UPDATED: Much Improvement!
After several months of trying following initial review below, I ended up putting the device in a drawer and moving on. I didn’t consider it done and dusted but decided I’d give it a good amount of time and see about any app and/or firmware updates that might come along.
I didn’t try it again until I saw the email about app version 2.3.0 and realized nearly a year had gone by, and thought it was worth another try. Happy to say I’m wearing it every day for the past week with consistent results in tracking by and connectivity. These were my biggest issues and I consider them solved now.
The haptics are still very weak - I can’t feel anything with the vibration strength set to High. I’ve decided I don’t care and enjoy time away from notifications.
First review 9/24/2025:
I’ll start by saying that I will stick with this for awhile and give the team time to make corrections and evolve the product.
While that is true, the current state product is poor and overall I’m disappointed.
On the positive side, I’m pleasantly surprised by the physical form factor of the Heir device. I expected to not like it on my watches while expecting the connectivity, tracking and app to be so good that I’d learn to put up with a bulky watch that previously wasn’t. I’m bummed that the second part isn’t true at all, but very happy that the first part also isn’t true. It fits great and I truly do not even notice it on any of my watches. Well done.
However… the stuff I thought it would do is just not there yet. (I do use “yet” on purpose. I believe they’ll get it there based on their success in meeting their promises of original delivery, a Herculean task to begin with when launching a completely new product). Here are my issues:
- the app logs me out every night when I charge the Heir and it disconnects. Each day when I launch the app, it runs this crazy sliding infinite loop of the login screen sliding away before I can do anything, sliding back into view once a second maybe. Eventually with enough taps I can make it stop and take my text input then I can put in my password. But I really do not my expect to login from scratch and reconnect every single day, that user experience is way off modern expectations.
- I guess I had wrongfully thought I’d be more impressed with a thing that does nothing other than track steps, augmented with whatever accurate or maybe not accurate math it does to convert steps to calories burned (not sure I trust any device on that math tbh). But no, it turns out that having nothing but steps reported is just a let down. Not their fault, I knew it would do that and not much else and was still excited to buy it. I chalk it up to Byers remorse thanks to the rest of the experience being so off for now.
- the haptics are insanely weak. I have it on Strong and it may as well be off.
- I expected the Heir’s haptic notifications to override my phone, like the Apple Watch does. I like wearables because I truly hate constant notifications from the phone, and I have mine pared down quite a bit. I really wanted the same Apple Watch experience of the watch being the only haptic when it’s on, because then I feel like I more readily pick and choose what I want to know and when I want to look. The phone is simply a bigger and more needy distraction for me (fully admitting that maybe that’s just me). Anyway, if I have a wearable on I want that to be the only haptic and therefore I need the haptic to be enough to get my attention.
- the sensitivity settings are there but don’t seem to do much. The Heir registers way, way more steps than I do. I think the recent update helped but I still don’t trust the step count, it seems way high based on what the Watch has taught me about my common steps over the past 7 years.
- I had to turn off media controls because a shake of the wrist or a bump or a knock on nearly any surface would tell my phone to just fire up the last song I had long in Spotify… that was truly ridiculous and I allowed it to happen twice. Turning off functionality on such a functionally limited device felt terrible even though I really don’t care about tapping my watch to pause music.
- haven’t tried the call controls yet because I can’t tell I’m getting a call when my phone overwhelms any buzz from the heir with its own buzzing. I go to the thing that got my attention.
- I hope for hardware enhancements but is that even possible? It’s so easy for me to imagine the Heir tracking heart rate but I don’t know if it’s physically capable of it. If it’s not, I fully expect this to live in a drawer forever starting in about a month.
- I have no idea what the battery is doing. I know they said it’s a UI issue and not a battery issue, but my battery life is all over the place. UI or real doesn’t matter - my perception is of a completely unpredictable lifespan every day.
- how is my only route to provide feedback in this app review? That’s really odd. A new device is trying to evolve and improve and supposedly learn from the early adopters like me who are willing to tell the developers more than they probably want to hear, yet there’s not communication option on the app? Am I is just missing it? I’d much prefer an email, a form or a survey or even an interview with someone on the team in a user test/feedback session.
I really want this to be good, and I’m going to give it time. It just does so little, so much less than I imagined a minimal device would and it does it so subtly, without inspiring any confidence in its core abilities, that I’m left wondering if it’s one of those great ideas that are best left as ideas. I really hope not and I want this to improve and fulfill the promise I bough into of a minimal, less invasive yet dependable companion for basic yet core physical tracking. I signed up for this, so I’m here for the ride, but I’d like to see some better communication of future plans so I can have some confidence in the Heir having a futur
I didn’t try it again until I saw the email about app version 2.3.0 and realized nearly a year had gone by, and thought it was worth another try. Happy to say I’m wearing it every day for the past week with consistent results in tracking by and connectivity. These were my biggest issues and I consider them solved now.
The haptics are still very weak - I can’t feel anything with the vibration strength set to High. I’ve decided I don’t care and enjoy time away from notifications.
First review 9/24/2025:
I’ll start by saying that I will stick with this for awhile and give the team time to make corrections and evolve the product.
While that is true, the current state product is poor and overall I’m disappointed.
On the positive side, I’m pleasantly surprised by the physical form factor of the Heir device. I expected to not like it on my watches while expecting the connectivity, tracking and app to be so good that I’d learn to put up with a bulky watch that previously wasn’t. I’m bummed that the second part isn’t true at all, but very happy that the first part also isn’t true. It fits great and I truly do not even notice it on any of my watches. Well done.
However… the stuff I thought it would do is just not there yet. (I do use “yet” on purpose. I believe they’ll get it there based on their success in meeting their promises of original delivery, a Herculean task to begin with when launching a completely new product). Here are my issues:
- the app logs me out every night when I charge the Heir and it disconnects. Each day when I launch the app, it runs this crazy sliding infinite loop of the login screen sliding away before I can do anything, sliding back into view once a second maybe. Eventually with enough taps I can make it stop and take my text input then I can put in my password. But I really do not my expect to login from scratch and reconnect every single day, that user experience is way off modern expectations.
- I guess I had wrongfully thought I’d be more impressed with a thing that does nothing other than track steps, augmented with whatever accurate or maybe not accurate math it does to convert steps to calories burned (not sure I trust any device on that math tbh). But no, it turns out that having nothing but steps reported is just a let down. Not their fault, I knew it would do that and not much else and was still excited to buy it. I chalk it up to Byers remorse thanks to the rest of the experience being so off for now.
- the haptics are insanely weak. I have it on Strong and it may as well be off.
- I expected the Heir’s haptic notifications to override my phone, like the Apple Watch does. I like wearables because I truly hate constant notifications from the phone, and I have mine pared down quite a bit. I really wanted the same Apple Watch experience of the watch being the only haptic when it’s on, because then I feel like I more readily pick and choose what I want to know and when I want to look. The phone is simply a bigger and more needy distraction for me (fully admitting that maybe that’s just me). Anyway, if I have a wearable on I want that to be the only haptic and therefore I need the haptic to be enough to get my attention.
- the sensitivity settings are there but don’t seem to do much. The Heir registers way, way more steps than I do. I think the recent update helped but I still don’t trust the step count, it seems way high based on what the Watch has taught me about my common steps over the past 7 years.
- I had to turn off media controls because a shake of the wrist or a bump or a knock on nearly any surface would tell my phone to just fire up the last song I had long in Spotify… that was truly ridiculous and I allowed it to happen twice. Turning off functionality on such a functionally limited device felt terrible even though I really don’t care about tapping my watch to pause music.
- haven’t tried the call controls yet because I can’t tell I’m getting a call when my phone overwhelms any buzz from the heir with its own buzzing. I go to the thing that got my attention.
- I hope for hardware enhancements but is that even possible? It’s so easy for me to imagine the Heir tracking heart rate but I don’t know if it’s physically capable of it. If it’s not, I fully expect this to live in a drawer forever starting in about a month.
- I have no idea what the battery is doing. I know they said it’s a UI issue and not a battery issue, but my battery life is all over the place. UI or real doesn’t matter - my perception is of a completely unpredictable lifespan every day.
- how is my only route to provide feedback in this app review? That’s really odd. A new device is trying to evolve and improve and supposedly learn from the early adopters like me who are willing to tell the developers more than they probably want to hear, yet there’s not communication option on the app? Am I is just missing it? I’d much prefer an email, a form or a survey or even an interview with someone on the team in a user test/feedback session.
I really want this to be good, and I’m going to give it time. It just does so little, so much less than I imagined a minimal device would and it does it so subtly, without inspiring any confidence in its core abilities, that I’m left wondering if it’s one of those great ideas that are best left as ideas. I really hope not and I want this to improve and fulfill the promise I bough into of a minimal, less invasive yet dependable companion for basic yet core physical tracking. I signed up for this, so I’m here for the ride, but I’d like to see some better communication of future plans so I can have some confidence in the Heir having a futur
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Updating my initial Review
Needs Work but So Much Potential….. Im updating my initial 1 star review after speaking with Jason and Alex. Both reached out and worked with me to resolve my tech issues overcoming my frustration. It’s a startup, i get it… I love the initiative, drive and passion these guys have. As of now, my heir works as advertised, fits under my IWC Pilot and after some initial speed bumps, works flawlessly. Looking forward to 2.0.
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Nope
The app constantly gives “Insufficient Permissions” error. Does not always measure steps. I wanted to like this so much! It just doesn’t work.
Heir device issue
Vibration alert is too weak, You cannot feel a thing on your wrist. Unless Ganance can update this via firmware update, this version of heir device is a failure….
Lousy Product & No Support
I really wanted to like this product but have been frustrated with the device and lack of tech support; I think I’ve been scammed and they don’t reply to any of my warranty or refund requests…
