Honor Band 5 Review | NDTV gadget

In recent weeks, many new wearable devices have been released, including new models from popular brands such as Lenovo, Xiaomi, and Honor. Honor Band 5 is one such product and is the latest version of the popular Honor Band series. This new fitness tracker is packed in an AMOLED display and can track your sleep and heart rate. In addition, the waterproof is up to 50 m. Honor Band 5 competes with Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 4 and the price is Rs. 2,299. What fitness wearable should I choose? Tested to test band 5.

Honor Band 5 design and software

Honor did not change the design of this device at all compared with the previous one. Honor Band 4, reviewed earlier this year, looked similar to a replacement device. Honor offers Band 5 in three colors: Meteorite Black, Coral Pink, and Midnight Navy. There was a Meteorite Black device to review. Honor's latest fitness band looks like an all-in-one device, but you can remove the strap from your body. You can change to another strap to find some color options online.

The strap that comes with Honor Band 5 is made of high quality silicone and has a watch-style clasp. This makes the device easy to wear and reduces the likelihood of the device falling. During the testing of the band for several weeks, no abnormal wear was found on the band.

Heart rate tracking mechanism on the back of Honor Band 5

At the heart of Honor Band 5 is a 0.95-inch AMOLED touch screen with a resolution of 120 × 240 pixels. Just below the display is a capacitive home button. Like Honor Band 4, Band 5 has a color display. This feature set Band 4 apart from the competition, but something like Mi Smart Band 4 is no longer unique. This AMOLED panel is bright enough outdoors and you can choose from 5 levels of brightness of the band itself.

On the back there is hardware for heart rate tracking. This sensor is slightly protruding, but it is not uncomfortable when wearing the band. There are two pins to charge, but you need a dedicated clip-on charger. The charger has a Micro-USB port, and Honor also provides a short cable to help charge your device.

Honor Band 5 has a touch screen, so you have to swipe to navigate within the UI. You can tap the screen to select it and swipe right to go back. Press the Capacitive button to go to the home screen. Honor Band 5 has several watch faces to choose from. Each watch face displays different types of information. Tap your face to see your device's connection status, battery level, and current weather.

Honor offers band 5 dedicated charger

Honor Band 5 offers a simple and easy to use UI and shows your steps, heart rate, sleep time, workout details and notifications. Band 5 also reminds you to move if you haven't been active for a while. This is a very useful feature. The Exercise tab has nine exercise options, including a free training mode. Honor Band 5 is too much to expect more detailed and specific workout tracking, like the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active (review) suggestion, but with Honor Band 5 you can track your swimming not only indoors but also outdoors. Recent updates also include music controls and SpOs.₂ (Blood oxygen level) tracking.

Honor added the ability to prevent Band 5 from swimming and track swimming, which I could not test during this review. However, we turned on the band for 15 days and continued the shower every day.

Honor Band 5 Performance

You need to use the Huawei Health app to pair your Honor Band 5 with your smartphone. This app is available for both Android and iOS. During this review, I used Band 5 with Google Pixel 3 (Review). The pairing process is very easy. When set, you can push notifications to your band from your smartphone. This app also shows information like step count, heart rate and sleep time.

The Huawei Health app kept a constant reminder about Pixel 3. Annoying, but the app must be connected with the band to push notifications. There was no big difference in the battery life of the smartphone.

With the health app you can track your fitness on your smartphone

The app tracks the steps using the smartphone's own sensors, regardless of the steps the band recorded. When counting the steps while riding a motorcycle, I found that the app's step counter was not accurate. We counted 1000 steps and 990 steps as we walked to test the accuracy of Honor Band 5. I found the trace to be reliable and accurate. Unlike Honor Band 4, the step counter did not record the step during operation.

I walked exactly 1km to check the distance tracking accuracy of Honor Band 5. Taking into account the lack of Honor Band 5's basic GPS capabilities, it's 1.06km away. If you do not want professional training, there is this degree of accuracy.

Sleep tracking was also reliable. In addition to showing your sleep time, Honor Band 5 also divides your sleep time into deep sleep, light sleep, REM sleep and wake up time. The Health app tracks using Huawei's Trusleep algorithm. Other sleep hours are also scored, and the app provided tips on how to improve your sleep quality. The smart band has a vibration alarm. I had to manipulate the app to set an alarm. You might have liked the features set on the band itself.

Honor Band 5 offers continuous heart rate tracking and two modes to choose from. Smart mode automatically adjusts the measurement frequency based on activity level. Other modes are continuously tracked in real time. The latter is much trickier for Honor Band 5's batteries. I compared my heart rate readings with those of Apple Watch Series 1 and Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus (Review) and found that they were all in the same range. I also tested SpO₂ Compared to the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, the measurements fell slightly.

Charging band 5 takes a little longer

Honor claims that Band 5 will provide the same kind of battery life as 14 days ago. However, in my experience with heart rate tracking set to Smart, notifications for calls and WhatsApp, and enabled Huawei's TruSleep sleep tracking, the band lasted for a week. We also did another battery test by switching heart rate tracking in real time without changing any other settings. This led to a little over three days of battery life in the band. The dedicated charger took a little over an hour and 20 minutes to fully charge the band.

verdict

Honor Band 5 is an incremental upgrade to Band 4 that is replaced instead. Honor maintains all the positive qualities of previous models such as accurate sleep tracking and bright AMOLED displays and prevents the device from swimming. You can also track swimming that was not available in previous versions. But the battery life is still the same, which can be achieved with improvements. In addition, you need to carry a dedicated charger carefully. The price is Rs. At 2,299, Honor Band 5 is no problem and is a definite alternative to Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 4.

Agree

• Bright AMOLED display
• Excellent sleep tracking
• Accurate Activity Tracking
• Swimming prevention

Disadvantages

• Dedicated charger
• Insufficient battery life for all functions

Rating (out of 5)

• Design: 3.5
• Tracking: 4
• Companion App: 4
• Battery life: 3
• Total: 3.5