Misfit Phase review

More than meets the eye

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Specs, performance and fitness

  • Only offers basic tracking features
  • Displays smartphone notifications
  • Lets you control phone functions from your wrist

This isn’t a watch for the hardened fitness enthusiast. Yes, it can track your step count, calorie burn, distance covered and sleep, as well as your cycle and swim sessions, but it’s more of an activity guide than a fitness coach.

A three-axis accelerometer at the heart of the watch automatically tracks your activity and sleep levels. There’s no need to tell it you’re going for a run or heading off to bed, as its algorithms can deduce what you’re up to based on your movements.

The base level of fitness tracking is a step count, and here the Phase is a little bit stingy. Nothing dramatic, but compared with an Apple Watch Nike+ and Polar M200, we found its daily step tracking came up just a little bit short of the competition.

Carry shopping in your watch-adorned hand, or walk around with your hand shoved deep inside a pocket, and your true step count will be even further out. This isn’t unusual though.

Like any activity tracker that uses motion sensors alone to calculate distances, it’s not going to be as on-point as one that packs GPS-enhanced tracking.

And although slightly off, the Phase has one of the more accurate motion sensors we’ve used. We saw around 5% variance compared with more advanced trackers. Its main issue is that when it comes to activity tracking, it doesn’t offer anything different from the rest.

This isn’t just a fitness tracker though. Unlike most analogue hybrid smartwatches that hit a stumbling block when it comes to wrist-based notifications, the Phase plays nice with your synced smartphone (iOS, Android and Windows 10).

Receive a text, email or message and the watch will vibrate and the hands will spin around. The small pinhole window at the base of the watch’s face will also display different colors to alert you to the type of notification you’ve received. Yellow could mean text, red email, and so on.

Using the accompanying app, you can also set the hands to point to different hours on the watch face to indicate different contacts.

Yes, it takes a little while to get used to, and you’re still going to have to remember which color is assigned to which type of notification, and which contact you set up to be shown at the 3 o’clock marking, but after a while it all starts dropping into place.

It’s still not as accessible as a true smartwatch, though. If you want to know what any of these messages say you’ll still need to pull your phone from your pocket. What’s more, as with telling the time, due to the lack of a backlight, spotting those small color marks at night is anything but easy.

You’re not going to miss a message though. The watch’s vibrations – which can also be employed as an alarm and to indicate when you’ve hit your daily fitness goal – are a full-on vigorous buzz that can be startling at times.

What really gives the Phase an edge, though, is Misfit’s ‘Link’ features. This isn’t a passive device that's only feeding data back to the paired smartphone when syncing. Instead, pressing the Phase’s bottom button lets you interact with your phone. If you’re a music fan, a single press will play or pause what you’re listening to.

That’s not all though, a double tap will skip tracks forward and a triple tap will skip tracks back; hold the button down and you can increase the volume.

It’s got uses for those not into music, too. Want it to control your phone’s camera? A single press of the button will capture a single shot, while holding it down will enable burst mode. You can also use it as a presentation clicker or assign your own tasks, such as finding your phone, to it. It’s a nice touch that helps the Phase stand out in a sea of similar devices.

Latest in Smartwatches
Garmin Instinct 3 in Neotropic Green
"I'm an idiot": Garmin user reveals how fixing one setting completely changed their training after months of making no progress
A garmin forerrunner 55 on an orange background with the phrase lowest price
Sprint! The best cheap Garmin for runners is back down to its lowest-ever price
Half-Life running on a smartwatch
This Redditor installed a game engine on their smartwatch, and now it runs Doom, Quake, and Half-Life
Apple watch pair with iphone
I've been wearing an Apple Watch for 10 years – these are the 5 settings I change right out of the box
Garmin Instinct 3 next to the Apple Watch Ultra 2
New figures claim the smartwatch market just shrunk for the first time ever, and the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is to blame
Garmin Forerunner 265S
One of the best Garmin running watches just dropped to a great low price at Amazon
Latest in Reviews
WWE 2K25
I've spent days in the ring with WWE 2K25, and it's like a five-star match ruined by the Million Dollar Man
Curaprox Hydrosonic Pro electric toothbrush
Curaprox Hydrosonic Pro review: A powerful seven-mode, Swiss-made sonic brush
Atelier Yumia
I was already sold on Atelier Yumia as an RPG, but I wasn’t expecting it to have my favorite crafting system in all of gaming
Alienware 27 AW2725Q monitor on desk displaying a scene from Cyberpunk 2077
I played games with Alienware's new 27-inch 4K OLED monitor and now I don't want to see another LCD panel
MacBook Air 15-inch with M4 chip on a creative's desk with screen open
I've reviewed the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) - and it remains the best 15-inch laptop I'd recommend for most people
Samsung Music Frame on a table beside some books and a vase
I spent six weeks listening to the Samsung Music Frame and it kept missing the beat