Long-time Amazfit user looking for recommendations after repeated sleep tracking failures

I've been an Amazfit customer for a long time, starting with the original Bip, then the Bip 2, and now the original Balance. I've generally recommended Amazfit to friends because I thought they offered the best value.

Unfortunately, after the last couple of months, I think I'm done.

My Balance has stopped reliably detecting sleep. It records heart rate, stress, HRV, sleep apnea, etc., all night long, but often records no sleep at all or thinks I didn't fall asleep until 1 AM when I actually went to bed around 9:30–10 PM.

I've:

• Restarted the watch and phone.
• Cleaned the sensors and made sure the fit is good.
• Verified my sleep schedule settings.
• Unpaired/Paired\
• Submitted logs twice to Amazfit support (no response so far).

At this point, I don't have much confidence in the software on the original Balance.

One thing I don't want to lose is Amazfit's step counting. Because of a medical condition, I try to stay under about 3,000 steps per day, so accurate step counting actually matters to me. I really like that Amazfit waits until you've taken around 10 consecutive steps before counting them. Most watches I've tried seem to count random arm movements while cooking, typing, or doing chores as steps, which makes the number almost meaningless for me.

I'm also looking for:

• Reliable sleep tracking.
• Actionable SMS notifications (being able to read and dismiss messages from the watch is enough).
• Good battery life (I don't need daily charging).
• Accurate heart rate.
• Android compatibility.

I'm not tied to any ecosystem, so Garmin, Coros, Polar, Samsung, Fitbit/Pixel, or anything else is fair game.

Has anyone switched away from Amazfit recently? What did you end up with, and are you happy with it?