In just the past year, Indian tech company Noise made three very distinct (and in many ways, successful) attempts to search for that premium play, that’d see them have products priced higher than the usual spectrum of what’s on sale. Part of it has to do with finding margins, the rest, build the band to command those price tags in the wars of perception. The Noise Origin smartwatchthe rather warm sounding Buds Xero true wireless earbuds and Luna Ring health tracking wearable set a foundation. That’s what Noise wants to build with this year, their presence at CES 2025 in Las Vegas for the first time, the biggest indication of intent. That’s been closely followed through, with the ColorFit Pro 6 Max smartwatch.
It is a mix of metal and glass, and you’d likely expect nothing less. Design improvements and colour choices are accompanied by a full array of band and strap options, including metal bands and the magnetic loop. This sort of choice is usually missing in smartwatches at price points Noise is able to achieve. depending on the strap choice, you’d be paying between ₹7,499 and ₹7,999—and that means the metal options don’t command as much of a premium as you may expect. Water resistance too, and from what we experienced, the watch’s build holds up well and doesn’t catch scratches or dings easily.
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Instead of a circular screen, it’s a square-er approach to the display real estate this time. The ColorFit Pro 6 Max’s 1.96-inch screen is AMOLED, and impressively illuminative under the bright afternoon sun, and equally vivid with colours. Touch response, often a rough edge in smartwatches in this price range, seems on point with accuracy. It may not be incorrect to say in terms of brightness levels, the ColorFit Pro 6 Max has the maximum usable illumination.
The fact that this isn’t a WearOS based smartwatch has allowed Noise to make this work equally well on Android phones as well as generations of the Apple iPhone. In sync with the times, there’s a fairly thick artificial intelligence (AI) layer too, which you’ll find relevant at different points of time. Generating watch faces using prompts with AI, the fun side of it. The more serious bits, include an AI assistant that takes stock of your health data from previous days to generate certain insights that may be useful, or even generate a fitness plan to follow. Relevance will vary for users, but it’s a good to have array of functionality.
Setting this up is a breeze, except the minor unfortunate detail that the Noise app seemingly can be used with only one device—at least the iOS version of the app. Any existing smartwatches will have to be unpaired before the ColorFit Pro 6 Max can reside in those confines. Basic functionality such as call and SMS management on the watch works as it should, but there are a couple of niggles that persist.
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First, and despite trying all troubleshooting, I am unable to get the contact names to sync with the watch. This means that for every incoming call, the ColorFit Pro 6 Max reflects just the number and not the name for contacts saved in the phonebook. Secondly, out of the blue, the watch would become the default speaker for incoming calls, even though the last used (and only used) was the phone itself. That can be jarring, and unexpected if you are in a group.
Health tracking is quite on point. The built-in GPS adds a crucial layer to tracking outdoor activity accurately. I find smartwatches generally uncomfortable to wear while sleeping, and therefore do not have enough insights to comment on sleep tracking accuracy. The daytime logging though, is on point. That’s inspire of no accelerometer in the watch. There’s a stress tracker, blood oxygen monitor over and above the expected metrics—though steps climbed will not be as accurate for some reason.
All functionality enabled, the Noise ColorFit Pro 6 Max uses about 7-10% battery when used for 12 hours every day, as a health tracker and for keeping tabs on phone notifications. That’s an impressive frugality measure.
The stainless-steel design, those visually appealing straps and bands and even bundling the repair kit to remove links in case you’d want to resize the metal band, add value from the outset. The Noise ColorFit Pro 6 Max will get attention in any group you are part of, and that is perhaps its biggest win. There may be some rough, yet fixable edges with the software, but the hardware side of things is exactly as Noise would have hoped. High quality, premium looking and also feels that way. It is a journey towards the premium, which is progressing well.
