Xiaomi Smart Band 7 is similar to the Mi Band 6 in many ways. However, it has a larger AMOLED display and an always-on function, which were not present in the previous model. It has received some updates, including a larger AMOLED screen, always-on mode, continuous blood oxygen monitoring, and a bigger battery. Despite these new features, the rest of the tracker remains largely unchanged from previous versions, including its 5ATM water resistance, extensive list of workout modes, health and stress monitoring capabilities, and customizable options. While it does not offer integration with a digital assistant and its notifications cannot be acted upon, the Mi Band 7 remains a strong contender in the budget fitness tracker market.
The Xiaomi Mi Band series has helped the company become the third-largest wearable manufacturer in the world, with sales of 9.8 million units in the first quarter of 2022. Xiaomi’s success in the wearable market can be attributed to its focus on providing value to consumers. The Mi Band series offers a range of features at a competitive price, and has recently been updated with larger AMOLED screens and new features. As a result, the Mi Band series has allowed Xiaomi to dominate the budget fitness tracker market for the past seven years.
Xiaomi Mi Band 7 Features
The Xiaomi Mi Band 7 is visually similar to the Band 6, with the main difference being the larger 1.62-inch AMOLED display. In addition to the larger screen, the Smart Band 7 also has an always-on display feature, which can be disabled if desired. The fitness tracker offers more than 110 sports modes for tracking various activities, and Xiaomi claims a 14-day battery life between charges. However, actual battery life may be shorter, depending on the use of features such as health and fitness monitoring. The Smart Band 7 has a larger 180mAh battery (compared to 125mAh on the Smart Band 6), which does improve battery life compared to its predecessor. With the always-on mode active, the battery will last for about four days. Overall, the Smart Band 7 offers good battery life, especially compared to most smartwatches, and the always-on feature can be useful for some users.
The Band uses a pogo pin connector for charging, and comes with a cable included in the box. When the always-on mode is not used, the battery life is significantly better than that of its predecessor, making it a strong competitor in the fitness tracker market. It can be paired with Android phones running Android 6.0 or later and iPhones running iOS 10 or later over Bluetooth 5.2. The process of connecting the fitness tracker to a phone is easy, simply requiring the scanning of a QR code. Once connected, the Mi Band 7 offers a range of customizable options, including a large selection of watch faces and settings for health and activity monitoring, which can be accessed through the Android app. The Mi Band 7 has over a hundred watch faces to choose from, including minimalist and colorful options.
The Xiaomi Mi Band 7 has a range of sensors, including a heart rate monitor and a blood oxygen level monitor. It also offers 110 workout modes, incoming call and text alerts, move alerts, all-day stress monitoring, and relaxation reminders. The fitness tracker can be set to continuously monitor heart rate throughout the day at five-minute intervals, and can also monitor blood oxygen levels every 10 minutes. If the blood oxygen levels drop below 90%, the Mi Band 7 will send an alert. The threshold for triggering an alert can be customized, allowing for a high degree of configurability.
Disadvantages of Xiaomi Mi Band 7
One of the main drawbacks of the Xiaomi Mi Band 7 is its lack of actionable notifications. While the fitness tracker can display notifications on the wrist, there is no way to interact with them on the device itself. This means that you will need to use your phone to respond to messages or take other actions. Additionally, the Mi Band 7 does not have integration with a digital assistant, such as Google Assistant or Alexa. As a result, it is somewhat limited in terms of notification management. However, Amazfit is expected to release a version of the Mi Band with Alexa integration, which may be a better option for users who require this feature.
It is disappointing that the global version of the Xiaomi Mi Band 7 does not support payments, despite rumors that the company was working with MasterCard to enable this feature in global markets. The NFC model of the fitness tracker, which does support payments, is currently only available in China. Another issue with the Mi Band 7 is that it takes over two hours to charge, which may be inconvenient for some users. While the long battery life does mitigate this somewhat, it would have been nice to see some form of fast charging included in the design
Setting up the band 7
The Xiaomi Mi Fitness app is not the only option for setting up the Smart Band 7. The former Mi Fit app, which has been renamed Zepp Life, can also be used with the fitness tracker and has proven to be effective in testing. There are no significant differences between the two apps in terms of functionality.
The process of setting up the Xiaomi Smart Band 7 is relatively quick, but it may take some time to enable and customize the various functions. By default, many features are disabled and must be activated through the app in order for the fitness tracker to have full functionality. The Smart Band 7 offers a range of watch faces to choose from, with over 110 options available. Six watch faces are pre-installed on the device, and the displayed content can be customized on some of them. However, not all watch faces offer the ability to access submenus through clicking.
Price and availability
Xiaomi Mi band 7 is available in Kenya are various retail stores at KES 7,000.