REVIEW: Stainless Steel Metal Watch Strap Wristband Bracelet For Xiaomi Mi Band 4

Having been through several of the original rubbery Mi Band straps, and a few of the third party straps, the last of which broke in several places, I decided to get a metal watch strap for my gen 4 Mi Band.

There are plenty on eBay end i chose one reasonably priced, at £9.76. It was from a UK seller though i suspect they just order from China anyway, but I digress... I chose a blue metal strap, but there are several colours to choose from, including just plain metal.

Upon arrival, opening the package, which was packed reasonably, it came with a little tool to remove the pins so you can take links out to fit smaller wrists. The tool instantly broke, being made from cheap plastic. Never mind, I went the less hassle but more costly route of going to a shop in town that does it for you, that cost £10 but that includes a bit of after care, you can go back to get it sorted again if needed within about 3 weeks. I had 3 links taken out to fit my wrist. 

The other slight issue is that the watch would not stay in place in the strap, until I used my pliers to gently bend the edge in so it gripped the watch a bit better, but it is still easy to remove to charge the device when needed. 

It's been a few weeks since I had the links taken out and have got used to it being on my wrist, as always it takes a bit of time to get used to, until I get to the stage of my wrist feeling a bit naked without it on. 

  

At first I was not sure if I would recommend this strap but as long as you are prepared to live with a slightly bent edge on one side and the slight fiddly setup, it's decent enough, and it was cheap to buy, even after spending a bit of money getting it fitted, though if you have the right tool you could probably do that yourself anyway. 

Xiaomi Mi Band 4 Review

Well, my Mi Band 3 died after almost exactly a year, refusing to charge at all, so I needed a replacement. The Mi band 4 had just come out so I got one of those. Let's hope it lasts longer! The Band 4 arrived in a slim, long box, with little charging cable and instructions.

The Band 4 is almost exactly the same size, but the screen looks so much nicer, brighter, much easier to read in bright sunlight. The other main obvious difference is instead of charging from one end, the Band 4 uses a connector underneath and a little cradle to charge, hopefully this works much better for longer.

The Band 4's strap is identical to the 3, so you can re-use any of your previous custom straps if you want to.

A bunch of new watch faces are available, I chose the third one along in this selection.

 have had the Mi Band 4 now for several months now, and the best thing about it is the battery life, I have regularly been getting over 20 days between charges.

Other than the extra battery life and better screen, it does the same stuff for me as the older model, providing notifications from my phone and counting my steps. I don't use the  heart rate monitor but at least it works, it never did on my old Band 3. If you're after a basic watch for notifications etc and don't want to fork out more money for a  basic Fitbit, the Mi Band 4 is ideal. Hopefully it will last me for awhile. I am considering getting an Android watch as my next upgrade, but not an expensive one.   

Mi Band 2 Review & Comparison To Mi Band 3

Xiaomi are set to release the Mi Band 4 shortly and I currently own a Mi Band 3 - so it might seem a little odd to review the Mi Band 2 now, but I am going to anyway.

I have been loving my Mi Band 3 for a few months and recently picked up a Mi Band 2 as a backup band.

The Mi Band 2 is predominately aimed at the fitness market. Its OLED mono display features a touch button for accessing the menu and can show you the time, steps taken and heart rate. As well as this it can tell you if you get a notification or phone call by displaying and icon on screen and vibrating. However, it doesn’t display what the notification says or who is calling you, it merely is a prompt.

All settings and syncing is done via the MiFit app on your phone.

Its 70mAh battery boasts 20 days on a single charge and I got close to that.

The body of the Band pops out of the strap and is charged with the supplied cable. I like this idea as it means straps can be replaced or changed easily.

Really that is all there is to the Mi Band 2. While it is huge step up from the original Mi Band, which didn’t even have a display, it lacks much in the way of functions. It is a basic device, but it doesn’t claim to be anything else.

Move forward to the Mi Band 3 and this adds more functions, while maintaining a similar design and style as its predecessor. The Mi Band adds a full touch screen which can now show more information, display notifications in full as well as caller ID - with the ability to reject calls, sleep monitoring, timer, weather, phone locator and more.

Both bands are great. If you want a pedometer with heart rate monitor and nod every time you get a notification, then the Mi Band 2 is great. If you want something with more features and full notifications then the Mi Band 3 is a better option.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

Replacing a Pebble 2 with a Xiaomi Mi Band 3

I was recently looking for a replacement for my old Pebble, one that was a bit more comfortable and still supported. With not enough budget for a proper smart watch, the opportunity to get something cheap as a requested Xmas present came about. At
£20, the Xiaomi Mi Band 3 is probably the cheapest way to get your phones notifications onto your wrist!

In the box, there's a charge cable, the watch itself and the rubbery plastic strap which pops round the watch. I was struck by how tiny it is. It does not come with a charger but most USB A phone chargers should be fine. The watch needed charging up right from the off, it was totally out of charge, it's so tiny that it charges from one end - you have to take it off the strap to charge it.

Once fully charged up, I paired it using their app which was simple enough once you sign up/into it, I used my Google account.

Then it needed a firmware upgrade but for some reason after the upgrade, I had to re-pair it again.

I then had to fiddle about a bit to get notifications from my Pixel XL to work. Notification settings are in Advanced Settings. I had to manually enable each app I wanted notifications from, which makes sense I suppose, you don't want everything buzzing the watch all the time. I also found an app called Mi Band Tools - £3 -  that has a lot more configuration of notifications if you need it. There's a maximum of 5 notifications stored which you can scroll through and clear them by holding the button a bit.

The time is not always on, you have to touch it to show the display or enable the 'lift wrist to show display' setting.

I couldn't seem to get it to read my heart rate but I'm not really bothered as I didn't buy it for the keep fit stuff, more for the watch function and notifications on my wrist. I've turned off Automatic Heart rate detection, to get better battery life.

I find the alarm clock function on the Mi Band very useful as it often wakes me up when my phone alarm doesn't. On my phone I manually make alarms for 10 min intervals for several hours, whereas on the Band i can set one that will go off and repeat every 10 mins until I stop it, giving me little vibrations to my wrist.

After 13 none-stop days on my wrist, the Mi Band prompted me to charge it, at 15%, so I popped it on charge. It took around a couple of hours on the 1.5A charger that I used and it prompts you when it's reached 100%.

Overall I am quite happy with it, I've been getting around 14 days battery life and the strap is more comfortable than the one on my Pebble. I wear it 24/7, it's properly waterproof, you can even swim with it! Incidentally, you can buy replacement straps in various colours for a few quid from Amazon or eBay. It's nice being able to see who's calling or messaging by looking at my watch rather than fumbling for my phone when my hands are full. The only thing I miss from my Pebble is being able to do a thumbs up to Facebook Messages! I'll probably keep the Mi Band awhile, until I one day can afford a decent Android Wear watch.