Hey all!
Before I start my review, I want to give a bit of background to myself so as to give some premise to my use case.
My name is Jon. I’m a registered nurse that works in a level 2 trauma hospital in California, USA. Before buying my Kospet Optimus 2, I would carry around my phone in my right leg side pocket. I decided to get a FAW after my wife bought me one of the unsupported A8.1 watches from Aliexpress (much to our dismay when we found out that it did not work with AT&T here). The Kospet Optimus 2 was available from a seller on Aliexpress and so I took the leap on it. Once I got it, I noticed that I was lucky to have gotten a v1.8. I spent 2 weeks with the stock firmware as I awaited for my membership status with this forum. My biggest gripe was not having my contacts sync properly due to lack of google support.
Installing the custom firmware was a breeze. Just select from the in phone updater and wait.
The FAW international Firmware is truly spectacular. Truly turned the watch into what it should have been from factory! Google services and contacts synced immediately, the UI and swiping became MUCH more responsive, all the unnecessary bloatware was gone. I was surprisingly happy to find that the step counter and pulse oxymeter still worked despite some reviewers mentioning it (may have been from an older version of the FW). Tap to wake is a god send. And the ability to change the camera orientation helps a lot with scanning.
The battery life has improved a little but significant amount. On the stock firmware, after a day of work with light use (periodically checking the time, checking messages, replying, some break time messing around), I would come back home with about 30-40% left. With the improved FAW firmware, I come back home with about 45-55%.
Now to the recommendations/cons. I can’t really think of any that are inherently a problem with the FAW. I think the problems I have with it are more so related to the Kospet watch itself. For instance, Android Auto does not work. Bluetooth connection works but Android Auto does not launch. It didn’t work with the stock FW and still doesn’t with the FAW FW. I think this is more of a problem with the watch itself. Additionally, I’m not too much of a fan of google assistant as it tends to be inaccurate a lot of the time and I can’t open custom apps with it. Deactivating it isn’t intuitive, but I can see how for some people, it would help a lot with navigating the tiny screen.
I would like to thank everyone who worked on this firmware as it truly transformed this watch into what it should have been from the beginning. And thank you for reading my review. I’ll be following along this forum intermittently. I truly lament that FAWs did not catch on in the international market. Hopefully the future proves otherwise or we’ll get some kind of alternative as I am not a fan of apple nor WearOS.