The Wyze Band has a small, bright screen that looks great indoors, but it's harder to read in direct sunlight.

The Wyze brand is making a name for itself, having produced some surprisingly affordable smart-home gear that's also surprisingly good, like the $20 Wyze Sense security kit, $20 Wyze Scale and $8 Wyze Bulb. (Order each via Amazon or Wyze.com, and you'll pay about $4 to $10 extra for shipping.)

The fitness features for a similarly incredible price: just $25 plus shipping ($30 total). How does it compare with the budget likes of the Fitbit Inspire HR ($80) and Alexa on your wrist!), it's hard to recommend right now. Over the course of several weeks of testing, I encountered a variety of bugs and shortcomings. Some can be addressed with software updates; others are simply the limitations of a $25 wearable.

Read more: Best budget fitness tracker: Fitbit Inspire HR or Mi Band 4?

I'm with the Band

The Band makes a good first impression. It's a thin, lightweight device, barely noticeable on your wrist. The color AMOLED screen is small but sharp, packing 286 pixels per inch. Indoors, it looks great; outdoors, it can be hard to read in bright sun, even at the brightest setting.

The proprietary charging cradle has a very short cord (just eight inches) and can be difficult to clip on properly. First time out, I thought I'd connected it, but hours later I discovered it was slightly off, meaning the Band hadn't charged. Fortunately, you won't need the charger very often: Wyze rates battery life at 10-14 days, depending on whether you use full-time heart-rate monitoring.

The Wyze app made initial setup a breeze, and the Band itself couldn't be easier to use. You can either raise your wrist to wake it up or give the screen a tap. (Alas, there's no always-on option.) You swipe up or down to switch between modes and left or right to access different screens within that mode. Tap just below the screen to go back, or tap and hold to call on Alexa.

Talk to the Band

Yep, this $25 smart band supports Amazon's smart assistant Alexa, and it works even if you don't own any Amazon smart devices. While the Band has dual microphones to better hear your requests, it has no speaker for responses. That means you can issue just about any standard voice command, but not everything will produce a result. Ask Alexa to, say, play a podcast, and she'll report (via onscreen message) that the device isn't supported. You can, however, control smart devices, set alarms, ask for information and much more. It's a nice perk you won't find on current-gen Fitbit or Xiaomi bands.

The Wyze Band can also deliver notifications from your phone and show you who's calling. You can't respond to those notifications, however, or take a call from your wrist.

The Wyze Band does heart-rate monitoring, but not very well, based on my tests. My resting heart rate is not 93 bpm (thank goodness!).

On the health front, the Band offers step- and sleep-tracking and 24/7 heart-rate monitoring, although I have concerns about the accuracy of all three features. As with a lot of inexpensive trackers, steps often get counted even if you're just sitting at your desk, occasionally gesturing with your hand. My measured sleep times were roughly in line with what I see from my Withings Sleep Pad, but the ratios of light/deep sleep within those hours were vastly different. (Wyze provides no actionable info based on your sleep patterns, either.)

As for heart rate, my readings seemed to vary widely, especially in comparison with what I know to be my average heart rate. It may be that I wasn't wearing it in the right spot on my wrist, or it may be that a $25 watch isn't the most reliable source of HR numbers.