Xiaomi Band 8

Product Information

Interestingly, the Mi Fitness app will still point out your lowest HR from a particular 24-hour period, as shown above, and this was always very in tune with our Oura and Garmin.

Band 8 review - Wareable Xiaomi Smart Band 8 review - Wareable

The positive here for the Smart Band 8 is that we didn’t encounter any glaringly incorrect data, in which the heart rate readings never got going or spiked way too high, as is sometimes the case with cheaper devices. On our test runs, we’ve found that the heart rate readings don’t react too well to fluctuations in real-time - even when the pace is relatively steady. This isn’t necessarily a negative, though. You can’t have it all at this price point, after all, and the few smarts present here actually work very well.And while this does add some polish to the operating system, we should say again that there’s still very little in terms of smart features to get excited about here.

Band 8 Active - Xiaomi UK Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Active - Xiaomi UK

Gone is the long-standing unibody design of older Mi Bands/Smart Bands, and in its place are now the more typical slot connections on each end. The omission of GPS continues to be a bit of a killer, and means you’ll have to take your phone with you if you want any kind of reliable distance data. And even then, we’ve found this to be pretty poor - distances are often underreported and location trails in the app are essentially non-existent. There is, at least, breathing rate data available - again, you’ll have to find this and turn it on in the companion app’s settings - though this is still in beta. And when we did turn this on, nothing appeared in our sleep reports.

This splits your night’s sleep into either light or deep sleep, though this expands to include REM sleep and heart rate monitoring (leading to more accurate sleep stage information) after you enable the setting.