Playing with Xiaomi Smart Band 9 and a Fairphone 4

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Yesterday I went on a bike ride with a Xiaomi Smart Band 9 and a Fairphone 4. I wanted to see two things. The first was to see if the GPS track would be accurate for the entire ride, as well as how much battery power would be squandered in the process. I was happy with the result. After a two hour bike ride I had depleted about 20 percent of the battery since I unplugged that phone in the morning.

When I checked while writing this blog post I saw that Mi fit used just 2 percent of the battery, and I didn’t charge it since yesterday morning. You might think "but why would I want a Smart Band 9 made by a Chinese company and the answer is that it’s cheap. At 40 CHF and 21 days of battery life for the device, depending on how much you want it to track it’s the type of device that you can wear for two weeks, run, walk and cycle with, and then charge every few weeks.

With the Apple Watch SE you need to charge every day, and with the 45S you need to charge every two or three days. With the Garmin Instinct Solar you may need to charge once per month, or less, depending on whether it is summer in Spain and you walk just an hour or two a day.

Another advantage is that you can get the 40 CHF device to feed the Suunto app with data. This means that you get to see your progress, recovery and more in detail. To get a Suunto watch could cost between 300-700 CHF. It lacks HRV tracking to see detailed recovery information.

If you’re curious about why I am making a point of mentioning the Fairphone 4 in contrast to an iOS phone the reason is simple. When I tracked runs and walks with the iPhone SE it stopped tracking during my activities so I saw straight lines from one tracking point to another. It made the distance information worthless. With the Fairphone 4, and android more generally tracking is constant, and battery use is reasonable.

Phone Requirement

Although I always have my phone with me it has annoyed me, more than once, that I can’t just track my heart rate and steps, that it requires access to the phone and location data to start tracking. I think that’s why, when I started the ride, it didn’t start tracking when I thought I had told it to. I would expect a device with no GPS to track, whether it had location data or not.

And Finally

The Smart Band 9 will not replace your Garmin Edge Explore or your Garmin Instinc Solar or even your Apple Watch SE. It’s an interesting entry level device for those that want to experiment with fitness trackers without spending too much.

I would go further. The Suunto Peak 5 is a nice device but the GPS is mediocre so if you’re running and want accurate distance tracking then an android phone and Xiaomi Smart band 9 might be a better investment. The Suunto mobile app is free, and good to use, so it’s worth using the Band 9 with the Suunto app.