Honor Band 5 Fitness Tracker Review: A Xiaomi Mi Band 4 alternative with hardly any weaknesses

[Redaktion]

The Honor Band 5 hardly differs from its predecessor, at least visually. Nevertheless, Honor wants to have achieved some improvements with the fifth edition of its fitness tracker. Read on to find out what these are and what our major criticism of the Honor Band 5 is.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Honor-Band-5-Fitness-Tracker-Review-A-Xiaomi-Mi-Band-4-alternative-with-hardly-any-weaknesses.438282.0.html

[Mohammad]

Hi, Are you sure about the version of Bluetooth? There has been written version 5 in most of sellers' specification.

[Othmane]

The xiaomi mi band 4 doesn't have blood oxygen saturation as you said in the article

Hi, Are you sure about the version of Bluetooth? There has been written version 5 in most of sellers' specification.

yeah honor band 5 has Bluetooth 4.2 ver , check bluetooth model : crs-b19s or B29S

[Skyrider]

"A Xiaomi Mi Band 4 alternative with hardly any weaknesses"?

I'm sorry, but I fully disagree with you. While the Honor Band 5 does offer a lot of features (especially the sp02 sensor), it also lacks so much in functionality. And i'm missing quite a for things from your review.

For example. While the Honor band health app does show the information a lot better over the Mi Band app, the mi band isn't closed like the honor band is.

For example. For the mi band, you have Gadgetbridge. A free and cloudless replacement soft/firmware. Notify & Fitness or Tools & Mi Band, which can greatly improve your notifications AND create custom button actions.

That cannot be done with the Honor Band 5 because it's so closed off, people cannot create third party apps for it.

Another example is that while it's true the band has "Connected GPS", it only works in a 1 day direction. Only when you use the phone to start an exercise, it'll show the information on the band. But if you start one on the band, it will not connect to your phone to use its GPS. This has been confirmed by the Honor team when I contacted them as this is "not a feature at this time".

While it is true that the honor band 5 shows a lot more information (such as the sleep and sp02) it doesn't compare to what it lacks and as such I returned it. Sure, it's a cheap device.. but come on, even the mi band was smart to open up the device a bit so third party apps can connect to it.

It's a shame I see those points lacking in your review.

[Charles Knight]

So a known issue (with no fix according to Huawei's own forum) - is that the huawei app will record both steps from the phone and the band and you cannot get it to only use the strap.

Furthermore - it often will not track steps if you are indoors and not carrying your phone - no really.

Waste of money.

[Lordthistle]

I agree on the general superiority of the Honor Band, in terms of functionalities, app, accuracy.

The Mi Band has few dedicated activities, the Honor much more.

The app Mi Fit is quite ridiculous, while Huawei Health is very good.

Mi Fit never estimates correctly the overall distance, even after several calibration attempts. The Honor is much better in this.

However, many hardware features of the Honor are just a joke, names put in a list of specs for selling more. I had both a Huawei Band 3 Pro and a Honor Band 5: never seen the VoMax and, on the Honor, the measure of the Spo2 has NEVER been successfull.

I am now using the Mi Band 4 for the better integration in Google Fit, but these two bands are simple toys for people, like me, who cannot a Fitbit or Garmin device.

Such Chinese approach to fitness is becoming annoying. Even for scales, both Huawei and Xiaomi sell devices who can just measure the weight in an incorrect way, not to mention the rest of the parameters.

Some types of devices cannot be too cheap: Xiaomi and Huawei are selling pieces of crap calling them "fitness trackers" or scales, but they are just toys put in the hands of old children.

[lyon_jace]

have anyone tried connecting Honor Band 5 to a Samsung Note 9? did install the required apps, but the Huawei Mobille Services keeps stopping.
thank you

[Noha]

Excuse me. I want to purchase the honor band 5 but my phone is android 5.0.3. Will I be able to use all the band's features ? Such as the phone tracker, selfie cam and music control?

[Netai Dhar]

No. Honor Band 5 doesn't support Bluetooth 4.2. I tried to connect this band with my Lenovo P2 Smartphone and not successful. But, easily I connected this band with my Vivo Z1 Pro.
All is good for this band except Battery life. Only 4 days run this battery when I connect my phone with this band. otherwise 7-8 days normally.