Why do smart bands aim at fitness plans?
As the development of fitness trackers, more functions are incorporated, not just heart rate and sleep monitoring, but more specific sports modes. A fitness tracker becomes necessary for a fitness plan.
Honor bands are continually evolving. The first-generation Honor band is different from traditional smart bands which only serve as an accessory for phones. Honor Band 3 features continuous heart rate monitoring, professional sleep monitoring, 50m waterproof rating.
Honor Band 4 stands out in the competition as the first smart fitness tracker with color display, ushering smart fitness trackers to a new era.
Likewise, Honor Band 5 achieves a breakthrough! Based on the previous generations, it offers the function of blood oxygen detection. It is the first fitness tracker that provides scientific measurements of heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and sleep. Moreover, it has been certified and endorsed by professional medical institutions.
Additionally, Honor Band 5 has been fully upgraded, compared with previous Honor bands.
Next, let's go into the details of the fitness tracker by looking it closer and trying it.
Appearance: ultralight and skin-friendly, in a sporty style
At present, Honor Band 5 is available in blue, pink, and black. These three colors mean vitality in different styles. What I've got is a black one.
Each generation of Honor bands bears vivid resemblance in the design, making them distinguished. From profuse use of squares, circles, and lines, we can tell that Honor Band 5 is in a sporty style.
The width, the angle, and the radian of the entire strap are nice. In combination with the breathable design, the fitness tracker won't cause any discomfort in daily life, during exercise or sleep.
No matter on a hot summer day or late at night, Honor Band 5 remains breathable and comfortable to wear.
It accords with the design principles of sports products. Take the wristband as an example. The buckles and soft rubber rings are made of plastics with good elasticity, ensuring both the strength and lightness. Honor Band 5 only weighs 23g.
You can change the strap without using any tool and bend the ends as you like.
Overall, Honor Band 5 features meticulous workmanship. Its 50m waterproof rating is outstanding among wearable products. It means that the fitness tracker can withstand various adverse environments, such as rain, dust, etc.
You don't need to remove the wristband to charge the fitness tracker, which is convenient. Charging via the metal contacts require no charging slots, which further increases the waterproof rating.
Display: numerous options for you to find out your favorite one
A year ago, Honor Band 4 was well received because of the color display screen. It ushered the smart fitness trackers from the B&W era to the color screen era. The screen of Honor Band 5 is even more advanced. This AMOLED color screen presents "exquisite" details instead of "clear" ones.
More specifically, Honor Band 5 AMOLED screen features 240x120 high resolution, with 282 PPI. The hardware is of high quality. The sharpness is comparable with a Retina display.
With 0.95-inch touch screen, 2.5D curved glass, HOME button, the device is ultra-smooth in appearance and operation.
In addition to the top configurations, Honor Band 5 also provides abundant options of themes. Each user will have his/her unique display. Press and hold the screen, and you can switch the theme, download, or synchronize the one you want.
It is worth mentioning that Honor Band 5 can also be upgraded through OTA to support third-party development and more designs. In this way, your imagination will never meet the boundaries.
Here are some of my favorite themes.
Each theme represents a different style. The number of themes is considerable, catering to different ages, the young, middle-aged, children. Plus, both men and women can find what they love.
As for the theme, I also ask a few of my friends, which one is their favorite. Their answers are different.
Experience: 3 major health monitoring functions combined. The first to provide blood oxygen monitoring
--Experiencing health monitoring functions
At present, the major health monitoring functions of Honor Band 5 include blood oxygen detection, TruSeen3.5 intelligent heart rate monitoring, and TruSleep2.0 scientific sleep monitoring.
Among them, the heart rate algorithm has even been certified by CISS, which is very professional and authoritative.
First of all, let's take a look at the brilliant function, blood oxygen detection, which is also the most significant improvement.
Before we start, let's learn about the measurement of blood oxygen and the reason why we should check blood oxygen.
First and foremost, you should know that oxygen saturation, heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and temperature are 5 critical health indicators of health. Blood oxygen saturation can reflect the status of oxygen supply.
Low blood oxygen is likely to cause fatigue, lack of energy, memory loss, and other symptoms. Chronic deficiency might harm the brain, heart, and other organs. Snorers, excessive mental workers, the elderly, people living in anoxic environments (mountain/plateau) should pay attention to it.
Laborious mental works and manual workers who have an irregular schedule should think highly of blood oxygen detection.
Fortunately, because I have had enough rest recently, my blood oxygen saturation remains at around 95%. If the blood oxygen level is low, 89% to 70%, you need to have a rest and avoid activities.
It is easy to use Honor Band 5 to measure blood oxygen. Click on it in the bracelet function option to start measuring, keep it still, and wear the bracelet correctly to keep the screen up.
It's easy to measure the blood oxygen by using Honor Band 5. Just select "Blood Oxygen" and start measuring while keeping still.
Then, because the reflection and absorption rates of oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin are different for specific lights, Honor Band 5 processes signals and uses algorithms to calculate the pulse oxygen saturation levels.
Previous measurements will be shown in the form of cards on Huawei Sports App in the corresponding Honor device. As you can see, after enough rest, or by perfectly combining work and rest, my blood oxygen level becomes normal, which is excellent!
Data from Huawei Lab
Here are blood oxygen measurements of Honor Band 5 and the professional medical instrument from Huawei Lab through collecting data 6,000 times from 300 subjects. As we can see, Honor Band 5 is comparable to that of the professional blood oxygen meter.
After enabling continuous heart rate on the App, you can know your heart rate directly at any time. Honor Band 5 supports Huawei TruSeen3.5 heart rate technology, which can detect heart rate during exercise, around the clock, in a rest, etc.
It will remind you when the heart rate increases. Honor Band 5 measures heart rate faster than other fitness trackers at the same price range. It shows you the measurement the instant you raise the wrist.
When it comes to sleep monitoring, Honor Band 5 is impressive. It is the product of comparative clinical study, through the cooperation of Honor Lab and first-class hospitals in China.
The scheme is unprecedented in the industry, which uses the PPG sensor to monitor different stages of sleep. It can automatically identify the stages (light sleep, deep sleep, REM, and awake) record the time when you fall asleep and wake up.
It rates your sleep quality, and give you suggestions for improvement. Honor Band 5 also assesses different stages of sleep based on the duration.
It is worth mentioning that Honor Band 5 supports IR light technology. It uses invisible light to monitor heart rate, to avoid the green light from disturbing your sleep.
--Experiencing fitness tracking functions
Honor Band 5 has a six-axis sensor that consists of a three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis gyroscope.
The former senses the variation of speed in three dimensions (front/back/left/right/up/down), while the three-axis gyroscope detects the changes of pitch, yaw, roll angle.
In addition to the 7 sports modes, Honor Band 5 supports 3 more ones. Thus, outdoor running, indoor running, outdoor walking, outdoor cycling, indoor cycling, free training, indoor walking, elliptical machine, rowing machine are available for you to choose. Honor Band 5 is more professional, which reflects on the introduction of more sports modes. Because in different sports, our physical status changes, optimization of algorithms is necessary for more accurate measurement.
You can use these 10 sports modes directly without opening the App, avoiding the trouble of taking out the phone.
When you are running outdoors, you can check essential fitness data in real-time, including distance, duration, heart rate, pace, and more. I've found it very convenient for me to control my exercise in real-time, and change the exercise intensity by myself.
As shown above, the App records the trajectory. If you do not want to share your whereabouts with others, you can also hide the location information to protect your privacy like me.
In addition to the trajectory, you can also know the pace, heart rate curve/chart, detailed data table, and more on the App. You can even display all information (heart rate, stride frequency, altitude, etc.) in the same chart.
Through a comprehensive review, you can assess the effect of workouts.
--About battery life
At 02:44 in the afternoon, when I first got the Honor Band 5, it had 87% of electricity left. After 8 hours, the remaining power is 79%.
During the test, I turned on power-intensive functions such as scientific sleep and continuous heart rate measurement, and I also turned on features such as the wrist-up display.
Meanwhile, I received a lot of notifications from social media Apps. It proves that for heavy users like me, Honor Band 5 can last 5 to 6 days without charging.
According to Honor official data, if you only turn on scientific sleep and keep continuous heart rate measurement off as I do, the battery can work for 9 days. If you save more power by disenabling scientific sleep, continuous heart rate measurement, and wrist-up display, the battery life can be extended to 14 days.
--Common functions for daily life
Alipay offline payment, which is frequently used in everyday life, is also found in Honor Band 5. If you go shopping and encounter an emergency, for example, low battery life, you can raise your wrist to pay for the products.
Honor Band 5 has two variants, the standard version, and the NFC version. If you need a transit card, I recommend the NFC version.
At present, it supports paying for the bus and subway in 252 cities in China. You don't need to turn on the screen. Even though Huawei Band 5 runs out of battery and powers off within a day, you can still pay for it.
The NFC version also supports analog access cards to most NFC smart doors.
Summary: NO.1 fitness assistant among smart trackers
My first impression of Honor Band 5 is that the wristband and back case fits snuggly with my wrist. I never feel uncomfortable wearing it for a long time, during my daily life, exercise, and sleep as if it didn't exist.
With all power-intensive functions enabled, including heart rate real-time monitoring, blood oxygen monitoring, and more, Honor Band 5 with an AMOLED color screen can last nearly a week. For most power-saving users, it can work perfectly for two weeks. The battery life is outstanding.
As a smart wearable product which excels in health monitoring functions, Honor Band 5 is dazzling because it incorporates blood oxygen saturation detection, which is a feature of smartwatches. More importantly, the data comparison proves that its accuracy is comparable to that of professional blood oxygen meter.
The introduction of blood oxygen detection also signifies that Honor Band 5 includes three essential functions, blood oxygen detection, heart rate, and sleep monitoring.
Additionally, with the six-axis sensor, up to 10 sports modes are supported. It is worth mentioning that detailed data are recorded through fully automatic monitoring 24 hours a day.
Its data can be saved in the App, even if you lose the fitness tracker is lost or change the mobile phone. As long as the account remains unchanged, the data will always be there and presented in various graphs (daily/weekly/month/yearly). Review and know the quality of your amount of exercise to adjust the exercise plan next.
Additionally, Honor Band 5 also supports Alipay offline payment for more convenient offline purchase. You do not have to take out the mobile phone, pay by just raising the wrist. The NFC version allows you to pay for the bus and subway in hundreds of cities.
In terms of fitness functions, notably blood oxygen level detection, Honor Band 5 is unique in the market and has a competitive advantage. If you want to buy a fitness tracker soon, pay more attention to health, exercise, then Honor Band 5 will be the best choice.
