Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 6 in review: Effective design improvement, the price fits

Most activity and health data can also be read on the wrist. New compared to the predecessor Mi Smart Band 5 is the measurement of blood oxygen saturation. However, it is only done manually.

In order to additionally assess how the sensor reacts to quick changes, for example during a workout, we compare the recording during an interval workout with that of Polar's H10 heart rate sensor. At the simultaneous start, the chest sensor counted 90 beats per minute, the Xiaomi tracker 68. The curve is subsequently weaker and even flips for a short moment in the 2nd run.

The Mi Band 6 does not display any sleep data itself. The sleep log of the Xiaomi Wear Lite app is comparatively poor. It does not show the heart rate, although increased heart rate monitoring was enabled specifically to obtain more accurate sleep data.

The sleep-in and wake-up times matched the date of the following recording. Beyond the logged short wake phase, however, there were three further interruptions in which presence was at least sufficient to look at a radio alarm clock for later comparison. The trackers usually record such short interruptions as well, but they are missing here.

The Xiaomi Mi Smart Band 5 and the Huami Band 5 had 11 sports profiles installed. For the Band 6, Xiaomi now offers 30 profiles via the app, eleven of which can be transferred to the tracker. New profiles include basketball, volleyball and table tennis, dancing and HIIT.

During an outdoor workout without a smartphone, the Xiaomi band does not record the route, but like most modern sports trackers, it estimates the stride length based on the user's height, age and weight and determines the distance covered and the speed on this basis. This is too inaccurate for ambitious athletes. For beginners and recreational runners, however, it may be enough to motivate them. The quality of the estimate may be different for each person. In a short test, the kilometer (~3281 feet) signal initially came consistently after 1100m (~3609 feet). This is pretty good for an estimate. After the 3rd km, however, the Xiaomi tracker dropped out and ended up being quite significantly off with only 3.9 km instead of the actual 4.8 km (~2.4 instead of 3.0 miles).

Walking, running, cycling and the workout with the rowing machine or on the cross trainer are automatically detected by the sports band and then vibrate to remind the user to start recording if necessary. You have to activate the recognition first, also for energy reasons, and for each sport individually. If you have the smartphone with you, the Band 6 also records the route afterwards (when walking, running and cycling). The reminder during cycling occurred after about 10 minutes in the test. During a tour through surrounding places with several stops, the recording paused automatically when stopping. However, the second value for the altitude gain, which definitely does not represent an absolute altitude in the Hessian mountains, is unclear in the following log.

Xiaomi specifies up to 14 days runtime of the 125 mAh battery, which is not bigger than in the predecessor and Huami's Amazfit Band 5.

Several factors reduced the runtime in the test, including the higher display brightness and additionally enabled features like activity detection. In the health monitoring area, the following options were enabled: Sleep Assistant detection for more accurate sleep data, nighttime breathing monitoring, all-day stress level monitoring. In addition, there were several workout recordings with and without GPS. In this scenario, the battery can still reach 7 days and more.