Huawei Honor Band 3 Review – Lightweight Affordable Smartband

This year Huawei released several fitness tracker in the market, from medium range that has a built-in GPS to a simple affordable smartband intended for consumers who wanted a low price wearable with basic features.

One of the most affordable smartband by Huawei is the Honor Band 3, a fitness tracker that is  in the spectrum of simple, lightweight and cheap (price) smartbands, a section dominated by Mi Band 2, Amazfit smartband, No.1 and Blaze just to name a few.

Design and Display

The band has a sporty simple look, the proprietary silicon strap is available in black, orange and blue color and with common strap we see in most smartband.  So far, can’t complain much on  the strap it is soft, the lock is tight and comfortable to use. The band is soft and flexible but it still has that durable  feel and according to its specs, , the band is sweat proof, waterproof and skin friendly. The screen is 0.91” inch OLED providing crips and clear but it has issues when it is outdoors especially in direct sunlight.

The band has a waterproof rating up to 50 meters which is very useful especially with its swimming feature, and based on our test it works as advertised. Overall , the design is pretty simple, slim and lightweight, the body anyways doesn’t feel premium, it is made of plastic and I’m pretty sure it is durable but I don’t like the texture or feel of the material. Weighing only 18 grams, it is lightweight and sometimes you barely even notice it, I must say it is perfect for women or for those who do have a small wrist.

Features and Hardware

Just like your typical smartband, the Honor Band 3 do have 3 axis accelerator providing data for your pedometer, a heart rate monitor with support for continuous monitoring. In terms of accuracy, it’s a hit and misses for this fitness tracker, the pedometer is much accurate when your just walking or just a typical brisk walking, too much movement makes the band unable to detect some of the steps. The same with heart rate monitor, it provide much better results when your wrist at wrest.

Other health and fitness features of the smartband are calorie counter, sleep monitoring, sedentary alarm. The band is IP68 waterproof rating a must feature for its “swimming option”, the swimming option so far makes it ideal for those who are into this sport and can’t afford a high end wearable with swimming monitor.

Support App

Just like Huawei Band 2 Pro, you will need at least two app to download, available both for Android and iOS. The Huawei Wear App that connect your band to your phone, it is the app where you set-up your smartband, change settings, as well as firmware update. If you want to see the stats and other data about your fitness routine, you need to download another app, the Huawei Wear .  The Huawei Health, see your training history, heart rate stats, the sleep data with graphs  and other stats regarding your health and fitness.

Battery

A section where Honor Band 3 scores high on our list, the fitness tracker do have a long standby time, based on the specs and our experience, the Huawei Honor Band 3 last up to  30 days in just a single charge, the body of the Honor Band 3 measuring

It is packed with  110 mAh battery in combination of its low power display, the Honor Band 3 fitness tracker right now has one of the longest standby time for smartband. Of course, the battery life varies, when you use the different sensors especially if you use it both. See full specifications of the Huawei Honor Band 3

Overall

The Huawei Honor Band 3, has its share hits and misses, the lack of GPS, might push users to go with Huawei Band 2 Pro. The accuracy of its sensors as well as the limited sport feature is also the downside of the Band 3, but honestly, can’t complain much as the Huawei Honor Band 3 do have a very reasonable price, especially if you compare it with other smartband in its price category that fails miserably if you compare it specs and performance with Honor Band 3.

Jo Di Calivo -Blogger, Tech Guru, providing the current news on wearables particularly on smartwatches, smartbands. And loves to go fishing on spare time.