Redmi Smart Band Pro Review: Best fitness tracker on budget?
Redmi Smart Band Pro price in India
In India Redmi Smart Band Pro The price of this fitness band is Rs 3,999, but under a limited time offer, the company is selling it for Rs 3,499. This new fitness band of the company is available for sale from February 14.
Redmi Smart Band Pro design
In Redmi Smartband Pro, you get to see a rectangular polycarbonate body, which has a 1.47-inch AMOLED display. The panel is quite large and clear, in which the text can be read easily without straining the eyes. The display has an always on mode and its ambient light sensor adjusts the brightness automatically. There is no button in its body and navigation can be done through touch. The band uses TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) strap, which Mi Band 6 They are curved like a knife. They can be easily removed using the connector on the strap, and no tools are required for this.
The fitness band has health sensors at the bottom of its body, which are fitted inside the pill-shaped bump. Contact pins are also provided at the same place for charging it. Magnets are provided in its charger, which makes it very easy to put the fitness band on charging.
The device is very light and weighs only 25.5 grams. It doesn’t feel much once it is tied on the wrist. I even slept wearing it, but still I did not face any problem. It has a 200mAh battery and it is 5ATM water resistant.
Redmi Smart Band Pro software and features
Apart from Android, Redmi Smart Band Pro can also be paired with iOS smartphones. On Android, it can be paired with Xiaomi Wear and on iOS, it can be paired through the Xiaomi Wear Lite app. The pairing process is quite simple and requires a Mi Account. After pairing, its settings can also be changed through the app. These apps support many Mi and Redmi wearables and are very easy to use. You can also change the watchface through the app. For this, 50 watchfaces have been provided in the device. You can also set any photo present in the phone’s photo gallery on the watchface.
The Redmi Smart Band Pro fitness band is powered by Ambiq Apollo 3.5 SoC and runs on custom software. For connectivity, the device has Bluetooth 5 LE. The lack of GPS is disappointing and it has to rely on the smartphone to record the correct location. You can see the notifications of the smartphone on the fitness band and it also gives alerts for incoming calls.
You can track about 110 types of workouts on this fitness band, which also includes 14 water fitness exercises. Commonly available workouts like walking, running, cycling, tracking, HIIT and swimming can be activated quickly. It recognizes activities like running, walking and treadmill and suggests to start. Apart from this, it can also do heart rate tracking, SpO2, sleep, stress and menstrual cycle tracking. It can track heart rate continuously and can also track SpO2 level while sleeping, but these features are already disabled to reduce power consumption. You can turn them on from the settings.
The user interface (UI) of the device is very simple. On a right swipe from the home screen, you get quick toggles and on a left swipe you get widgets like heart rate, SPO2, weather, workout. On swiping from the top to the bottom of the screen, you get notifications of the paired smartphone and on swiping from the bottom to the top, you get all the functions of the smartband.
Redmi Smart Band Pro performance and battery life
I used the Redmi SmartBand Pro for a week and found it quite comfortable to wear all the time. The display was easy to read in outdoor conditions, but in a dark room, it was too bright even with the auto brightness mode on. The interface was easy to use, but scrolling wasn’t very smooth initially. This problem was resolved after the software update 1.1.127 that came during the review period. The raise-to-wake feature worked perfectly and the display would turn on when I raised my wrist. Then it would turn off again when I lowered my hand.
Apart from automatic heart rate and SpO2 monitoring, I had to manually enable app notifications and advanced tracking metrics through the app. I set it to monitor my heart rate every minute and SpO2 every 30 minutes after I fell asleep, while setting it to vibrate for incoming notifications.
The band is quite accurate in terms of fitness tracking. I compared its heart rate monitoring with Apple Watch Series 7 I tried monitoring my heart rate every 10 minutes and the results were almost identical. Setting it to monitor heart rate every 1 minute took a toll on battery life, but the results were more useful. Sleep tracking was also quite accurate. The device monitored SpO2 well even while I was sleeping. I then took readings of myself during the day and found that the readings were similar to the range of a medical-grade pulse oximeter.
I also used the Redmi Smartband Pro for an evening walk. Since it does not have built-in GPS, it relies on the paired smartphone. Without GPS, the result was less than the actual distance covered. I covered a distance of 1 km, while the device showed 0.96 km. Then after pairing it with the smartphone, it showed better results and showed the same distance covered as 1.02 km.
As I mentioned earlier, it automatically detects some workout activity. I started walking and the device recognized it within a minute. I counted 1,000 steps and it showed 1,002. This slight difference is normal in this price range.
Its battery capacity is 200mAh, but still it gives good backup. But it depends a lot on the way of usage. I used Always On Display, set heart rate monitoring at one minute interval, set SpO2 monitoring at every half hour and also used the advanced sleep tracking option. App notifications were also turned on and it was also tracking my outdoor walks every day.
Even after such heavy usage, it lasted for 4.5 days. However, the company has claimed 14 days of battery backup for it. By using some less features, you can run it for a week on a single charge. With the help of magnetic charger, it can be easily put on charging and the battery gets fully charged in less than one and a half hours.
Verdict
last year Redmi Watch After reviewing the Redmi Smart Band Pro, I liked it but it lacked SpO2 monitoring. The company paid attention to this and fulfilled it in the Redmi Smart Band Pro. If compared to the Redmi Watch, this fitness band only lacks GPS. If you have a habit of carrying a smartphone while going for a walk, then it can be expected that this fitness band will be able to track the walk properly.
All the features of a fitness band are available in this device and it has been launched at a good price. If you do not want to spend much, you can also choose Mi band 6. It is also cheaper in price and gives almost the same feel. Direct competition with Smart Band Pro Honor Band 6 which offers similar features at the same price range.
