It Is Almost A Smartwatch! Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro REVIEW

I have two boxes. This is the Xiaomi Smart Band 8, and we have reviewed this fitness bracelet before on our channel Tech Brothers. 

The second box contains the new Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro, and today we’re going to give it a full review.

By the way, next week we will compare the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 and Smart Band 8 Pro side-by-side. 

The main upgrades of the new Xiaomi smart band are a larger 1.74-inch AMOLED display with higher brightness of 600 nits, a built-in GPS and NFC, and a longer battery life of 14 days.

As usual, let’s start the review with unboxing.

Unboxing

As you have seen, the boxes of Xiaomi Smart Band 8 and Smart Band 8 Pro are almost identical. There is an image and the name of the bracelet on the front, as well as the main features on the back.

The inscriptions are in Chinese because this is the Chinese version of the bracelet. However, looking ahead, I will say that English is available on the bracelet.

Inside the box, we have a fitness tracker, a silicone strap, a magnetic charging cable and a user manual.

Design

First, let’s attach the strap to the smart tracker, and talk about it.

The Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro has a quick-release strap. You only need to press the button and pull the strap to remove it.

The previous Xiaomi Smart Band 7 Pro model had a similar strap attachment to the tracker but looked different. The attachment of the new bracelet is smaller, and it is made of metal.

In addition, the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro strap is attached to the arm in a new way. If the previous generation of the Xiaomi fitness bracelet strap had a buckle, which made the smart tracker look classic, the new bracelet has a more sporty strap. By the way, it resembles the Apple Watch strap.

If you want a classic version of the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro, then you can buy it with a leather or even metal strap.

Talking further about the design, the glossy metal-coated frame has become larger.

There is a microphone hole on the side, but you will not find a speaker. Unfortunately, the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro still doesn’t support Bluetooth Calling.

The back panel has magnetic charging contacts and health tracking sensors.

By the way, the size of the new fitness bracelet has also changed. Now it is 45 x 33 x 11 mm. The weight is 39 grams.

Overall, the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro looks similar to last year’s Smart Band 7 Pro, but they have many differences.

Display

As I already said, the display of the new Xiaomi smart band has become bigger. It has a diagonal of 1.74 inches. For comparison, the Xiaomi Smart Band 7 Pro had a 1.64-inch screen.

However, the display resolution remains the same – 280 x 456 pixels.

The first improvement of the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro screen is a higher brightness of 600 nits. You know, it is clearly visible outdoors.

However, the most important upgrade for me is an ambient light sensor. Like the Xiaomi Smart Band 8, the Pro version has a built-in ambient light sensor that makes the screen automatically change brightness depending on the environment. For example, the brightness of the screen automatically increases to maximum when you are outdoors and decreases to minimum at night.

The Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro has an AMOLED panel, so the fitness tracker supports Always-On Mode. It is interesting that the Always-On display replicates the watch face. So, there are many dials available for the Always-On display.

Functions

Talking about watch faces, the new Xiaomi fitness bracelet has 7 to choose from out of the box. However, there are a huge number of other dials available in the app. We will talk about the smartphone app a little later.

If you swipe down, you can read new notifications.

Swiping to the right takes you to the quick settings menu. First, we can see the battery level, Bluetooth connection with smartphone, and time.

There is also Do Not Disturb Mode, Alarm Clock, Raise to Wake, Flashlight, Find Phone, Settings, Battery Saver Mode, and Wake For 5 Minutes.

Then, you can swipe left from the main watch face and see the widgets. By the way, these widgets are fully customizable through the app. I will show you that a bit later.

For now, I have weather forecast, outdoor running mode, heart rate, spO2 and sleep monitors, Weixin Pay and AliPay, Music Player, and voice assistant.

The menu with all the functions is available by swiping up from the main watch face. Here we have daily activity stats, workout modes, workout records, running assistant, training assistant, heart rate, vitality, spO2, sleep, stress, Mi Home, voice assistant, weather forecast, calendar, alarm, Alipay and Weixin pay, settings, NFC cards, tasks, breathing exercises, stopwatch, music, find phone, world clock, camera, timer, flashlight, and focus.

I think most of these functions are familiar to you, but some of them are new, like Mi Home.

Using the Mi Home or Xiaomi Home app on your smartphone, you can control smart home appliances with Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro fitness bracelet. Unfortunately, I don’t have any device from Xiaomi’s smart home ecosystem right now, so I can’t show you how it works.

Health Measurements

Now, I want to measure my heart rate and spO2.

As you can see, I have 71 bpm, and 99% of arterial oxygen saturation.

NFC

Talking about NFC, unfortunately you cannot use it for contactless payment, at least in the Chinese version. In China, NFC is often used for bus and subway cards.

You can add them in the companion app on your smartphone, and then use the Xiaomi smart band to pay for public transport.

Settings

Before we talk about the smartphone app, I want to show you the settings of the fitness bracelet.

First, we can edit the band display. I already told you that there are seven watch faces available out of the box.

Then, we have display settings, such as brightness, auto lock, raise to wake, screen on for, cover to sleep, always-on display, and default theme.

We can also choose the vibration from strong and normal, as well as turn it off.

The settings of the Do Not Disturb Mode are off, all day, and scheduled.

In the Notifications menu, you can turn on/off Wake screen when receiving notifications and turn off the notifications when band is taken off the wrist.

Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro also supports auto detect sports activity such as walking, jump rope, cycling, and others.

In the Preferences, we have only one option – press and hold the screen to change the watch face.

You can set PIN code on the smart band if you want.

There are two layouts available for the menu with all functions.

In the Battery menu, we can see the battery level, remaining battery life, and we can turn on/off battery saver mode and optimize the battery life.

The system settings have reboot, power off, and reset.

Finally, we can read about the fitness bracelet, such as name, model, MAC address, etc.

Mi Fitness App

You know, before using the Xiaomi smart band, you need to connect it to your smartphone via Mi Fitness app. The app is available on Android and iOS devices.

If your Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro is also Chinese version like mine, you need to make sure that the region in the app is China.

By the way, I have Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro and Xiaomi Smart Band 8 in the app. Soon there will be a comparison of them on our channel Tech Brothers.

So, in the app we can see the connected device and its battery level.

By pressing the Band displays button, you can upload new watch faces to the fitness bracelet. Do not be frightened by the Chinese names in the app. The dials themselves are in English.

Then, we can turn on the app notifications, and choose which apps can send notifications.

Health monitoring functions include heart rate, sleep, blood oxygen, stress, standing, stats and vitality score.

As for the heart rate, you can enable continuous monitoring, as well as high and low heart rate alerts.

As I said before, the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro supports NFC, but it is mostly used for transport cards in China. You can add the cards in the app.

The other functions are Alarm, Weather, World Clock, Sync Events and Task Reminders.

I’ve already shown you widgets on the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro, but you can change their order or hide some of them in the app.

You can also sort apps in the main menu of the fitness bracelet.

The other options in the Mi Fitness app are Vibration, Sleep Mode, Find Device, PIN, Mi AI, Help center, firmware updates and About Device.

You can also track health functions such as sleep, heart rate, steps, calories, movement, standing, etc. and start workout modes in the app. Four workout modes are available in the app: outdoor running, walking, outdoor cycling and treadmill.

By the way, you can connect the treadmill and Mijia Smart Jump Rope from Xiaomi and use the exercises.

Workout Modes

Since we started talking about workout modes, let’s take a look at one of them on a fitness bracelet. I will show you the walking mode.

Before you click on the Go button, you can see GNSS in the left top corner. It stands for Global Navigation Satellite System. The Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro has a built-in GPS chip, as well as support for four other navigation systems.

When the sports mode has started, we can see its duration, distance, pace, heart rate, calories, SPM, steps, and average pace.

You can also swipe left and control the music.

By swiping right, you can pause or end the workout mode.

When you complete your workout, you get a movement map as well as detailed information about your activity.

So, the advantage of the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro is a built-in GPS, but we will really test it in comparison to the Xiaomi Smart Band 8.

Battery

Finally, let’s talk about the battery of the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro.

First, it has a capacity of 289mAh. For comparison, the previous generation of Xiaomi fitness bracelet had 235mAh.

The battery life has increased slightly up to 14 days in typical mode, and up to 6 days with Always-On Display mode.

I think it is good for a fitness bracelet with a large display and lots of different functions.

Conclusion

So, in my opinion, the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro is more than a fitness bracelet. However, it is still not a smartwatch. It is something in between.

We will compare the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro and Xiaomi Smart Band 8 in the next article, but compared to last year’s Xiaomi Smart Band 7 Pro, the new fitness bracelet gets a bigger and better display, a more comfortable strap attachment, Bluetooth 5.3 connection, and more sports modes.