Mi Smart Band 5

Mi Smart Band 5: Xiaomi reveals its most recent fitness tracker

Xiaomi announced a slew of new updates to its product lines today and we were happy to see the Mi Smart Band 5 among them. Here’s everything you need to know about Xiaomi’s new fitness tracker.

We loved how affordable and feature-packed the Mi Band 4 was, with our reviewer going so far as to call it the best cheap activity tracker available right now. Xiaomi has built upon the band for 2020, introducing a larger display, a 50% more accurate heart rate sensor and even a built-in period tracking app, to name a few key improvements.

Read on to find out everything you need to know about the Mi Smart Band 5, including how much it costs and when it will be available in the UK.

When will the Mi Smart Band 5 be discharged?

The Mi Smart Band 5 will launch in the UK on July 16, so you won’t have to wait long to get your hands on this incredibly affordable fitness tracker.

What amount will the Mi Smart Band 5 cost?

The Mi Smart Band 5 has an RRP of just €39.99 (or around £36), with UK pricing to be confirmed on July 16.

What highlights will the Mi Smart Band 5 have?

The first difference you might notice about the Mi Smart Band 5 is that it has a 20% larger display than its predecessor. The fitness tracker has a large 1.1-inch colour AMOLED screen with over 65 band displays to choose from. You can even customise your display by entering editing mode and choosing the info that matters most to you.

The battery supports up to 14 days of continuous use. That’s actually a downgrade from the Mi Band 4’s 20 day battery, but the larger display and new features are arguably worth having to charge your wearable every two weeks instead of three and you can still glean 20 days using power-saving mode. One highly-requested upgrade comes in the form of Xiaomi no longer requiring you to take the tracker out of its band to charge. Instead, you can now simply snap it onto the charger via the magnetic back.

The Mi Smart Band 5 has a 5 ATM water resistance rating (up to 50 metres), meaning you can take it to the pool without any issues. The tracker comes with 11 home workout modes, including upgrades to indoor cycling, elliptical, yoga, rowing machine and jump rope, the latter of which will now automatically count your jumps.

The PPG heart rate sensor is up to 50% more accurate than that on its predecessor and you can now collect more data on your sleep status, stress levels and monthly cycles from your band. There is also a new Personal Activity Intelligence (PAI) feature designed to help you better understand your health level.

You can even use your fitness tracker as a camera remote. Just pair it to your phone to snap pictures from afar with a single tap.

The Mi Smart Band 5 comes with a black strap as default, but you can choose to customise your tracker with five other colour variations. Available colours include yellow, teal, navy blue, mint green, orange and black.

Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5 Is A Cheap, Longer-Lasting Apple Watch Alternative

Xiaomi's most recent movement tracker, the Mi Smart Band 5, is a wallet inviting wearable whose constrained smarts may offer all you need from a smartwatch.

This tracker is already on sale in China as the Mi Band 5, but will now be available to buy in the West. It costs 39.99 Euro, with other prices to be confirmed.

Xiaomi's Mi Smart Band 5 does a great deal, for minimal expenditure

Tracker groups like the Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5 should cause you to consider how savvy you need your wearables to be, as its low cost and long fourteen day battery life

The Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5 will follow your rest, screen your pulse, tally steps and track work out. It can also receive notifications from your phone, including those from apps rather than just SMS and call alerts.

However, it is less smart than some pre-release rumours suggested. The Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5 does not have an SPO2 oxygen saturation readings, GPS, support for Amazon Alexa or NFC for wireless payments.

Global variants of Chinese-brand trackers often leave out NFC, as their back-end systems largely support banks in China.

What’s new?

Changes in this generation of Xiaomi band include a larger 1.1-inch AMOLED screen, up from 0.95 inches in the Band 4, and Xiaomi claims the heart rate sensor is 50 per cent more accurate this time.

The Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5 is water impervious to 5ATM, enough for swimmers, and has 11 following modes for various exercises.

Those relatively new to wearables tech may want to consider a band like this in place of a smartwatch. But comparisons with other activity trackers are more important for the clued-up tech buyer.

The Huawei Band 4 Pro and Honor Band 5 are the Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5’s top rivals.

They have smaller displays than the Xiaomi’s, at 0.95 inches. Huawei’s Band 4 Pro is a better fit for keen runners as it has its own GPS chip, and the Honor Band 5 is cheaper than either.

All three cost significantly less than the most similar bands from Samsung and Fitbit, the Galaxy Fit and Inspire HR, which comes with the territory as a Chinese-brand fitness band.

The Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5 goes on sale in Europe from 16 July, in six different band colors.

Xiaomi's Mi Smart Band 5 is missing perhaps the best element for its worldwide discharge

The Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5 is the most recent in the organization's arrangement of overwhelmingly famous wellness trackers that gives you a wrist based ally to screen your wellbeing at a strikingly minimal effort.

This latest generation fitness tracker from Xiaomi is a remarkable piece of tech for the price, but yet again I'm let down by the company's choice to not include some of its best features for its global release.

Xiaomi disclosed the Mi Band 5 not long ago in China, where the wellness tracker donned some innovation that is fit for rivaling the absolute best from Samsung, Fitbit and that's just the beginning.

The same product has now been brought to the worldwide market - you can now buy the tracker in the UK, for example - but it's missing some core components that Xiaomi obviously thinks you don't need.

What are we missing?

Precisely the same body and structure of the Chinese model are as yet included here. That includes a 1.1-inch AMOLED display, which is far bigger than the display on the Mi Band 4, and it features similar battery life and fitness tracking.

However, the more expert features of the Mi Band 5's Chinese discharge have been dropped for its worldwide variation.

Those include NFC (a technology used for mobile payments) and SpO2 blood oxygen tracking. Both of those are available on the Mi Band 5 in China, but that's not the case for its worldwide release.

While the most high-tech feature is the SpO2 sensor, I'm more gutted that we don't get NFC.

This was comparable on both the Mi Band 3 and Mi Band 4, where the tracker highlighted a NFC sensor on its Chinese discharge. That tracker is from 2018, so it's a big shame the company hasn't managed to include the feature on either of the follow ups for their worldwide releases.

Why don't we get them?

It's largely because an NFC tracker on the Mi Band 5 would be pretty much useless for those outside of China. 

The tracker uses the tech to connect to a service called Xiaomi Pay, so you can make mobile payments from your wrist, but this isn't available outside China.

That's understandable, as it's a difficult thing to introduce a fresh new mobile payment system to the world. But this has happened for three generations of Xiaomi's tracker now, and there's no sign of the company offering an alternative.

Couldn't Xiaomi partner with a third-party company to offer mobile payments on its tracker? If it did so, this would make it one of the cheapest fitness trackers with contactless credentials.

But with Fitbit Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay all offering services on fitness trackers and wearables around the world, it's a big market that Xiaomi would be able to jump in to find if it managed to do so for the Mi Band series. I'm hoping it'll happen for the Mi Band 6.