Xiaomi Mi Band smart health connected bracelet Review

The smart health connected bracelet market has been dominated since 2012 by Fitbit and to a lesser extent Jawbone. The Chinese Xiaomi intends to change the game with its Mi Band, a simple smart health bracelet, cheap and full of qualities. We tested it for a few weeks, here are our impressions.Read our Xiaomi Mi Band review.

Installation

It was difficult to get a Mi Band in the past, but it is now available on Amazon for around € 16. All the installation processes are the same and that of the Mi Band is no exception. The application first asks you for information to best calculate your activity: age, weight, sex, and what product you are using (Mi Band or Mi Scale, a scale that is not yet available in Europe). Then, just activate Bluetooth, then pair the smartphone (Android and iOS) with the sensor, and … that’s it! It remains only to specify your step goal, as well as the wrist to which you wear the Mi Band and go.

Design and Hardware

The packaging shows the care Xiaomi takes in design. The product is well presented, and the imitation aluminum sensor makes a good impression. Conversely, when I inserted it into his rubber strap, it immediately lost its luster. Fortunately, Xiaomi offers other styles of bracelets to counter this weakness and make it match everyone’s style.

Long regarded as a copier on the smartphone market, the Chinese giant shows here that it can offer a product out of the ordinary. Wearing the bracelet is very pleasant, and the fastening system is both easy to use and securely secures the whole, no risk of losing it during the day. The three LEDs on the aluminum sensor allow you to follow the evolution of its activity. A vibrator is also there to warn the user of incoming calls and for the alarm function.

features

The key word of the Mi Band is simplicity. Here there is no display of the time or your progress in number of steps. 3 LEDs that flash every third of the pre-set objective (somewhat on the same principle as the Misfit Shine and its 12 LEDs), but also in the event of an incoming call on the phone. Tip: to see its progress relative to the objective, just rotate the wrist (like looking at a watch) and the LEDs are displayed. It’s the same principle as for the Apple Watch, whose screen lights up with movement.

The Mi Band captures the steps you take during the day and deduces a distance (approximate, like all its competitors) and the calories expended. Sessions are also extrapolated, without being really precise, this function is not really reliable from day to day.

The Xiaomi bracelet automatically captures sleep. It will tell you precisely the time of going to bed, falling asleep and waking up as well as the phases of deep and light sleep. The alarm clock function works well, and the bracelet will re-vibrate if you have not been able to get out of bed. You can program a single or personalized alarm clock.

Buy the Xiaomi Mi Band

A function smart alarm clock is also present, the bracelet will vibrate within 30 minutes before your alarm time, when you are in light sleep. Again, everything works fine, and I found the same sensations as with the Jawbone UP24.

The Mi Band corresponds well to my vision of Quantified Self: we forget the sensor and we recover the data when we need it, no need for them to be displayed continuously, and above all to have to switch between modes.

Mi Band Bracelet

The bracelet works great if you do not synchronize regularly with your phone. I did a Review over 3 days: no data lost. On the forums some went up to 7 days. When you know that the Withings Activity does not exceed one and a half days, the performance is quite good!

Last point, capital for a smart health connected bracelet: the battery. And there Xiaomi succeeded. Two weeks of use: 61% of battery remaining. Having browsed the forums, users usually spend the month of autonomy and the full recharge takes about 2 hours. On this point, the Mi Band is one of the most efficient smart health connected bracelets on the market !

Application

The app I tested on iOS is very simple. You can find on the main screen your detailed data on your activity for the day and your sleep phases from the previous night (in the form of graphs and tables). The way data is displayed is similar to competing applications, especially for sleep.

Mi Band Activity

Another screen allows you to see your data in the past, in the form of bars, but without being able to go into detail day by day. It’s a shame, especially for sleep, but for a device at 15 €, we can not really blame it. In addition to that, data can be synced with Apple’s Health app. By the way, and if you use the Mi Band on Android, indicate in the comments if you can synchronize it with Google Fit, the information being very contradictory on this subject… A space is dedicated to the analysis of the weight, if you have a Mi Scale.

Detailed sleep tracking

In the setting section, you can select the color of the LEDs, the vibration time for notifications, the wrist to which you wear the Mi Band and your battery level. You can also vibrate your bracelet, in case you forgot where you put it. The profile section allows you to modify your weight and activity goals. A service section allows you to link with the Health application and with WeChat.

Synchronization is as fast as that of Fitbit, which is a very positive point. We remain on the simplicity, and it is a pity not to be able to enter more precisely in the statistics of the past days (the data are displayed in the form of text, not in graphics). In any case Xiaomi offers there a very functional application, I did not experience any bugs in two weeks of use.

My opinion

After having tested it for 2 weeks, I understand better why the Xiaomi Mi Band allowed the brand to propel itself directly to second place for wearable sellers in the first quarter of 2015. Despite an (too) simple application, the data harvested are consistent with the other bracelets tested, and its autonomy is one of the best on the market. Quantified Self enthusiasts will certainly need more data analysis, but the Mi Band is perfect for those who want to go on an adventure or just follow their activity and sleep day by day, without breaking the bank.