Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro review | Infinium-tech

Xiaomi’s smart band lineup is one of the most popular smart wearables in the market. And yet, even in its ninth generation, it manages to add significant upgrades to remain relevant.

This is the Pro model (we reviewed the regular a few months ago) and it adds a larger display, nice build, and a GPS tracker for runners.

Version nine brings an 18% larger battery than its predecessor, increasing expected standby from two weeks to 21 days. The screen has retained its size and resolution, but is now twice as bright as the older model. Xiaomi has also added a linear vibration motor for more pleasant haptics.

Xiaomi sells the Smart Band 9 Pro for €80 (exactly twice as expensive as the regular model), and it comes with a proprietary two-pin magnetic charger and a silicone band.

You can purchase several official accessories like this €15 leather band.

The leather band is a step up from silicone in design. The texture is nice and soft. However, this reviewer finds the silicone band a more suitable choice for a fitness accessory like the Smart Band 9 Pro, and it sits more securely during workouts.

leather band

It adds lugs to the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro, which can be used to connect other official Xiaomi bands.

Design and build quality

On the surface, the design of the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro remains largely the same as its predecessor. Upfront there is a 1.74-inch 336x480px AMOLED display which is the centerpiece of the entire device. Since there are no physical buttons on the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro, you’ll be using the display to control everything.

This model introduced a 2.5D curve around the front glass. It feels better to control the Band as your finger slides along the edge of the screen, and it looks better because of the lighting that gently bends around the edges of the glass.

The big upgrade comes by way of a peak of 1,200 nits brightness. Above 600 nits means the display will be visible even in bright sunlight.

The lack of a home button leaves us with mixed feelings. Yes, the device looks sleeker and more minimal. On the other hand, it’s great to rely on body control when you’re working out, with sweaty fingers, or doing something outside in the rain.

Any smartwatch or smart band is only as good as its selection of watch faces. Xiaomi has plenty of high-quality alternatives to the Smart Band 9 Pro. It has nine preloaded faces, each with its own custom always-on variant.

You can download hundreds of additional faces from Xiaomi’s Mi Fitness app.

Display and its AOD variant

Rounding back, the Smart Band 9 Pro features an optical heart rate sensor and pulse oximeter. Combined, they continuously measure heart rate and blood oxygen, and Xiaomi says the algorithm behind the sensors has been improved by 15% compared to the previous generation.

Software, health and fitness tracking

Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro runs on its proprietary OS. The main screen is the face of your watch. Swiping right takes you to your quick toggles – Do Not Disturb, Alarms, Raise to Wake, Screen Flash, Find Your Phone, Settings, Power Saver Mode and Screen On for 5 Minutes.

Swiping up from the main watch face will reveal a grid of apps, which you can resize as a list. Swiping down on the watch face reveals notifications, and swiping left switches to your different widgets – weather and fitness, health, music, etc. You can rearrange these on the band or through the app.

The health and fitness tracking credentials on the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro are excellent. You get continuous heart rate and blood oxygen tracking, and the band can measure your stress levels based on those readings.

If you want, you can enable the Vitality Score, which takes all your data into account to give you an overall score and hints on how to improve it. The band also supports women’s health management for cycle recording and prediction and guided breathing exercises.

Sleep tracking is good but not great. The band will automatically start sleep tracking when you go to bed – no need to enter any special mode, which is convenient. You get a breakdown of your total sleep into light, REM (rapid eye movement, i.e. your dreaming sleep) and deep sleep. If you’re awake, you’ll also get a readout of how long you’ve been awake.

However, the Smart Band 9 Pro doesn’t give you a count of your sleep cycle, or readings of your movement, and it lacks skin temperature data – things that more advanced wearable devices offer. The band rarely recorded this reviewer’s wake time, which my other tracker caught flawlessly.

Then there’s deep sleep reading, which is the downfall of most basic trackers. Xiaomi’s tracker is extremely generous when it comes to deep sleep readings. One night, it showed up 2 hours than deep sleep 40 minutes More from Galaxy Watch6 Classic 1 hour 40 minutes For the Huawei Watch Fit 2 (another deep sleep culprit).

One gripe with Xiaomi is that you can’t see your entire deep sleep routine on the band when you wake up – all the information is available on your phone.

sleep tracking

I can’t fault the heart rate readings, accelerometer data, or GPS readings. The band was very quick to lock onto a GPS signal before I ran.

Running with Smart Band 9 Pro

To compare the data, I did some running while wearing the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro, Huawei Watch Fit 2, and Samsung Galaxy Watch6 Classic. I’ll lay out the numbers so you can decide for yourself. I measured my run on a few different GPS mapping sites and the total length averaged 4.27km to 4.36km – meaning the Xiaomi shows a deviation of about 150m to 220m, which isn’t so bad. Samsung’s watch was the worst, while Huawei’s watch came closest.

At the end of the day, tracking your health or fitness will depend more on the consistency of your data rather than its absolute accuracy – which means if you use the wearable for a long period of time and assess changes in the data , so you can get a good idea of ​​where you are in terms of health and fitness.

battery life

The big battery of Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro was really great. With light use – raise to wake, AOD off, notifications enabled, three workouts per week, no sleep tracking – the Band was able to stay on for an incredible 14 days of use.

When I enabled the Always-On display and added daily sleep tracking, the band’s usage was limited to 7 days (it required a charge on the 7th day).

It took one hour and 26 minutes for the band to charge back.

conclusion

The Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro is a great smart wearable device at a reasonable price, arriving on the global stage just in time for the holidays. The larger battery and curved, brighter screen make it a solid update over the Smart Band 8 Pro — and a solid smart wearable.

If you need a good fitness and health tracker that can deliver notifications and last for days, there’s really nothing the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro can’t do. Xiaomi’s wearables are hard to beat – you’ll have to look at Huawei’s Watch Fit series to get a similar package at a similar price.

Pros

• Well-built and sleek with 2.5D screen curves
• Responsive UI, beautiful watch faces
• The display is bright and easy to read in any light
• Good Health and Fitness Tracking Suite
• great battery life
• affordable

Shortcoming

• There is no home button tradeoff
• highly optimistic deep sleep reading
• You can’t reply to notifications

You can buy Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro from here Amazon Germany here,

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