Last month, HUAWEI debuted the HUAWEI Band 6, the company’s newest smart band, in India. In comparison to the HUAWEI Band 4 Pro, this boasts a massive 1.47-inch AMOLED 2.5D touch screen with a 148 percent larger display area. It features 24-hour blood oxygen (SpO2) monitoring in addition to 24-hour heart rate monitoring, which is not offered even in the significantly cheaper HONOR band6. Is the cost justified? Let’s take a look at the review to see what we can learn.
Design and Build
Starting with the design, the HUAWEI Band 6 boasts a distinctive screen design that, because of its huge 1.47-inch screen, seems more like a smartwatch than a band. Bezels can be seen all around the screen. The HONOR Band 5 measures 43 25.4 10.45 mm and weighs 18 grams (without the strap), whereas this one measures 43 17.2 11.5 mm and weighs 22.7 grams.
The body is made of polycarbonate. It has a 5ATM water resistance rating, allowing you to wear it while swimming. There’s a 6-axis IMU sensor (accelerometer, gyroscope), an optical heart rate sensor, a PPG heart rate sensor, and a SpO2 sensor included. In comparison to the HONOR Band 5 & HUAWEI Band 4, it employs Bluetooth 5.0 LE.
Display and features
The Band 6 sports a brilliant 1.47-inch 283PPI AMOLED color touch screen 2.5D curved glass display with a resolution of 152 486 pixels. Scratch-resistant glass in three dimensions. You may program it to turn on when you raise your hand, and the screen will switch off after a few seconds to conserve energy. It’s still prone to fingerprints and isn’t scratch-proof. The touch screen is easy to use and has a 148 percent larger display surface than the HUAWEI Band 4 Pro, allowing for more content to be displayed.
Fitness and sleep tracking
There are 96 different exercise modes on the HUAWEI Band 6, including 11 professional training modes including indoor and outdoor jogging, cycling, and rope skipping, as well as 85 more customizable activities like fitness, ball games, and dance. Automatic workout tracking is available for walking, running, elliptical, and rowing machines.
You can get a route map, distance, calories burned, steps, average speed, tempo, stride, average heart rate, heart rate zones, and even recovery time right from the band for outdoor workouts like running. When compared to the Mi Watch Revolve Active, the steps tracking is virtually as accurate. Tracking with the phone’s GPS is good even if it doesn’t have a built-in GPS. For outdoor workouts, getting the GPS from the phone takes only a few seconds. However, I was unable to obtain a GPS lock straight from the band and instead had to manually activate the running option in the app, which then appeared in the band. Because the band has a button, you may utilize it to pause or stop the workout.
Heart rate and SpO2 monitoring
The band illuminates the blood artery for a short time with LED lights and photodiodes, then measures the heart rate based on the amount of green light absorbed. Although you can’t say it’s 100 percent accurate, heart rate measurements — both resting and activity — are nearly as accurate as a blood oximeter gadget. The band itself displays a graph of heart rate and SpO2 throughout the day. When compared to an oximeter, SpO2 or blood oxygen monitoring is virtually as accurate. The software also tracks your stress levels throughout the day.
