In the current age of wearables, if you are looking to buy a feature-packed smartwatch in a budget, you might struggle. Boat, a well-known Indian brand offering affordable audio and wearable products has launched the Boat Lunar Oasis — a smartwatch that needs to stand out with a turn-by-turn navigation feature, bright display, and customizable watch faces. But is it really worth your time and cash? Let’s find out.
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Boat Lunar Oasis Review
Unboxing & First Impressions:
The BoAt Lunar Oasis comes packaged with all the essentials straight out of the box: the watch itself, a detachable silicone strap, a two-pin magnetic charging cable, and some basic paperwork. The packaging isn’t anything special, but the smartwatch feels solid in hand. The phone is rated IP68 dust and splash-resistant — safe for light bursts of water, but not to swim with.
Design and Build Quality:
The other color variants for the Lunar Oasis, though the dial will retain the same color. You’ll see the differences in the strap. The olive-green silicone strap is comfortable and nice-looking but its magnetic grip isn’t terribly strong, so the watch may dislodge when you are doing something very active.
On the side, you will find a fully functional crown button and a microphone, as well as speaker vents on the other. A prominent piece of hardware is a controllable crown that can be assigned to power on/off functions or an SOS feature (open an NTJ call; or your location can be sent to a specified contact).
Display and Interface:
Display: Boat Lunar Oasis has a 1.43 inch Ultra AMOLED and 2.5D Curved Display It guarantees an uninterrupted, edge-free visual experience. The screen is bright enough for use outdoors, even in the direct sun, so visibility is rarely a problem.
Whichever, the number of preinstalled watch faces (it must be around four to five) also come with some animated ones, along with the companion app that is more than 200 watch faces. There’s also a studio for AI-powered watch faces so you can create your own designs. There are actually two types of Always-On Display (AOD) modes available — pointer and digital.
The touch response of the display, however, can be improved. There is no 60Hz refresh rate, so you may find a slight tremble when navigating between menus.
Performance and Battery Life:
Embedded inside the Lunar Oasis is a 300mAh battery that reaches full charge in about 100 minutes. During the testing period, with Bluetooth calling switched on, the brightness level was at level 3, and the continuous health monitoring features (heart rate, SpO2, stress) enabled, including an active AOD, the watch lasted just a little over three days. Not bad for an affordable smartwatch.
Health and Activity Tracking:
Though the watch has heart rate, SpO2, stress and sleep monitoring, it is not accurate and reliable. The step counting was hit or miss, registering a widely exaggerated number of steps taken. Sleep tracking data also seemed irrelevant, offering no reliable insights.
It remains limited to automated capture and at set intervals, not on-demand. While these features may sound great on paper, they weren’t delivered as promised.
Special Features: Turn-by-Turn Navigation & More:
Turn-by-turn navigation is the standout feature Boat is here to sell you on. With MapMyIndia multi-lingual navigation, you enter a destination on the smartphone, and the watch receives and displays directions. While this is attractive, it is also limited by the connectivity of your phone. It lacks built-in GPS, so it can’t navigate on its own. In practice, that may not be as useful as you’d like, because you’ll most likely still be looking down at your phone.
Besides navigation, there’s also a QR tray feature that lets you save a scannable code on your watch, which could be useful for quickly pulling up event tickets, restaurant menus or business cards.
Bluetooth calling is decent, the phone dialer of the watch is convenient to use, and if you have a contact’s name stored on your phone, it appears on the watch when you get calls. The device also supports music control, a flashlight, alarms (can be configured directly from the watch), weather forecasts, and voice assistant integration.
User Interface and Controls:
We can navigate through the UI by swiping or using the functional crown. The menus are well-organized, and you have limited options for customization. Although you can customize layouts for some watch faces, the core user experience is not as modular. You swipe down from the top for shortcuts and basic features, and notifications can only be viewed, not acted upon.
Conclusion:
Boat Lunar Oasis is an offering in a competitive segment that promises turn-by-turn navigation and includes a lot of customizable watch face options. At this price bracket, its display quality, battery life, and overall build are decent. However, it fails to deliver accurate fitness tracking data, reliable sleep insights, and responsive touch input. So the marquee navigation thing is less practical than it sounds because it relies on a connected smartphone.
If you are interested in having a very rudimentary form of turn-by-turn navigation on a budget smartwatch and are not interested in striking style or feature-rich experience and would prefer basic features, the Boat Lunar Oasis can be an option for you. But for serious fitness buffs or anyone looking to truly navigate on your own, there are more accurate and independent options.
