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Xiaomi unveils 2nd gen Mi Band fitness tracker with heart-rate monitor, costs just $15

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Xiaomi sure knows how to make affordable products that punch above their price point. Whether it’s an Android-powered TV, flagship smartphone or a fitness tracker. The Chinese manufacturer just updated its range of fitness trackers with the second generation Mi Band, and it offers a lot for the money.

The updated Mi Band has many of the features you’d expect to find in a basic FitBit or Jawbone tracker. It’ll help you set goals via an Android app and calculate distance travelled, calories burned and track various exercises. It can track your sleep, and has a built-in vibrator motor to alert you when receiving calls. What’s more, if you manage to pick up the more expensive 99 yuan ($15 USD) model, you’ll get a heart-rate monitor too.

Design-wise, it’s a toned-down affair. It’s essentially a metal capsule containing all the necessary sensors and components inside a basic, flexible TPU wrist-band. No watch-face or screen of any kind, just a few LED lights. Saying that, it’s designed to be waterproof, drop-resistant and can last 30 days on a single charge. In other words: It’s not fancy, but has all the features necessary to be a great phone-connected fitness band and it lasts forever.

The 2nd gen Mi Band is launching in China on November 11, and the company hasn’t announced its plans to ship internationally. However, you should still be able to pick them up on specialist Chinese tech import sites in Europe and the US cheaply. A quick search on eBay reveals that the first gen Mi Band isn’t hard to get hold of, although you may have to pay a couple of dollars extra to get it.  The 2nd gen will undoubtedly follow soon.

Images of purported Xiaomi Mi Band 1s surface, includes heart rate sensor

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Chinese website SOGI.com.tw has posted images of what is purportedly a next-generation Xiaomi Mi Band, reportedly to be called the Mi Band 1s. The only difference we can notice by observing the externals is that it houses a heart rate sensor.

This minor difference would make sense as most Xiaomi hardware is priced incredibly competitively, and anything more than the addition of a heart rate sensor may raise the price more than they’d like. The current Mi Band is available ranging between $15-20 on Mi.com and AliExpress. My only concern is how the sensor will impact battery life, but we’ll have to wait and see.

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Have you tried the Mi Band? And if so, do you like it? I personally haven’t tried it, but at such a low price it’s pretty hard to beat. Unless of course you already have a smartwatch or other fitness band with a heart rate sensor.

Xiaomi announces $13 Mi Band wearable with phone unlock feature, and first LTE phone

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Rapidly-growing Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi announced its first wearable today, the Mi Band. While it’s a fitness band rather than a smartwatch, it does have one smartwatch-style feature: it can be used instead of a passcode to unlock Mi phones.

The waterproof Mi Band measures activity levels and sleep patterns, has a smart sleep-cycle alarm and claims to have a 30-day battery-life. Amazingly, it will be going on sale in China and Singapore for the equivalent of just $13 … 
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