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Reddit Reviews
I bought one back in May, 1 month later the sensor was already broken. Brought it to the store and they replaced it a new one. Now just 4 months later the touch screen is partially dead. Has anyone else had the same experience? Im pretty sure I have taken good care of it.
I wouldn't use it for any scientific research. To be clear: I've never used it. I've used the Xiaomi S1 watch (high end), the Amazfit Bip, Band... something, and I have the Amazfit Band 9 Active right now to tide me over because the backlight on my Garmin Vivoactive 3 has died. (And because it cost 40myr delivered ($10usd)) The two bands - Bip have been dubiously accurate. Basically fine, I guess.
I've been using Xiaomi Band 9 Active for a month now. I also bought for ₱1.2k lang ata. So far, I didn't encounter any problems with it. Madali lang din gamitin and matagal malowbatt. It can record any exercise rin as well as your sleep rate. I think good siya for beginners talaga especially meron siyang app for more accurate data gathered from the band.
Greater accuracy in your data may come with a later Xiaomi fitness band that has GPS and more accelerometers. In deciding to buy the same smart band, I regret not knowing about the smart band 8 for comparison. Its cost was a small amount more. I don’t know if the features differ significantly. I’m happy with my smart band 9 active. Terrific value for the cost $20. Having had this smart band, when it fails, I’ll upgrade then.
Have an amazefit active 2 (10k), garmin forerunner 265(52k) and redmi smartband(2.5k) Amazefit is accurate and provides good readings. Reliable and good for most runners Garmin is because I wanted to splurge and get more accurate, multi band gps, songs, random features and more numbers most of which I still don't understand. It's just so that I have all I need ever and more from a watch Redmi is bad. I remember running a half marathon. At the finish line the smartband told me I had only run 19km (2km short) and kept giving me wrong metrics and readings throughout the run Strava free version is enough. The pro version just tells you information you do not really need and an AI which just motivates you. I do have it though as I love when it congratulates me on a fantastic run everytime 🤣
Xiaomi makes a decent smartwatch on the cheap. The smart band 9 is solid if you want sleep tracking/fitness stuff for less than $60.
I got a xiaomi smart band 9 for $30 USD from Amazon a couple of weeks ago. If you're in the US, it uses metric units; idk if that'd be a deal breaker for you. I just wanted something cheap to track steps and tell the time, and it works great for that. There is a period tracker, but I decided not to use it. Didn't seem like the best idea, being a woman in the US.
Currently rocking a Xiaomi Mi Band 9 and it's pretty good. Battery life lasts about 2 weeks with my settings (pretty average). For ~$30 USD, can't really complain. My only real "complaint" is that it doesn't have NFC / Google Pay integration, because that would be neat. The Fitbit Charge 6 has it - but costs 6x as much. The app situation is a bit of a mess. DO NOT under any circumstances enable Health Connect syncing in the Mi Fitness app. It won't be immediate but after a week or so it will peg your phone's CPU to 100% and absolutely murder your battery life. The only solution is to uninstall/reinstall (for about another week). It's a long standing bug (you can find discussion of it going back years). So just don't do it. Also - older bands (7 and older) use the Zepp Life app instead. Which is also fine. The annoyance for me is I have the Xiaomi Body Composition Scale 2 which also only uses Zepp Life - and then the band uses Mi Fitness and there's no way to have them on the same app.
Xiaomi Mi Band has been the gold standard forever now. Also buy it on Ali Express, not Amazon or your local Xiaomi store, it's much cheaper. The Mi Band 10 is £40 - but the 9 is £35, so depending on how strict he is about the budget. I've been using the 9 for about a year so far and it's pretty good. Battery life is about 2 weeks (but will depend on how you set it up). At least when compared to my phone's (Google Fit) step tracking it's pretty accurate, and when compared to the heart rate reader built into my gym's cardio equipment that's reasonably accurate as well. Kinda wish it had Google Wallet support for easier NFC payments but it is what it is - otherwise can't complain.
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