Is this still a fitness tracker? Testing the Xiaomi Smart Band 10 Pro

Xiaomi does not provide any information on the Smart Band 10 Pro’s carbon footprint. The packaging largely avoids the use of plastic, and the bands are interchangeable, though only via a proprietary connector.

The Mi Fitness app is required for setup and operation—it’s available for iOS and Android devices. The setup is self-explanatory, and the software guides you through the process well. You’ll need to grant a few permissions, such as for displaying notifications.

During the setup process, you must create a Xiaomi account. Once setup is complete, a tutorial is available both in the app and on the fitness tracker. 

Some health features are not enabled by default, such as regular stress monitoring, advanced sleep analysis, or blood oxygen level monitoring. When you enable these features, the software warns you that battery life may be reduced.

The Mi Fitness app has a clear layout. It features four main sections: “Health,” “Workout,” “Device,” and “Profile.” “Health” is a customizable dashboard with tiles for bodily functions such as heart rate, stress, and activity. Tapping a tile opens the corresponding submenu.

The “Workout” section lists completed workouts. The app also provides information on your fitness level and VO2 max. “Device” displays connected devices and settings. There is a wide variety of watch faces, many of which are free. However, there is no app store.

"Profile" displays personal data and settings. You can also connect third-party accounts such as Strava, Suunto, or Health Connect there.

The Smart Band 10 Pro is operated exclusively via touchscreen. Inputs are reliably recognized. The built-in vibration motor is on the gentler side. The vibration can be customized in the software. The motor operates pleasantly quietly.

The Xiaomi Smart Band 10 Pro uses the familiar rings to track daily activity. The rings visualize calories burned, steps taken, and hours spent standing. The app also provides information on the respective average values for the past week.

The statistics can be displayed for individual days, weeks, or months. For a single day, performance is visualized on a timeline. The submenu for steps also displays the daily distance traveled. There is no information on floors climbed.

If desired, the Smart Band 10 Pro can remind you to stand up—for example, after sitting for an extended period. However, as has been the case recently with some Xiaomi devices, this reminder usually pops up right after the wearer has just stood up. This does little to inspire confidence in the detection feature.

The Xiaomi Smart Band 10 Pro can measure heart rate and blood oxygen saturation. As is typical for this class of devices, the band does not support ECG or blood pressure measurement. To better evaluate the readings, we compare them with those from reference devices.

We’ve compiled here what you generally need to keep in mind regarding readings from wearables.

For heart rate monitoring, we use a Polar H10 chest strap as the reference device. When measuring resting heart rate, both devices display the same value. 

We measure the exercise heart rate at three different times. On average, the deviation is only 0.12 percent. The maximum deviation is one beat per minute.

To measure blood oxygen saturation, we use a Braun Pulse Oximeter 1 as our reference device. Based on the average of three measurements, the difference is 1.39 percent. The maximum deviation is two percentage points.

Overall, the Xiaomi Smart Band 10 Pro demonstrates impressive accuracy in measuring health metrics. The device is therefore suitable for monitoring bodily functions and as a workout companion.

The comprehensive sleep analysis feature on the Xiaomi Smart Band 10 Pro is disabled by default. The Smart Band and app display total sleep duration, the distribution across sleep stages, sleep efficiency, average heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and respiratory rate.

Sleep efficiency is intended to indicate how much time was spent in bed and the difference from actual sleep—that is, how long it took the wearer to fall asleep. However, this metric is not always reliable in testing.

In addition to the usual information on sleep stages, the software provides tips for healthy sleep and suggests daily routines. The primary focus is on the regularity of sleep. Sleep records are analyzed, and typical sleep patterns are compared to a “sleep animal.”

Sleep data can be displayed for days, weeks, and months. The software provides a comparison with data from the previous period. The Smart Band 10 Pro features a smart alarm clock designed to avoid waking the user from deep sleep whenever possible. However, the ten-minute window for this is very short.

The Smart Band 10 Pro features built-in GNSS. All relevant systems are supported in dual-band mode. During testing, the connection was consistently established quickly and remained stable. Regarding the satellite images, it is noticeable that they lack some accuracy; the route and the plotted paths do not always match exactly.

Completed routes can be exported as GPX, KML, and TCX files. Although routes can be imported into the Mi Fitness app, they cannot be loaded onto the Smart Band or used in workouts. There is no navigation software available for the Smart Band 10 Pro.

Xiaomi advertises a battery life of up to 21 days. We didn’t come close to achieving that figure in our test. However, we enabled the always-on display, used all tracking features, automatic workout detection, and advanced sleep analysis—despite all the warnings about reduced battery life.

With some workouts, the minimum battery life was one week when using all features. Charging is done via a proprietary magnetic connector. In 30 minutes, the Smart Band 10 Pro charges from 10 to 48 percent. After 60 minutes, it reaches 79 percent, and after 80 minutes, 94 percent. We used an Anker 335 power adapter.