The Mi Band grows up

Xiaomi’s beloved line of Mi Band health trackers is synonymous with inexpensive pricing. What actually makes them particular, although, isn’t the low barrier of entry, it’s the worth you get in return. The Xiaomi Mi Band 7 nudged the sequence’ value up by round ~$10, however tweaks to the formulation like a brighter, bigger, always-on show and improved well being monitoring metrics ensured it was nonetheless a steal. However for the primary time, it wasn’t the one choice from the Beijing juggernaut. Xiaomi had a mannequin with additional upgrades and a smartwatch-styled look ready within the wings.

Does the larger, higher, and bolder Mi Band 7 Professional — a.okay.a. the Sensible Band 7 Professional on the worldwide stage — stretch that worth proposition too far? Discover out in Android Authority’s Xiaomi Sensible Band 7 Professional assessment.

• Xiaomi Sensible Band 7 Professional: £84.99 / €99.99 / ~$80-120

The vanilla Sensible Band 7/Mi Band 7 launched in Europe in late June 2022, however mere days later Xiaomi unveiled its second health tracker of the yr — the then China-exclusive Xiaomi Mi Band 7 Professional. It took one other 4 months for the newly-monikered Sensible Band 7 Professional to make its technique to the West.

As the primary within the sequence to hold the Professional affix, the Sensible Band 7 Professional expectedly brings a bit extra to the desk than Xiaomi’s fundamental tracker because it appears to blur the strains between health band and price range smartwatch. Gone is the pill-shape design and wrap-around silicon band, changed by an oblong face with a 1.64-inch 2.5D show, a shiny metal-coated body, and quick-release bands. The bands are additionally joined with a conventional jewellery clasp versus the Band 7’s pin-in-hole buckle.

Whereas a number of the adjustments to the wearable’s characteristic set are extra delicate than you may count on for a “Professional” mannequin, the Sensible Band 7 Professional does deliver some notable additions akin to built-in GPS help and an ambient mild sensor. It additionally homes a bigger battery (235mAh, up from 180mAh on the Band 7) in an try and offset the bigger show.

Xiaomi’s well being and health suite is carried over nearly wholesale from the Band 7, together with steady blood oxygen (SpO2) monitoring, 24-hour coronary heart fee monitoring and alerts, sleep, stress, and fundamental menstrual cycle monitoring. That is complemented by a ridiculously expansive 110+ totally different actions to trace. On-board apps can even be acquainted, although the worldwide mannequin does help Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant out of the field when enabled through the Mi Health companion app, although there are reviews that this received’t work within the US.

The Xiaomi Sensible Band 7 Professional is available in both Gentle Gold (pictured) or Graphite Grey, both of which could be mixed with a wide range of strap colours. Fake-leather straps in Pine Inexperienced or Moon Grey are additionally seemingly out there, although I couldn’t discover these on sale anyplace.

As with different Xiaomi health trackers, you possibly can’t formally purchase the Sensible Band 7 Professional in North America, nevertheless, you possibly can seize one through Amazon sellers or via import websites with out a lot hassle.

The Mi Band sequence has all the time managed to put on extra hats than you’d count on for such an affordable vary of health trackers, however its precise wardrobe has all the time been a bit missing. After seven generations of boring black drugs, the Sensible Band 7 Professional throws off its health band shackles and appears like a bonafide smartwatch; one which’s simply as suited to a brisk morning jog as it’s for informal or good put on at any time of the day.

Whereas the polycarbonate rear does threaten to undermine its premium really feel, the pronounced, curved case and metal-coated chassis are sufficient of a visible distraction for something lower than a very shut inspection. The latter will certainly scratch simpler than a real metallic body, however based mostly on my expertise it’ll take a couple of bumps and bruises earlier than displaying any apparent put on. The tempered glass additionally held up regardless of a couple of mild knocks, and the anti-fingerprint coating saved any sweaty smudges to a minimal.

Regardless of its elevated dimension and weight, the Sensible Band 7 Professional doesn’t really feel any heavier on the wrist. As a long-time Mi Band 6 consumer (and Mi Band 3 earlier than it), I can safely say that the extra bulk doesn’t register in any respect. Whereas it may need been good to see the addition of a crown or button — particularly now that there’s ample room — for an additional enter choice and to enhance the extra refined aesthetic, Xiaomi’s swipes and gestures do the job simply wonderful at this value tier.

The stretched show provides a pleasing improve in display actual property with out necessitating a a lot bigger type issue. The standard remains to be nice too; the two.5D glass falls elegantly into the body, disguising bezels that, whereas not precisely skinny, are simply ignored. Credit score to Xiaomi for additionally rising the display decision to match the pixels per inch complete of the common Band 7. Consequently, it’s simply as crisp and shiny (with a peak 500 nits), whereas benefitting from the Professional-exclusive ambient mild sensor that can dynamically regulate the brightness to match your environment.

Xiaomi claims that the Band 7 Professional is 50% bigger than the vanilla Band 7. Huge numbers are one factor, however there’s a direct sensible benefit in that the additional house permits for 2 vertical rows of apps as an alternative of 1. The app title textual content is gone, so you will have to recollect what all of the icons imply within the drawer. Nonetheless, that’s a small value to pay for not needing to scroll as fervidly to get to the proper exercise sort if you’re warmed up and able to go. The remainder of the UI has additionally been tweaked for the bigger scale, and although the end result appears much more like a watchOS wannabe now, I can consider worse selections than mimicking the preferred smartwatch platform. The watch faces are additionally way more enjoyable, with some properly scaled repeats and a few which might be unique to the bigger Band 7 machine.

There’s loads to love on the well being and health entrance — hardly a shock when it lifts the Band 7’s profitable formulation nearly wholesale. Resting and lively coronary heart fee monitoring proved correct sufficient when examined in opposition to management units. In addition to coronary heart fee alerts, the Band 7 Professional’s SpO2 monitoring can even warn you in case your blood oxygen drops under 90%. It’s definitely not a medical-grade machine, however having steady SpO2 monitoring within the first place isn’t a given at this value tier. There are tons of various exercise modes too. Maybe too many, frankly, however I’m certain somebody out there may be particularly seeking to dig deep into their checks notes snowmobile exercise statistics. It’s additionally helpful to have computerized exercise detection for frequent actions — particularly operating, strolling, treadmill, rowing, and elliptical coaching.

The largest improve to the health suite for the Sensible Band 7 Professional is built-in GPS. Now not do Mi Band customers have to lug round their telephones to get a full image of their route and associated distance stats. It performs nicely, too. It takes a couple of seconds to get a location lock, however after that, I didn’t encounter any points with connection dropouts open air all through my testing. As for accuracy, the graph above reveals a comparability strolling route with my Galaxy Watch 4. Whereas neither machine is totally on level — each veer into folks’s homes once in a while — the Band 7 Professional caught way more intently to the precise path I took. Notably, it additionally picked up on my location far faster than Samsung’s premium wearable, as you possibly can see from the delayed blue begin line.

Battery life is greatest checked out as a glass-half-full scenario. It’s definitely worse than the Band 7, which managed round every week in our testing with superior monitoring options turned on. By comparability, the Xiaomi Sensible Band 7 Professional managed round three days with the always-on show (AOD) lively, steady coronary heart fee, sleep, and SpO2 monitoring turned on, and monitoring a day by day exercise utilizing the built-in GPS. The latter is the largest drain, with a lack of round 10% battery after an hour-long stroll.

Xiaomi claims that the Sensible Band 7 professional can go upwards of 12 days at a push. That may be true should you flip off the entire monitoring and the AOD, however I’m unsure that’s obligatory. Switching off the AOD alone and falling again on the dependable raise-to-wake gesture instantly boosted endurance by a few days, and even two or three days on a single cost is way from the worst we’ve seen from smartwatch-type trackers.

For a wearable that has “Sensible” and “Professional” within the title (not less than within the West), the Xiaomi Sensible Band 7 Professional is sort of, nicely… dumb… and fundamental. It’d look fancier than the common Xiaomi Mi Band 7, however when stripped to its necessities, the performance is an identical, and with no app retailer current, there’s no means of including new apps in any respect. This creeping sense of familiarity sadly extends to the underbaked sleep monitoring, which is extremely finicky about when it truly kicks in. It additionally provides little or no in the way in which of recommendation or suggestions about your sleep patterns.

Furthering the non-Professional really feel is the lack to make cellular funds because of the lack of NFC outdoors of China. There’s nonetheless no speaker, both, so no calls, verbal exercise teaching, or message alerts past vibrations. And people vibrations are fearsome, and never in a great way. If the Sensible Band 7 Professional is resting on a desk and it will get a ping it feels like a pneumatic drill has gone off; it’s one of many few areas the place the Sensible Band 7 Professional feels low-cost.

Nonetheless, the true complications come if you boot up the Xiaomi Sensible Band 7 Professional’s companion app. The machine pushes you in direction of the Mi Health app (previously Xiaomi Put on) through a QR code on startup, and that’s for a superb purpose as a result of in contrast to older Mi Bands, the Sensible Band 7 Professional is, on the time of this writing, seemingly not appropriate with Zepp Life, f.okay.a. Mi Match — the unique Mi Band telephone app. This can be a bit complicated when you think about that the common Mi Band 7 can sync up with Zepp Life simply wonderful, however it turns into much more so if you notice that there isn’t characteristic parity between the 2. For instance, Mi Health is locked to the metric system and can’t sync with Google Match — two issues that every one different Mi Bands can do through Zepp Life, do you have to want.

It needs to be mentioned that the Mi Health app provides a extra nice visible expertise because of the Apple-like UI and homes the entire watch face customization choices. Nonetheless, I’ve all the time discovered the ever-faithful Zepp Life to be a lot clearer and fewer fussy with its presentation of health information and exercises. When you might by no means use each on the identical time anyway, the lacking options in Mi Health stick out much more if you don’t have another choice.

Lastly, whereas efficiency across the UI is usually slick when swiping between apps and exercise modes, the notifications tray is an entire different story. Typically it simply froze momentarily in my testing, however nearly the entire time it lagged and stuttered when trying to scroll between messages.

The Xiaomi Sensible Band 7 Professional is a super-sized model of an already unbelievable price range health tracker. Whether or not or not it’s price it over the common Mi Band 7 comes right down to a easy query: is the additional expenditure price it for a health tracker that appears extra like a smartwatch and doesn’t require you to hold your telephone round on a run?

In case your reply to that query is sure, then the Sensible Band 7 Professional can be an ideal purchase. It’s onerous to discover a tracker with this many options at this value. That is very true of built-in GPS help, as standard choices within the value vary just like the Fitbit Encourage 3, Amazon Halo View, Garmin Vivosmart 5, and Garmin Vivomove Sport all depend on linked GPS as an alternative. Except you desperately need a spherical face, it’s additionally a greater pseudo smartwatch than Xiaomi’s personal Watch S1 Lively if you issue within the value distinction and that they each share the identical tough software program edges (severely, Xiaomi, repair your app parity).

In case you do need a extra well-rounded, dependable expertise, the closest you’ll get at this value level is the Fitbit Versa 3 ($154.5 at Amazon) or Fitbit Cost 5 ($148.95 at Amazon) on sale. The latter is particularly attractive within the US, as when you can import the Sensible Band 7 Professional, it could push as excessive as $120, which isn’t far off the Cost 5’s typical ~$130-$150 discounted value on Amazon. The Cost 5 is undoubtedly a greater health tracker, although if yow will discover the Band 7 Professional for underneath $100 (otherwise you’re in Europe the place the retail value is already low), you’ll doubtless discover the entire pesky quirks a bit extra tolerable if you keep in mind the money you’re saving.