The Amazfit Band 5 is slim, succesful and inexpensive, and you’ll select between dozens of slick faces.
Rick Broida/CNET
Looking for a price range health band to slap in your wrist? The Amazfit Band 5 deserves cautious consideration, and never simply because it is solely $50. It’s as a result of immediately solely, and whereas provides final, the Amazfit Band 5 is on sale for just $26. That’s the bottom value I’ve seen.
If this appears a bit acquainted, maybe you are considering of the Xiaomi Mi Band 5. You’re not flawed: The two are nearly equivalent. (Fun reality: Amazfit is owned by Huami, which is a producing associate of Xiaomi.) I’d go as far as to say they’re indistinguishable, although there are a few key inside variations:
The Band 5 on the left is just a little higher than the Band 5 on the precise. And they’re priced inside about $5 of one another.
Amazfit
The Amazfit Band 5 — ticks a powerful variety of health packing containers. It measures coronary heart charge, blood oxygen degree, steps, sleep and extra. It may monitor your stress ranges and run guided respiratory workouts.
On the watch’s entrance, you get a selection of over 45 colourful faces, plus the everyday stuff like notifications, name alerts and assembly reminders. You cannot reply to a textual content message, however you’ll be able to decline a cellphone name. You may management music playback and your cellphone’s digicam shutter. Good stuff.
Amazfit guarantees as much as 15 days of operation on a cost with typical utilization, or 25 days of power-saving utilization. (That means no HR monitoring or the like.) I wasn’t in a position to put the battery to the check, however even when these estimates are excessive, the Band 5 will outlast many different health bands.
Another notable characteristic: built-in Alexa. This was very a lot in beta throughout my assessments, and it confirmed: Some time after authorizing the Band 5’s app to work with my Alexa account, that authorization was misplaced and I needed to set it up once more. After that, I’d get “Server is busy” or “Could you repeat that” messages when making an attempt to subject sure instructions. It simply did not work reliably.
Meanwhile, it isn’t a hands-free implementation — to make use of it, you swipe proper from the clock display — and since the Band 5 has no speaker, you will not hear audible responses. Of course, your cellphone must be in proximity as nicely, with the Zepp app working.
Yep: Zepp. That’s the identify of Amazfit’s app, simply to maintain issues good and complicated. I do not find it irresistible, however it’s tremendous to be used with a $26 health band. It’s flawed to anticipate the solar, moon and stars at this value.
CNET hasn’t executed a full-on overview of the Band 5, and I’ve seen fairly combined critiques across the interwebs. But should you simply need a watch that gives primary health options and cellphone alerts and strong battery life, that is price a glance.
Your ideas?
Originally revealed final yr. Updated to replicate new sale value. Removed expired bonus deal.
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