iOS. Reflex app is easily accessible and fully functional with the iOS operating system. You can make and receive calls which is perfect for holding conversations on the go. The display is outstanding, easy readability. All the features are accurate, blood pressure, (I checked with my machine and it matched the watch, step count & exercise features all work accordingly doesn’t matter if your jogging, running, cycling with electric or analogue bikes the watch registers correct information. The watch is made with quality parts and you can feel the quality on your wrist. I would highly recommend this watch.
Very average
Bought this a couple of weeks ago as I broke my fitbit (had it 5 years). Features seemed good and it looked like good value. The GPS is very inaccurate, does not record distance right at all. The heart rate monitor is very frustrating and only records on screen every 10 minutes unless you go into that feature. Does not show a current and changing heart rate. I wouldn't buy this again for the features I like to use. Mileage tracking and exercise features. Would probably be a good enough buy for someone who like a good step counter and a good basic watch.
Ok ish
Bought this to replace my Huawei as the battery wasn't lasting very long. Unfortunately it doesn't like to stay connected and the battery life is very poor compared to my old watch. I read a lot of reviews before I purchased it and most said the battery life was great, personally I think 3 days battery is incredibly poor. My Huawei would last nearly two weeks! If Argos still sold Huawei then that's what I would have bought.
On a positive note, the display is a great size, vast amount of watch faces to choose from and very simple to set up and use
Not accurate
Don’t buy if you intend to use for running or anything else where you need to measure your distance. It over calculates the distance you have traveled, I compared it to my phone and by 1km the watch was showing approx 1.1km by the time I got to 5k the watch said I was around 5.6km which is a big difference if you are relying on it to be actuate for training, this also meant that the pace was off too. I considered my phone gps could be wrong but I also used the watch during an official race and it was completely off.
Well worth the money!
This watch is soooo light compared to my old high end branded one. For the price it's amazing very easy to wear a lovely big screen and the blue is a beautiful colour. It really doesn't feel like your wearing a watch it's so light. The features are standard for a smart watch can call see heart rate and how many steps iv done I like that you have a keypad to type numbers in as my old one doesn't have that feature. I'm still yet to use everything on it as it's new but I'm really impressed so far. Well worth the money!
It's great!
For the price I wasn't expecting much but this is an impressive watch. The battery life is very good and easily lasts over a week. The screen is bright, clear and colourful. It can connect to any messaging app and to the phone and the speaker is decent for a small device. Not only can you use any photo or picture on your phone as the watch face but you can also customise the date, time, weather, battery percentage etc. The vibrating alarm is very effective.
I really like this watch.
Looks good and comfortable to wear but don't buy!
Bought this to keep an eye on sleep and steps. However, seems to measure hand movements and not steps- some mornings I've clocked up 400+ steps before breakfast !! And as for sleep, only looks at at deep and light; no REM. Not sore it's even accurate since the last update I've more deep sleep than light sleep and it rarely records the episodes when I wake during night. Save your money or put it towards a better watch. My daughter's cost less than this and is nicer and more accurate!
Excellent
I bought this watch a while ago as my first smart watch. I got it to be able to track my daily activity and heart rate. The display is quite good and was very readable. The app also connected to my phone really easily and allowed you to create your own watch faces from scratch which is really cool. With the watch set to only be visible when I'm using it (as in the screen turns off when your not looking at it) the battery lasts 3ish days. Definitely well worth its price.
