Honor had an official event in China earlier today where it announced the new Honor 9X series. Alongside the new models, the company also unveiled its brand new wearable, the Honor Band 5, which directly takes on Xiaomi’s Mi Band 4. While the new Honor band goes neck to neck with the Mi Band 4 in terms of features, it has an edge thanks to its blood oxygen level sensor.
The Honor Band 5 comes with a 0.95-inch AMOLED color display with 282 PPI and 2.5D glass on top. The band features a number of new dials to match the different needs of the user. What’s really the highlight of the new smart band is the blood oxygen level sensor. It can measure your blood SpO2 levels, indicating the level of oxygen in your blood. This is a game-changing feature for a smart band that costs less than $30, clearly giving it an edge over Xiaomi’s Mi Band 4.
Other features are standard, including a 24 x 7 heart rate monitoring sensor, sleep monitor with the ability to detect six different types of sleeping problems, and 10 different sports modes that include indoor and outdoor running, cycling, swimming, and a few other cardio activities. Just like the Mi Band 4, the Honor band is waterproof up to 50 meters, so you can wear the wearable while swimming to track your calories.
The Honor Band 5 has two versions, a standard one and an NFC-enabled one. Features usually found on other smart bands like remote camera capture, smart reminders, find your phone, etc are also available on the wearable. The smart band can keep these features running for a good 14 days. That’s less than what Mi Band 4 offers but with a SpO2 sensor on board, it feels like decent battery life.
The Honor Band 5 starts at 189 Yuan ($28) for the standard version and goes up to 219 Yuan ($31) for the NFC version. The standard version will be up for sale in China later today while the NFC version goes on sale on July 29 on Vmall and other online retailers. The band will be made available in three colors, black, blue, and light pink.
