Mi Band HRX Edition Review

The Mi Band HRX Edition from Xiaomi is actually a Mi Band 2, minus the heart-rate sensor, and with an added endorsement from Hrithik Roshan.

The Xiaomi mi band is a fitness monitor and sleep tracker, with an integrated sleep-cycle smart alarm. Its battery keeps you tracking your daily excercise for a month per charge, and the device is IP67, meaning it's water and dust resistant.

Cool Features:

There are a number of cool features that come with the band.

Counting steps

The band will keep track of your steps while you're wearing it. This is found to be not super accurate, but then again, the band itself is about 17 dollars. It detects steps by measuring the movement of your arm with its built in accelerometer. This is also why it won't detect biking, your arms are generally not moving all that much when on a bicycle.

Streaks and Lazy days

When you reach your goal for several days in a row, you'll build up a streak. After a 7 day streak, you'll earn one "Lazy day". Beating previously set records might also earn you Lazy days. On days that you walk less then your goal you can use a lazy day to avoid breaking your streak. Do this by going into the app after around 10PM, and clicking the orange message "set as lazy day". You have to do this manually!

Calculating distance walked

Both the original and tweaked app will also display the walked distance. This way you can grossly see how far you've walked/ran on a day, on average, and in total.

Improving distance accuracy

If you find that the measured distance is less (or more) than the actual distance covered, you might be able to fix this by fiddling with the set height in the profile settings. The app calculated this by multiplying the number of steps by the distance covered per stride. If the app generally displays too short a distance, increase your set height in the app, if the distance is higher than it should be, lower your set height.

Sleep tracking

The miband will track your sleep in deep and light sleep periods. This probably relies on movement, and should not be used scientifically. The sensors are quite sensitive, and it might have registered "steps" when you wake up. This is normal. You're (probably) not sleepwalking.

(Early bird) smart alarm

The miband can wake you by buzzing at a set time, or up to 30 minutes before a set time with the Eerly bird alarm This last one looks at your sleep pattern and tries to wake you in a light sleep period, so that you'll wake up feeling more awake, as opposed to being dragged out of deep sleep and feeling groggy. If you don't get up after the first alarm, it will snooze for 10 minutes, for two times more. If you do get up, the band will notice, and won't snooze anymore. You can stop the alarm from snoozing manually by whacking your arm around violently, smashing the band on the wallforcefully tapping the band, or just by getting out of bed.

Silly gesture to see daily progress

This works out of the box with every miband, regardless of app used. In the profile settings of your band, select which hand you're wearing the band on, then make an exaggerated "looking at my watch" gesture. start your gesture from the wrist being by your hip, the MiBand should be roughly parallel with the ground. Move your wrist out/away from you and up, then turn your hand so the back of your hand faces you. You should end with the MiBand being perpendicular to the ground. Wait a second or two and the lights should flash. Like this. (image from official Miui forums) Each LED matches a third of your daily goal, and if one blinks solid, you've completed that part. If it blinks, you're currently working on that third of the complete goal.

Starting it up

When you receive your band in the mail, before you do anything else, charge it. DON'T use a wall power output with a usb port, it's possible that with this type of charger, the voltage will be too high, and you will fry your band. Instead, use a usb port on a PC or mac. For more info on charging, see this page.

Apps

There are a few different apps you can use with your miband. There are official apps in both Google Playstoreand iTunes. Next to this, for Android there's a Tweaked version, which is the official version with a few minor edits, mainly to make it completely in English, and there's also the Notification Version. You can download these from the official forums, or check this Google Drive.

Another app that is quite new and still in development, is GlideRun.

MI Account

For using the original or tweaked apps, you need a Mi account. You can create this on the official mi website or do it right there in the app. They're asking for your phone number, but this is completely optional, because when you scroll down you'll see this highlighted button, Register using an email address.

Pairing

After installing an app to work with, the band needs to be paired. You can do this inside the app. Make sure your Bluetooth is turned on before you try pairing. The app will search for you miband, and when it finds it, the band will buzz and lights start flashing. You need to tap the band to finalize the pairing (aka whack it violently, there's no touch sensor, only a motion sensor). If you have trouble pairing, try to turn off any other Bluetooth devices in the area, or go to a place where there's no wireless/Bluetooth interference.

Pairing the notify-version

There's an extra step in getting the notifications to work on your band: you have to allow the app access to your notifications. In your Android phone, go to Settings > Security > Notification access, and allow BleNotificationService access to your notifications. Sone phones (LG for instance) hide this menu. To access the notification settings, try this NotifierPro app.

Should you buy one?

When you are in the market looking for good fitness trackers, there are the ones from Garmin and Fitbit among others, but they on the expensive side. In fact, for that cost, you could easily buy an affordable smartphone along with a good wireless Bluetooth headset. Xiaomi, on the other hand, has been very aggressive with the prices of its products.

For Rs 1,299, you get a good fitness and activity tracker that will let you monitor your sleep, the number of steps you take, and more. And with an OLED display, you don’t need to constantly open the app to check your daily progress. Of course, having a heart rate sensor would have been excellent, but considering the price tag, I have no complaints whatsoever.

For those who want the heart rate sensor without breaking a bank, I’d recommend the Mi Band 2, if you can get a hold of it. Considering that it is usually out of stock, the Honor Band 3 would be the next best alternative for an affordable tracker with a heart rate sensor.