Speaking of smart wearables, the smart band is definitely the most popular category in terms of its rich fitness-tracking features and great value for money.
For years, HUAWEI wasn’t probably the first brand name that came into your mind for smart wearables. However, this year, you must seriously consider its latest fitness tracker first, the HUAWEI Band 6.
Huawei Band 6 Review: Design
In the past few years, we have stopped expecting fancy designs on a smart band product. A simple display with smart features was often enough.
But take a look at the HUAWEI Band 6. It’s interesting that Huawei has revamped the design of the Band 6. Its 1.47-inch AMOLED rectangular display makes it stand out from the competition. This display can almost catch up to the display on the Huawei Watch Fit.
Compared to another hot smart band, the Mi Band 6, this display form factor is better to show content with reasonable interface layouts. And more importantly, the thinner dial (10.99mm) allows the band to fit to my wrist skin better, which greatly reduces the discomfort I feel when wearing bands for a long time and even sleeping with it.
The skin-friendly silicone strap is removable. Huawei officially offers the changeable straps in 4 colors (Black, Orange, Green, and Pink).
Huawei Band 6 Review: Fitness & Health features
It’s obvious that HUAWEI has made great efforts to improve its health-centric products this year. As HUAWEI’s entry-level fitness tracker, the HUAWEI Band 6 is able to track all the basic health data that you can have on a basic wrist wearable, including step count, all-day heart rate, all-day SpO², caloric burn, all-day stress, sleep, and so on. It also supports 96 workout modes, which is quite rare in this price range, although out of the 96, only 85 modes support basic tracking. With the support of Huawei’s professional sports algorithms, the other 11 modes are much detailed and professional in fitness tracking. Under the 11 modes, in addition to basic activity tracking, users can check their maximum oxygen uptake, recovery time, and training stress.
For example, when tracking a run the band will give you accurate route, pace frequency and length, training stress, recovery time, and more. And all these data will immediately be sync to the connected smartphone, which is even more detailed, and the app can accordingly generate a short video of the dynamic route on the map.
Besides all-day heart rate tracking, the Huawei Band 6 supports all-day blood oxygen monitoring too, which is not available even on the Mi Band 6. And the all-day blood oxygen monitoring can work well with its professional sleep monitoring, and give users more accurate records and advice for improving sleep quality. In our experience, Huawei’s TruSleep™ technology was more accurate and detailed in sleep tracking, and the results seem to be better than the Mi Band’s. Actually, it’s rare that a budget tracker can track blood oxygen all day.
Huawei Band 6 Review: Software
About the band’s software support, the Huawei Health app is one of the most detailed and functional fitness tracking APPs that we’ve seen on the Android platform. But the app in iOS is not as well-optimized as on Android. For example, camera remote control is not available on iOS, and neither is the music control feature. But if you are using an Android phone, especially a Huawei phone, the software support is quite satisfying. Or you can also connect Huawei Health to Google Fit and check all the health data in the Google app. But it seems that the HUAWEI Band 6 doesn’t support the connection with other health Apps.
Most notably, the software of the band itself is quite simple, which means it doesn’t support the installation of third-party apps. But on the other hand, the lightweight software also leads to a smooth touch response. During oue 10-day use, the band rarely lagged or confused me with its software.
The Band supports 5ATM waterproof rating, which means that it can be used for shallow-water activities such as normal swimming. But it is not suitable for underwater activities like diving.
Huawei Band 6 Review: Battery Life
As for its battery life, considering that we turned on almost all tracking features, I have no complaints about it since I charged it once around 10 days ago. And it still has 13% of power left. As estimated, it’s quite safe to wear it for around 10 days in a heavy use routine without charging it.
Considering the HUAWEI Band 6 is a well-functional, inexpensive fitness tracker, by far it is at the top of our recommended list. If you are simply looking for a reliable budget health tracker with good software experience, the Huawei Band 6 is really a safe option for you in 2021.
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