Xiaomi Band 8

Product Information

Gone is the long-standing unibody design of older Mi Bands/Smart Bands, and in its place are now the more typical slot connections on each end.

Band 8 review - Wareable Xiaomi Smart Band 8 review - Wareable

There are thankfully some insights that are a bit more useful, though, and they generally come from when the device is instead attached to your running shoe. Pebble Mode The Smart Band 8’s battery capacity doesn’t take the same leap forward as we saw with its predecessor, but it is still bigger - and you can expect the newer device to be fairly long-lasting. Xiaomi also continues to mimic plenty of the more advanced insights you’ll find on Apple and Garmin devices - such as training load, recovery time, and VO2 max - but none of these are really anything close to being useful. Some, like Garmin and Oura, simply take your lowest heart rate reading from sleep, while others, like Xiaomi and Apple, instead look for your lowest reading when you’re in an awake and inactive state. And if the battery is low and you're seeking a bit of juice to get you through the day, charging speeds are also rapid. Our test unit managed to shoot from 10% to fully charged in around 45 minutes. Should you buy it?Steps are sometimes massively underreported compared to our other test devices - the Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) and Oura Gen 3 - while calorie burn estimates are also very unpredictable. In its condition out of the box, with most of those power-intensive features turned off, as we mentioned above, the battery drain is very minimal. Typically, we saw it lose around 5-7% per day, which roughly equates to Xiaomi’s estimate of 16 days.

Band 8 - Xiaomi UK Xiaomi Smart Band 8 - Xiaomi UK

Typical usage mode test conditions for the Xiaomi Smart Band 8: Fully charged, factory default settings, and static display, with high-precision sleep monitoring, in-sleep breathing quality monitoring and all-day stress monitoring turned off. Heart rate monitoring every 30 minutes and message notifications (100 messages, 10 calls, and 3 alarms per day) enabled; wrist raised to engage screen 200 times per day; app data synchronised once per day; blood oxygen manually measured twice per day; and exercise monitoring for 60 minutes per week.

This isn’t necessarily a negative, though. You can’t have it all at this price point, after all, and the few smarts present here actually work very well. Even with just these two core changes, the Smart Band 8 appears to be one of the most significant upgrades in years - and that's before considering the cheaper price tag, slightly bigger battery, and refined screen. Like with some health features, the Smart Band 8’s more advanced sleep monitoring is turned off by default, which means you’ll initially only be given very basic data.

Band 8 hands-on: Comprehensive fitness tracking on a budget Xiaomi Smart Band 8 hands-on: Comprehensive fitness tracking on a

The omission of GPS continues to be a bit of a killer, and means you’ll have to take your phone with you if you want any kind of reliable distance data. And even then, we’ve found this to be pretty poor - distances are often underreported and location trails in the app are essentially non-existent. Notifications may be a little cramped on that 1.64-inch display, and you still don’t have the ability to really do anything with them other than view, but they are at least customizable through the Mi Fitness app and come through reliably. Xiaomi’s proprietary OS is also very zippy - a feeling that's is aided by that bump-up in refresh rate we referenced earlier. We should note, though, that resting heart rate figures are always gathered slightly differently between manufacturers. Interestingly, the Mi Fitness app will still point out your lowest HR from a particular 24-hour period, as shown above, and this was always very in tune with our Oura and Garmin.

While we’ve seen previous Smart Band devices barely change from their predecessors, the Smart Band 8 offers some genuine reasons to get excited.

Band 8 Active - Xiaomi UK Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Active - Xiaomi UK

And while this does add some polish to the operating system, we should say again that there’s still very little in terms of smart features to get excited about here. I've already mentioned the 6-axis motion sensor, but that's also joined by a heart-rate sensor on the underside which delivers your all-day heart-rate and blood oxygen saturation readings. And largely thanks to being able to see that shiny metal frame, the look has now elevated far above previous generations. There is, at least, breathing rate data available - again, you’ll have to find this and turn it on in the companion app’s settings - though this is still in beta. And when we did turn this on, nothing appeared in our sleep reports. AOD mode test conditions for the Xiaomi Smart Band 8: Fully charged, factory default settings, static display, and smart AOD function turned on, but high-precision sleep monitoring, in-sleep breathing quality monitoring and all-day stress monitoring turned off. Heart rate monitoring every 30 minutes and message notifications (100 messages, 10 calls, and 3 alarms per day) enabled; app data synchronised once per day; blood oxygen manually measured twice per day; and exercise monitoring for 60 minutes per week.It is made from plastic that has a metallic finish and - yes it's a little cheap feeling - but it's a nice-looking reflective coating, and one that means you're not just wearing a dull hunk of plastic on your arm. It’s not just the case that’s been improved, either. The display, despite being the same 1.64-inch size and 192 x 490-pixel resolution as its predecessor, can now reach 600 nits of brightness.