Table of Contents
Xiaomi Smart Band 7 Review Rating
Summary
The Xiaomi Smart Band 7 has plenty of health and fitness trackers features as well as useful push notifications from your phone all for a relatively low price. It is an excellent option, but the price jump might mean other brands are worth considering.
Pros
- Plenty of features for anyone just getting into fitness
- Strava support
Cons
- Big jump in price vs the Xiaomi Smart Band 6
The Xiaomi Smart Band range of fitness trackers has been one of the best options on the market for several years now. They offer a massive number of features at a bargain price that likely contributed to the significant decline in popularity of Fitbit.
The Xiaomi Smart Band 7 is the yearly iterative upgrade. This year brings some nice improvements, including a larger display and all-day health tracking features.
Xiaomi Smart Band 7 vs Band 6 Specification
The below specification table shows the differences between Smart Band 7 and the Band 6. There have been quite a few improvements, the main one being a significantly improved display and a larger battery, which not only maintains the two-week battery life but extends it to 15 days.
Fitness modes have been increased to 120, but this is just an annoying marketing gimmick, there is no functional difference. I think companies like Xiaomi/Huawei/Honor should just allow you to create your own fitness profiles.
SpO2 has been upgraded to continuous. Manual readings were boarding on useless, and now it is marginally less useless.
More useful are the new VO2 max, Recovery Time and Training load.
| Xiaomi Mi Band 7 | Xiaomi Mi Band 6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Display | 1.62-inch AMOLED | 1.56-inch AMOLED |
| Always-on display mode | Tempered glass with anti-fingerprint coating | |
| 2.5D tempered glass | 152 x 486 resolution | |
| 192 x 490 resolution | 326ppi | |
| Up to 500 nits | Up to 450 nits | |
| 100+ band displays | 60+ band displays | |
| Sensors | PPG heart rate sensor | PPG heart rate sensor |
| 3-axis accelerometer sensor | 3-axis accelerometer sensor | |
| 3-axis gyroscope sensor | 3-axis gyroscope sensor | |
| SpO2 sensor | SpO2 sensor | |
| Connected GPS | Connected GPS | |
| Battery | 180mAh | 125mAh |
| 15 day typical battery life | 14 day promised battery life | |
| 9 days with heavy use | ||
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 5.2 | Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Tracking and other features | 120 fitness modes | 30 fitness modes |
| Continuous SpO2 tracking with low blood oxygen alerts | 6 auto detection modes | |
| Sleep tracking | SpO2 tracking | |
| Breathing exercises | Sleep tracking | |
| Stress monitoring | Breathing exercises | |
| Female health tracking | Stress monitoring | |
| PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence) | Female health tracking | |
| VO2 Max calculations | PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence) | |
| Aerobic/anaerobic training alerts | Idle alerts | |
| Recovery time | Camera remote shutter | |
| Training load | NFC (limited to Chinese NFC model) | |
| Idle alerts | ||
| Camera remote shutter | ||
| NFC (limited to NFC model) | ||
| Water resistance | 5ATM | 5ATM |
| App compatibility | Mi Fitness app | Mi Fitness app |
| Zepp Life app | Zepp Life app | |
| Charging method | Magnetic charging | Magnetic charging |
| Dimensions | 46.5 x 20.7 x 12.25mm | 47.4 x 18.6 x 12.7mm |
| Strap: 155 – 219mm | ||
| Colors | Black, Blue, Orange, Pink, White, Dark Green, Fluorescent Orange, Fluorescent Green, Camouflage Blue, Camouflage Green. | Black, Orange, Yellow, Olive, Ivory, Blue |
Design
The design hasn’t really changed from previous generations; it is still very much a fitness tracking band. Competing brands like Huawei have shifted their designs to be a bit more watch shaped. You may prefer the larger display on something like the Huawei Band 6, but you could easily argue that the Xiaomi Smart Band 7 is a bit more discrete.
The main part of the Xiaomi Smart Band 7 is just one oblong piece of plastic. You then have a silicon strap which it slots in to. This makes the bands both durable and cheap to replace, with plenty of colour options to choose from. Xiaomi sells its own, but you can pick up lots of third-party options on Amazon.
This has a small magnetic charger that automatically grips into place. This works much better than the weak magnetic charger on the Xiaomi Watch S1 Active or the Huawei Watch Fit 2.
The optical heart rate monitor has one small green LED with two sensors above and below it. It is unlikely that this is going to be the most accurate HRM ever, but good enough for an affordable tracker.
Xiaomi Smart Band 7 Features and Health Tracking
For quite a few of the health features, you will need to switch on all-day tracking. This will significantly impact the battery life and reduce it to about a week, but I think it is well worth it and a week is plenty.
Within the sleep tracking, you will also want to switch on advanced monitoring and breathing score.
All the health tracking features work well, providing a similar quality of data to the more expensive Xiaomi watches and competing brands.
One of the main reasons I wear a smartwatch is for the notifications. By default, only phone notifications and SMS comes through, you will then want to go into the settings and toggle whichever apps you want notifications from.
Xiaomi Smart Band 7 Fitness Tracking / Strava
The Mi Fitness app has native Strava support, and it is one of the reasons why I have been a big fan of Xiaomi wearables in several of my recent reviews. Strava may not be as important for the type of users that buy cheap fitness trackers, but it is still a plus point.
There is no GPS built into this; therefore, it uses the GPS on your phone.
You get plenty of data for any activity you do. For running, you get BPM, calories, pace, steps.
You then get a breakdown of your heart rate during the activity and the various zones.
Also, you have a breakdown of splits and your cadence.
Finally, you have the training effect which is similar to the data you would get on a Garmin.
When you run outside, you should also get a VO2 Max reading, and this can be a good indication of your fitness improving, but it is rarely accurate (even for expensive Garmin watches).
Overall, it is pretty good, and if you are just getting into exercise, there is more than enough data to work off.
Battery
Most fitness trackers have a superb battery, and the same is true here. Without all the health features enabled, you should get a couple of weeks’ battery, but this will roughly drop in half with everything enabled.
Charging a device once a week is more than good enough for me.
Price and Alternative Options
The Xiaomi Smart Band 7 is priced at just £54.99. You can get the older Mi Smart Band 6 for around £40 or the Band 6 NFC for £45.
There is also the Redmi Smart Band Pro (which is almost the same as the Xiaomi Mi Band 6) for £38.44.
The Huawei Band 7 has recently launched for £49.99, with the older Band 6 still selling for £44.99.
The Honor Band 6 is £45 on Amazon, but there is a 15% off voucher available.
The Fitbit Inspire 2 is available for £58.
Previous Launch Prices
Perhaps the main criticism I have with this is the ever-increasing price. There is a £15 jump this year which is significantly more than in previous years.
- Xiaomi Mi Band 3: £19.99/$19.99
- Xiaomi Mi Band 4: £34.99/$34.99
- Xiaomi Mi Band 5: £39.99/$39.99
- Xiaomi Mi Band 6: £39.99/$39.99
- Xiaomi Mi Band 6 NFC: £49.99
The price of everything has increased a lot in the past year, so it is not really that surprising that this has also jumped in price. However, with the launch price of £55, this is 10% more expensive than the recently launched Huawei Band 6.
Overall
As always, with these affordable fitness trackers, I struggle to find anything to criticise, factoring in the price of the product. They offer a wide range of features and are great value for money for anyone wanting a cheap way to get into fitness tracking.
Pricing has been creeping up, but Xiaomi has made a decent amount of improvements with this model, and I still think this provides excellent value for money.
Last update on 2022-06-19 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
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