Huawei Honor Band 5 Review – Budget Fitness Tracker that you Need

Huawei Honor Band 5 Review

Huawei continues to promote and released new and exciting smartband in the Honor Band line up, the latest fitness tracker the Huawei Honor band 5 and the Honor Band 5i. We already have the Huawei Honor Band 5 in our arsenal courtesy of Tomtop.com and here is our take on this fitness tracker from Huawei.

Design

Although this is a new model of smartband still the Honor Band 5 has the same design to that of a previous smartband specifically the Band 3. It has a PC body, with a slight curve to make it conform to the shape of your wrist making it comfortable to wear. It is not that revolutionary or tend setter but not not that bad either.

The smartband has a slim design but with a thick body, the thickness might put you off, but I have said the slight curve body sit comfortably, you barely notice that you are wearing the smartband. For the strap, it has third party strap that you can buy online for replacement but it is just limited. But I think you don’t need it anyway, the band is soft yet durable with a traditional lock strap making it securely lock and tight.

It is a lightweight smartband with a sporty look, slim, clean, minimalist design.

 

For those with a bigger wrist, the band might be awkward looking especially if you use the band as an accessories, a combination to your personal attire. But if you are going to use it as a fitness tracking equipment on the gym or outdoor fitness activities, the band just suit right.

Huawei Honor Band 5

Pricing

The smartband is available in different online shopping sites. So far, one of the lowest and reliable is the Tomtop.com site, it is now on 30% OFF price tag at $29.99 U.S as of this writing. Available in blue, pink and blue colors. But your could get it in a much lesser price with the coupon code and deals. Or you can get a combination with a screen protector or an extra strap.

Display

Just like other popular wearables, smartband from well known manufacturer, the Huawei Honor Band 5 has a vivid beautiful display. The 0.95” inch AMOLED display provide sharp colors having a 283 PPI. The rectangular full color display has a 240 x 120 pixel resolution. Its color is accurately good especially the black color that blends perfectly with its bezel. Unlike other smartband with a noticeable space between, the protective glass and the screen display.  With the Honor Band 5, it is unnoticeable, it was seamlessly integrated.

Huawei Honor Band 5

It has a good brightness with the option to adjust the level (1 to 5). There is also an option “lower brightness contrast”, which automatically adjust its brightness to low when its evening. We are not sure whether it uses a light sensor to adjust or it based the auto adjust on the time of the wearable. Anyways, the option is a good a welcome addition to the wearable.

The smartband supports touch screen method of operation, works by swiping up to cycle to the menus, and top to access or activate. There is also a button key that works as a home button, bringing you back the home screen.

Menus

Swiping up and down will cycle you to the different menus and options, below are the hierarchy of menus and its sub-menus.

Menus SubMenus
Messages
Music
Pedometer (Step counter, Calorie, Distance, duration, standing)
Heart rate
Blood Oxygen Monitor
Sleep Monitoring
Workout Outdoor Run Elliptical
Indoor Run Rower
Outdoor Walk Pool
Indoor Walk Free Training Option
Indoor Cycle
More (Settings) Timer Stopwatch Faces Brightness
Stopwatch Find Phone Screen On System

Accessing Menus,  swiping down from home menu shows the main feature of the band like “Bluetooth music”,” messages”,”settings”. Swiping up shows the step counter, heart rate, blood oxygen, sleep, workout and so on. Tap the touch button key goes back to home menu, where ever you are in the menu options.

Features and Functions

Although it doesn’t have that wow factor in the look department, Huawei’s best selling factor is its health and fitness. Its optical heart rate monitor with AI algorithm and its TrueSeen 3.5 separates it from the rest of the fitness tracker in the market. With its support app, it is able to provide detailed HR stats with details on how to improve as well as information also for safe levels.

Sleep Monitoring

Its sleep monitoring feature is also far more advanced than a regular fitness tracker with its Huawei TruSleep 2.0. It just not track your sleep but it also integrate your heart rate to provide a precise and better sleep statistics which I think is an amazing feature in a fitness tracker.

Our Test

With its sleep monitoring function, the wearable was able to detect the time I went to sleep as well as the time I woke-up. It just did not provide any data on my wake-up times, where I went to the bathroom several times. There are some graphs on the status of the my sleep from deep sleep, light sleep ROM sleep which I think if very useful in providing you more information about your rest time. So far it was closed to my estimates, with just minor discrepancies . I did not try to fest it again for accuracy as I gave more focus on its sports fitness functions.

A new addition to the band 5 is the integration of the blood oxygen saturation monitor functionality. The feature is an added monitoring function from working out aside from steps and heart rate. This enables the person to track your overall fitness status while doing some exercises. I don’t have the tools to tell whether (SPO2) is accurate or not. But if you are curious whether it work smoothly when tested, so far it activates and performs as intended and provided a glimpse of the status of my health during the exercise routine.

More on the functionality of the band, the step tracker is on auto track accompanied by calorie and distance. There is an addition, auto monitoring such as intensity that measures the intensity of your workout based on your HR and cadence. On the accuracy, the wearable is a bit off in our test, sometimes its too sensitive and it counts even a slight movement. But I guess it can be easily solve by HUAWEI if this is just on the software side. An over the air update is just east for loading a fix or new firmware.

Motivation Features

The support app has an achievement section that monitors your overall activity and provide insights on your workout. This is helpful to keep you get motivated providing your current standing to other users which makes your workout more to achieve that goal. There is also a medal section that is awarded to you when you achieve a certain number of activities such as number of steps or distance.

See full Specifications: Huawe Honor Band 5 Specs

Battery

Although it has a slim body, HUAWEI was able to load it with 100 mAh lithium polymer battery. According to its specs page, the wearable last up to 2 weeks on standby. And around a week if most of its monitoring is activated or used. What I noticed about the issues on the band is when you left it charge for a longer period, about two or more weeks, it takes time for the band to power up. I don’t know if my band is defective or not, but it took at least 2 to 3 hours for the band to start charging.

There time are times that I thought that the band is dead for good. But if your charge it right away after a low battery more or in depleted mode, it powers up fast. My advice is to charge it when there is little juice left or when it is out, charge it right away, don’t let it sit in no power mode for several weeks.

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