Cheap fitness bands have come a long way
These days, fitness trackers come in all shapes, sizes, and price ranges. All Android smartwatches support some fitness tracking features, but many dedicated fitness trackers are best paired with health and fitness apps. One of the most successful lineups is the Xiaomi Mi Band series, and this year the Smart Band 6 earned the crown of best affordable fitness tracker.
Xiaomi (or, more accurately, Huami, the manufacturer Xiaomi licenses its fitness wearables from) has continually improved its lineup without changing the pricing too much. The Smart Band 7 is one of the more affordable options on the market, but as fitness trackers have advanced, we have to ask ourselves if the Band 7 can keep up with the pace.
The Smart Band 7 is the latest entry to Xiaomi’s successful fitness band lineup. It offers even better tracking and new advanced features like an always-on display, but its main selling point is still the sub-$50 price.
Unlike many other Xiaomi devices, the Xiaomi Smart Band 7 is available in the US and easily obtained on Amazon. Also, thanks to its Bluetooth connectivity, the Xiaomi Smart Band 7 can be used with almost any Android phone, and it's even compatible with Apple phones.
In China, the Smart Band 7 is sold in two variants. One comes with NFC-based contactless payment support and voice assistant integration, while the other doesn't. Unfortunately, Xiaomi only sells the simpler variant internationally. It's possible to import one of the NFC versions, but payment support will be wonky in the US as the Smart Band 7 is mostly meant to work with Chinese payment providers and the Chinese voice assistant.
If you've seen or used a Xiaomi Mi Band before, the Smart Band 7 should feel familiar. The device is still a pill-shaped glass and plastic puck lodged firmly in the included silicone wristband. In its black variant, it's as unobstructed as it can get. While you might not want to wear it for a fancy dinner, it will serve you just right in almost all other circumstances. It's lightweight and one of the thicker feeling fitness trackers, especially compared to smartwatches like the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5, which feels thinner thanks to its bigger overall size.
The included wristband isn't particularly exciting, but it does the job perfectly fine. It should work for everyone, with the band easily adjustable from 160 to 224mm. The band is available in different colors, though you might not be able to find a version with different colors in the US and many other markets. Given that Xiaomi Bands have a thriving third-party market for wristbands, you should be able to find one or more that suit your style and needs, though.
The build and the option to easily pry the watch out of the wristband means the device and the band are easily cleanable — which is great for a wearable designed to be on your skin 24 hours, seven days a week. In addition, its 5ATM water resistance makes it possible to clean it under running water or take it for a swim.
Compared to the Mi Smart Band 6, there are some small improvements in the Band 7. The screen grew ever so slightly and is now a 1.62-inch AMOLED with 326 pixels per inch, the same pixel density as the Band 6. The oval screen fills out almost the entire front of the device, though it still has a bigger bezel at the bottom than at the top.
By default, the Xiaomi Band 7 comes with an analog watch face that gives you details on six core stats. You can see how soon you've reached your steps, calories, Xiaomi's custom PAI stats (Personal Activity Intelligence, indicating your overall workout efficiency, similar to Fitbit's Active Zone Minutes), roughly how much battery life you've got left, the weather, and your current heart rate.
The Band 7 intelligently incorporates its pill-shaped display into that interface, using the corners to display progress bars. As good as this works, I still wish Xiaomi offered the option to pick a digital clock for this watch face. The analog clock feels overly cramped, and the small screen would be better served with a digital clock displaying hours at the top and minutes at the bottom. I'd also love to customize this watch face by, say, replacing the current weather with the date, but that's not possible. It's a shame because it's possible to switch out the complications on other watch faces.
Xiaomi's fitness bands have historically not been the most accurate, with Mi Bands way too often displaying much lower values than what a chest strap would give you while working out. That shouldn't be too surprising, considering how affordable the Mi Bands are. However, Xiaomi's manufacturer improves the accuracy with every new model, and during my testing, I can confirm that the Band 7 feels more accurate than its predecessor.
My heart rate is usually more spot-on during workouts and cycling tours, and sleep tracking got more consistent. The Smart Band 7 still can't compete with trackers from Fitbit, though. And Apple Watch should also be far out of reach for the Smart Band 7.
Things aren't all bad, though. The Smart Band 7 is one of the smallest and lightest options, making it a great everyday companion that you will mostly not even notice you're wearing. That means it can be with you in almost all circumstances, whether you're at the gym, running, riding a bike, or going for a swim. The Band gives you a great high-level overview of how you're doing overall — as long as you don't care about getting a perfect reading or a perfectly accurate graph after you're done with your workout. Plus, heart rate monitoring seems more accurate in controlled indoor settings than when you're out running or biking.
The Smart Band 7 also offers sleep tracking. Compared to bands from Fitbit and other manufacturers, Xiaomi's sleep tracking doesn't seem as accurate, but it's definitely getting there. The Band 7 is much better than its predecessor at discerning lying in bed from sleeping, and it notices when you wake up at night. While I'm not sure how accurate the sleep tracking cycles are (especially when compared to semi-professional sleep tracking and heart rate tracking equipment), it usually gives me a broad overview of how many hours of high-quality sleep I got in during a given night.
One night, however, the tracker failed to notice that I was sleeping. The Band decided to stop tracking my sleep at 2:00 am for no discernible reason and claimed that I had slept less than three hours. It didn't help that the Mi Fitness app labeled that 3-hour sleep as "not bad," saying, "napping boosts your energy and performance," all while completely disregarding that this was not supposed to be a nap but a full night's sleep. As long as Xiaomi keeps battling this issue, it will have difficulty competing with other products that offer sleep tracking.
Depending on how you use the Smart Band 7, it can last for a few days or more than two weeks. There are endless options to customize how much tracking you'd like to take place in the background, which can be overwhelming to navigate and manage (but more on that later). When you enable the always-on display option (which is new to the Xiaomi Band series) and turn on all the health tracking features, you'll be lucky to get through a week. Usually, I was looking at about three to four days with this kind of usage.
Once you turn off the always-on display, you can expect at least one week of battery life. And when you disable a few more energy-intense background tracking features, like SpO2 tracking while sleeping or continuous heart-rate tracking, you can easily get more than two weeks out of the device.
It's a bummer that Xiaomi still ships a USB-A-based charging cable that's inseparable from the charging pins that magnetically attach to the back of the device. For many people, USB-C would probably be more useful at this point. The charging process still takes fairly long, given the battery size and what we expect from some phones these days. The Band 7 will not be fully charged by the time you get out of the shower if you were hoping to use that time for a quick charge.
Xiaomi's Smart Band 7 is still based on a so-called real-time operating system, but it's somewhat easier and more visual to navigate compared to its predecessors. A swipe from the top reveals notifications mirrored from your phone, and you can swipe left and right through a few compilations like weather, music controls, and more. A swipe up gives you access to the apps available on the device, including overviews of your fitness stats, the clock and timer, workout options, blood oxygen measurements, and settings.
As simple as the system is to navigate, getting through all the settings can be an ordeal on the small screen. Xiaomi spreads out different settings and options across the Band's own settings and the companion app, which can make setting certain things up pretty complicated.
The Smart Band 7 is paired with the Mi Fitness app on Android phones. Much like Fitbit and other competitors, it gives you an overview of your health, workouts, and all the relevant stats acquired by the Band. The app additionally serves as a hub for updating your Smart Band, tweaking some workout settings, and more.
You also need to use the app to set up notification mirroring from your phone, which can be a hassle depending on your phone's manufacturer. The app provides you with some details on what you need to watch out for to give the Band access to notifications and how to ensure that you will get notifications promptly, but you might have to go through some trial and error. It's just an unfortunate truth for any fitness tracker you pair with Android.
Once you've figured it out, though, Xiaomi makes it easy to pick and choose which notifications you'd like on your wrist. You can either mirror all notifications you get on your phone or select your preferred app notifications. The app lets you tweak exactly which stats you'd like the Band to collect. For example, you can enable or disable continuous heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen stats, sleep tracking, stress and standing alerts, and more.
If you consider the price, the Smart Band 7 isn't a bad buy. At less than $50, you will be hard-pressed to find another wearable that is just as fully featured as the Xiaomi Smart Band 7. Of course, you can't expect the best possible experience or tracking results from a device in this budget range, but it will serve you well for a broad overview of your health. If you don't care for that, the Smart Band 7 is also an excellent wrist buzzer that lets you know whenever you have a new notification on your phone.
However, the air is getting increasingly thin for Xiaomi. The Fitbit Inspire 2 is currently not much more expensive than the Smart Band 7 at less than $70. While it only offers a mono color screen and Fitbit is notorious for poorer notification syncing performance, its health tracking features are more accurate. However, I always miss Fitbit's automatic workout tracking on Xiaomi Bands, as Fitbit made it possible for me to log my routine bike rides as workouts without having to remember to do it manually each time.
The Fitbit Charge 5 is arguably more premium than the Xiaomi Smart Band 7. It offers a better build quality with bands that make the tracker feel and look like it fits much better on the wrist, and it offers better fitness tracking and improved heart rate monitoring. At $180, it's more than three times the price of the Smart Band 7, though, so you need to be willing to spend that kind of money on a fitness tracker. The Smart Band 7 is still a great entry-level option, but as we said in the review, don't expect miracles out of its hardware.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 is much more than a fitness tracker. It's a full Wear OS watch complete with third-party app support and the option to customize your watch face more extensively. The Watch 5 is also a great fitness tracker, working in conjunction with Samsung Health. The thing is that all this comes at a price. In contrast to the sub-$50 Smart Band 7, the Galaxy Watch 5 starts at $280. The Smart Band 7 might be less versatile, but it also costs much less.
Manuel Vonau is Android Police’s Google Editor, focusing on Android, Chrome, smartphone reviews, and other software Google products — the core of Android Police’s content. He joined Android Police as a news writer in 2019. He lives in Berlin, Germany.
Before joining Android Police, Manuel studied Media and Culture studies in Düsseldorf, finishing his university career with a master’s thesis that offers a smooth transition to his job today, titled “The Aesthetics of Tech YouTube Channels: Production of Proximity and Authenticity.” This background gives him a unique perspective on the ever-evolving world of technology and its implications on society. He isn’t shy to dig into technical backgrounds and the nitty-gritty developer details, either.
Manuel’s first steps into the Android world were plagued by issues. After running into connectivity problems with the HTC One S, he quickly switched to a Nexus 4, which he considers his true first Android phone. Since then, he has mostly been faithful to the Google phone lineup, though these days, he is also carrying an iPhone in addition to his Pixel phone. This helps him gain perspective on the mobile industry at large and gives him multiple points of reference in his coverage.
Outside of work, Manuel enjoys a good film or TV show, loves to travel, and you will find him roaming one of Berlin’s many museums, cafés, cinemas, and restaurants occasionally.