Review: Xiaomi Mi Band

I bought my mom a Xiaomi Mi Band 2, so her old optical heart rate Mi Band landed in my hands. I tried wearing it on my right wrist, since my left one already has a Moto 360 2nd.

Honestly I wasn’t expecting much from this thing. I even installed the pairing app on my backup Nexus 5X. My demands were low — mostly I just wanted to see if it could track my sleep quality, and whatever else it did, whatever. Since it has an alarm function, I set an alarm on it identical to the one on the Moto 360 2nd.

The original band strap was disgustingly filthy, so I swapped on a spare yellow one that came free when I bought the thing.

After a week of use, my opinion of this thing has flipped completely. Sometimes I even think it’s more useful than the Moto 360.

1. First off, with everything turned on, battery life looks like it’ll clear three weeks. I’ve used it over a week and it’s still at 82%.
2. Then there’s the vibration alert, which is genuinely useful. With the alarm, it starts buzzing you a minute early, and a tap cancels it — but if you still haven’t gotten up or moved, it’ll buzz you again after a bit. That keeps you from lying in. My phone alarm is useless to me now; I can shut it off in my sleep while sleepwalking.
3. Next is vibration for message notifications. Only key messages trigger it — SMS, WhatsApp, that sort of thing. No screen, but it still lets you know. Incoming calls go without saying.
4. Sleep tracking seems reasonably reliable. My daily sleep tracking has been pretty on point.
5. It’s genuinely waterproof. I’ve worn it for a long stretch, showers included, no problem.
6. Bluetooth syncing seems to depend on the phone. My mom’s Xiaomi often fails to sync, while the Nexus 5X syncs with no issue at all — never once had a problem.
7. Comfort is a bit lacking. Sometimes it digs into my wrist.
8. I tested the heart rate and it reads the same as the Moto 360. It only measures when you actively test it; the exercise mode seems to measure continuously, but I’m too broken right now to go running, so I can’t test that.

All in all, the experience is way better than that crappy Bong 2 band I used before. The Xiaomi app, if you download the Play version, seems pretty well-behaved — maybe because it’s aimed at the international market.

Overall it’s much better than I expected. Cheap, and the features are actually useful — especially the vibration, which hits just right. Buzzes me senseless…

I mean the vibration feels great as an alert… Anyway, it’s pretty cool.