Xiaomi MiBand: A user review

The MiBand in all its glory!

If you are, like me, an avid fan of ancient Greek culture, you might be familiar with the Delphic maxim "Know Thyself", or its Indian equivalent Atmanam Biddhih, which basically says the same thing. It is helpful, indeed, to understand oneself properly, because at the core, we're but clever constructs of nature that function with a certain degree of independence. And naturally, being the materialist Stoic that I am, I see the human body as nothing but a complex machine.

Well, enough about philosophy, but it is true that knowing ourself in this busy world means collecting enough data about, well, ourselves! And then, with cleverly constructed algorithms and proper processing power, we can harvest some useful information from that. And for this purpose, we need personal trackers. The Xiaomi MiBand is such a little, personal fitness tracker, that takes a quick and no-nonsense approach to doing the task.

What is the MiBand? 

By now, you've heard of Xiaomi, the Chinese company that's making headlines, both in mainland China and elsewhere. With competitively priced, but premium, devices such as the esteemed Mi3, Mi4, Redmi 1S, Redmi Note etc. Xiaomi is clearly stealing the show from Samsung and Apple in many areas of the world. And the best part, at least in my experience, is that, they don't compromise on quality (unlike most Indian smartphone makers, for instance). 

One of Xiaomi's latest offerings is the MiBand, a personal fitness tracker that lacks a screen and the sheer number of sensors sported by costlier alternatives, but packs in a huge battery life is >30 days, a savory price-tag and quality hardware. It's a step counter/pedometer at heart, with industrial grade aluminium alloy core and (as Xiaomi claims) military-grade exercise sensor. 

What does the MiBand do? 

Well, by now a whole array of better written and professional articles on the MiBand flood the web, so I won't be telling the same tale again. But, being the satisfied customer I am (and a passionate, hobbyist blogger), I guess I owe it to the readers to summarize the functions of the MiBand. 

Primary Functions

Step Counter/Pedometer

The MiBand counts (approximately) the number of steps you take each day, and estimates the number of calories burnt from that (coupling it with your weight, height etc). It also estimates the distance you've covered. 

It's quite accurate, but I must admit this is my first fitness tracker. So I don't know if JawboneUp or Fitbit devices provide even more accurate results. From my personal experience, the MiBand is about 90% accurate. 

Sleep tracker

Using a set of 6 proprietary algorithms that they're not planning to reveal, Xiaomi programmed the MiBand to track your sleep patterns automatically (no manual activation needed). It's a bit less accurate than the step counter, but still works nicely. It also recognizes the phases of light sleep and deep sleep respectively. 

I have the habit of reading long texts on my eReader before dozing off, and sometimes the band mistakes me to be asleep, but I can easily correct it on the next day using the mobile app. And there's another small issue. As of now, the band recognizes only one sleep session. So, your daytime naps aren't recorded automatically. 

Activity tracker 

Currently, the MiBand tracks a handful of activities such as jumping rope, situps and running, and soon new activities are going to be added. You can vote for the activities you'd like to see tracked, and future OTA updates to the band's firmware may get them added. 

From my experience, the situp tracker is decent, and I am not really into jumping ropes. The mobile app can track your routes with your handset's builtin GPS, quite accurately (much like MyTracks, but way simpler). 

Calorie counter 

This is essentially an extension of the pedometer functionality. Using your body weight and height (that you've to enter to create a personal profile) and some proprietary algorithms, MiBand's official app assesses the amount of energy you spend during the day. I can't vouch for its accuracy, but it's a nifty feature anyway. 

In addition, after long walking/exercising sessions, it shows how much fats (in grams) you may have burnt. 

Secondary functions

Vibration alarm 

The MiBand sports 3 alarms in total, and there's no way to raise/decrease the count as of now (but you can enable/disable them at will). During the alarm, the band vibrates strongly, and it feels like someone is tapping you on your wrist repeatedly. I use it to wake up everyday, but I also keep a secondary alarm ready on my phone, 15 minutes later (and I recommend that you do the same, especially if you've got an appointment). There's also an early bird alarm feature, that wakes you up around 30 minutes before the time, so that you can get up more easily at the required moment. 

How you may use the alarms is up to you, but I can say this for myself - 5:00 AM (waking up), 12:00 PM (time to eat something), 9:00 PM (dinner). The typical Indian lifestyle of a student, that's it. 

Notifications 

Using vibration, the band can notify you about WhatsApp messages, incoming calls etc. But for that, your phone's bluetooth will have to be enabled. As for the band, it utilizes BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) that's always ON, but it's only visible to the official app as a bluetooth device. 

It's a nifty feature, but not that useful for me since I am a battery saving freak, and I keep my bluetooth OFF most of the time. 

Smart unlocking feature 

If your device is Mi3 or Mi4, then the band can automatically unlock your phone for you, when you hold it with your band-wearing hand. Yes, that's it! It's quite nifty, and works like a charm. It's setup easily from inside the official app, and in a way, it's like your phone recognizing you. Anyone else would have to go through the pattern/lockcode/password feature first. 

But here again, you have to keep the bluetooth activated. Whether you use this feature or not, depends largely on your lifestyle. 

Design and Experience

To be honest, I was skeptical at first, regarding the device's supposed capabilities. The sensor is the size of my thumb, and the rest of the band is just the strap. But after using it for a few days, I am more than satisfied.

The MiBand is IP67 certified, meaning that it is fully dust-resistant, and resistant to water up to the depth of 1 m. This also means that you don't have to take the band off during showers. Soap and shampoo too don't seem to have any effect on the sensor. 

As for ease of use, the band is extremely lightweight. Other than when asleep or changing clothes, I often forget that I'm actually wearing it. Also, the band's polycarbonate strapping is anti-bacterial and anti-allergenic. That's what Xiaomi claims, at least. 

The band itself resembles a bracelet. It's more of a wear and forget device, once you strap it on, just go about your business and the band will keep on collecting data. MiBand uses BLE connectivity, so when you open the MiBand app, data is synced between the sensor and the app. 

Lastly, the battery is really, really awesome! Since it is only 41 mAH in capacity, you can charge the device fully in an hour or so. But although Xiaomi claims the battery life to be 30 days, I'm certain the actual figure exceeds that! Battery deplets very slowly, owing mostly to the lack of any attached screen, and the usual drain is around 2-3% a day. You can still conserve it more by turning off vibrations, extra alarms etc. 

When you conclude the day's goal (10,000 steps for me), the band vibrates twice, and the LED lights start glittering on it. Yeah, you can start your Victory Dance then. You can also change the colour of the LED lights using the app. But watching your progress on the band, without opening the app, is slightly tricky. You have to raise your wrist in front of your eyes, as if seeing your watch, and hold it there for around 2-3 seconds. Then, the lights will glitter. 1 steady light and 2 blinking ones indicate that you've completed 1/3rd of your goal, and so on. 

Conclusion 

The MiBand is, in my opinion, an excellent device for the price. The battery life, coupled with simplicity, durability and fairly high level of accuracy, make it the ideal device for the hobbyist life-logger like me. In fact, more pricey solutions like Sony Smartband and Fitbit Flex have much more frequent charge-discharge cycles than the MiBand. No other smartband that I know of, can boast such long battery life like the Xiaomi MiBand.

Before buying the product, I read online that the band often mistook commutes as walking/running sessions. That may have been the case before, but when I took the bus yesterday, MiBand accurately stopped recording the distance covered. I'm certain, an update to the firmware (1.0.6.0 at present) has fixed the issue, assuming that it had existed previously. 

Wearing the MiBand is a great experience. I have become somewhat psychologically attached to the band, given the geek I am, I guess. But truly, having someone, or rather, something, looking after you in a digital way, noticing your every step and even your sleep, is simply great! It's like having a digital guardian angel. Also, it motivates me greatly, to get more active. 

So, it's a 5/5 star from me! Wish it had a pulse-rate monitor as well, but I really can't complain in any way. 

Image credits: http://www.mi.com/sg/miband/