Xiaomi’s Redmi Smart Band Pro was launched in India a few weeks back at a price of Rs 3,999, and it comes with SpO2, heart rate and stress tracking, fitness features and a lot more. Should it be your next buy? Read the rest of our Redmi Smart Band Pro review to find out:
Redmi Smart Band Pro review: Design and Display
The design of Redmi Smart Band Pro is simple but elegant. The smart wearable has a rectangular body and houses a 1.47-inch AMOLED screen that was big enough for us to see the icons and read text easily. What’s interesting about the design of Redmi Smart Band Pro is that it comes without any buttons. So, all the functions that you may wish to perform on the smart band can be carried out with the touchscreen itself.
While the rectangular dial of the smart band is made up of Polycarbonate, the straps are Thermoplastic Polyurethane. Even when we wore the device for long durations, the material of the bands did not irritate our skin and was comfortable at all times.
Flip over and you would see all the health sensors of the smart band placed on the underside of the dial, right below the charging pins. Redmi Smart Band Pro houses a 200mAh battery and weighs 25.5 grams, which felt very light when we wore it. It is also worth noticing that the smart band is 5ATM water-resistant, which makes it perfectly fine for you to take it for a swim.
Redmi Smart Band Pro review: Performance
Before we speak about the core performance of Redmi’s smart band, let’s take a minute to discuss its software and other special features. Redmi Smart Band Pro is compatible with both Android and iOS smartphones and the process of pairing the device (to our iPhone) was fairly simple. You can perform a number of functions via the app like changing the settings, watch faces, etc.
The smart band is powered by the Ambiq Apollo 3.5 SoC and it supports Bluetooth 5 LE for connectivity. However, there is no GPS. The device has custom software and showed us all the notifications from our phone. It also notified us about incoming calls that we got. The UI of the device is very simple. Swipe right and you’ll see all the quick access buttons, and swipe right to access the widgets for SpO2, weather, fitness stats and more. Unread notifications can be found by swiping down from the top, and all the other functions can be seen by swiping up from the bottom.
But the main selling point of the device are its fitness-focused features. The smart band can record over 110 types of exercises and among these, 14 are water fitness workouts. While some of the basic ones can be found on the smart band easily, you can add the other specific ones too. Like most other fitness bands, Redmi Smart Band Pro could detect some activities just by our movement and immediately asked us to start tracking it with the exercise mode enabled. The wearable can also be used to track the wearer’s heart rate, sleep cycle, stress, SpO2 levels and menstrual cycles.
Coming to the performance of Redmi Smart Band Pro, we were thoroughly impressed. We used the device for more than a week and there are plenty of things we love about it. We had to enable a few things on the app including automatic heart rate and SpO2 tracking, advanced sleep metrics, etc.
The fitness tracking on the smart band is incredible. We compared our heart rate, SpO2levels and more with other devices and the results on Redmi Smart Band Pro either always matched or fell in the same range. Sleep tracking is another great feature and it gives an entire breakdown of the sleeping pattern of the wearer.
Tracking exercises – whether running on the treadmill or just plain walking or yoga – doesn’t disappoint either. Sometimes, there was a difference between the steps we counted and the steps the smart band showed, but it was very negligible.
The battery life of the smart band is also a plus. With no advanced features enabled, we still had 68% juice left in the smart band with a lot of days behind us. But with advanced features enabled, the battery lasted around 5 days. But on the upside, the smart band gets totally charged in an hour and a half.
Verdict
At a price of Rs 3,999, Redmi Smart Band Pro does offer a lot, especially if you are someone who likes to remain fit. The lack of GPS functionality may be a cause of concern for some, but if it’s not a deal-breaker for you, there’s a lot about the smart band that makes it a good buy. It has an elegant design and is slim and light to wear. Over that, it is water-resistant, has a lasting battery and did we mention the fitness-focussed features? Of course, we did!
Redmi Smart Band Pro Pros
- Comfortable to wear, even for a long duration
- Water resistant
- Supports over 110 fitness modes
Redmi Smart Band Pro Cons
- No GPS
- Battery drains quickly with advanced features enabled
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