Redmi Smart Band Pro Review: Bigger, Better and Bang for the Buck

The Xiaomi Band number series is quite popular in India but the brand this year looked to move a step ahead with the launch of the Redmi Smart Band Pro. Features wise, the Smart Band Pro is similar to last year’s launch, Xiaomi Mi Band 6. The Smart Band Pro features an ​AMOLED Display, 14 days battery life, 100+ sports mode support, LifeQ health algorithm, and more for Rs 3,999 in India.

Many have been asking if the Redmi Smart Band Pro is just a Mi Band 6 with a bigger screen or if it is more than that. We got our hands on Redmi’s latest fitness band and here’s our review of it.

Design and Build Quality

Apart from its display, the Redmi Smart Band Pro design is similar to any other fitness band – a plastic module attached with two silicone straps. The straps are detachable, so you can swap them with something else. The build quality of the band is good. Redmi Smart Band Pro is only available in black colour at present, but Xiaomi could add a few more colour options. It weighs approximately 25 grams and you’ll feel it there on your wrist.

On the back, there’s a Redmi logo, magnetic pins for charging, PPG heart rate, and oxygen level sensors. On the front, it occupies 65.5% of the panel and the bezels are neither thin nor thick. The lower bezel is thicker than the others, but you won’t notice it much, as the dark UI blends into the bezels. The corners are rounded and the edges are flat. The screen of the Smart Band Pro attracts fingerprints easily. There are no physical buttons which means that you can control it only by touch.

The Redmi Smart Band Pro is rated to be waterproof up to 5 ATM, which means you can take it for a swim to the pool.

Display and Watch Faces

The USP of the Redmi Smart Band Pro is its bigger and wider display which differentiates it from the regular fitness bands. To be honest, I have never been a fan of 1-inch displays on fitness bands as there is very little space for everything. The Redmi Smart Band Pro solves this problem, the 1.47-inch display provides sufficient space for the text and icons to fit. The size of the text is perfect, the home screen can provide all information without any congestion, the app drawer gets more space. A big screen makes everything better on the Smart Band Pro.

The Redmi Smart Band Pro screen has pixel density of 283 ppi making every text look more clear and sharper even when the font size is small. Xiaomi claims that the brightness of this fitness band can go up to 450 nits. It goes fully bright when you turn on its flashlight option. I haven’t tested that but the display is very bright even in the harsh sunlight conditions. The addition of Ambient sensor adjusts the brightness screen as per the lightning and it works smoothly. You get up to 5 levels of brightness in the Display settings.

The display produces vibrant colours thanks to the AMOLED panel, the screen is at par with many smartwatches available under Rs 5k segment. The raise to wake feature wakes the screen as soon as you raise your wrist, you can turn these off from the band itself. Covering the display with your hand will turn the screen off.

Xiaomi is offering over 50 watch faces for the Redmi Smart Band Pro, the fitness band has four pre-loaded faces which you can set directly. To download more watch faces users will have to go to the app. Just like the regular Mi Bands, I expect that the Redmi Smart Band Pro will get third party watch faces support.

Now, one of the amazing features of its display has the AoD (Always-On Display) support. This is not available on the Honor Band 6 and Xiaomi scores a bonus point here. The Always on Display can be turned on from the band’s display settings and you can schedule it as well. It shows you the date, time and day in white colour font on a black screen.

That said, the display on the Redmi Smart Band Pro is one of the best on any fitness band.

Battery and Charging

The Redmi Smart Band Pro is a beast when it comes to providing a good battery life. It packs a 200mAh battery that is claimed to provide a backup of 14 days on standard usage. It’s been five days since the fitness band arrived and it’s still on 75% charge. My daily usage includes continuous heart rate monitoring, always-ON SpO2 monitoring (frequency set to 30 minutes), stress monitoring, sleep tracking and notification alerts. Also, to note, I turned on the Always-On Display for a complete day to test it. The battery percentage on that day dropped 10% otherwise the Smart Band Pro would have around 80% charge without AOD.

I easily estimate that the Redmi Smart Band Pro would give a battery backup of two weeks with most of the features being turned on. That’s amazing battery life.

As for the charging, it takes almost 90 minutes to juice up and the charger needs to be connected magnetically to the band. One thing missing here is fast charging support in the Redmi Smart Band Pro just like the Honor Band 6 which provides 3 days battery life with a 10 minute charge.

That said, the Redmi Smart Band Pro is still a beast in terms of battery life and should do with two full charges for a month.

Health Based Features and Workout Modes

The Redmi Smart Band Pro doesn’t lack in terms of features. It features a heart rate monitor, blood oxygen (SpO2) monitoring, stress monitoring, sleep tracking, steps count, calories burnt, menstrual cycles, breathing exercise, and more. Xiaomi says that the Redmi Smart Band Pro uses the LifeQ health algorithm which makes the measurement accurate. As per my usage, all the data measurement seems fairly accurate. The SpO2 sensor, unlike any other watch, records the data in a go. Most of the time you would have noticed that many bands do not complete the blood oxygen measurement.

Sleep tracking of the Redmi Smart Band Pro is fairly accurate, plus it shows you a very detailed chart in the app which we will talk about later in the article. It can record the quick naps you take during the daytime.

Other features include music playback control, timer, stopwatch, weather, camera control, alarm, find phone, flashlight.

The Redmi Smart Band loads over 110 workout modes out of which three are auto-detect workout modes – Running, Treadmill, and Walking. You start walking for sometime and it will ask if you want to start walking mode and pause it automatically if you stop walking. This auto detection workout mode is pretty impressive, I hope Xiaomi makes it available for more modes.

The Smart Band Pro doesn’t come with an in-built GPS and hence you have to connect it to the smartphone for the map tracking. Not having GPS is really not a big concern for me but others might have a different opinion.

UI and App Support

The User Interface on the Redmi Smart Band Pro is identical to the Mi Band 6. Swipe down and you can check notifications, but you can’t do much else. Xiaomi says that the Band Pro supports emoji but even the most generic emoji’s such as laughing, heart, etc were appearing as stars during my usage. I loved how Xiaomi has added different icons for different app notifications. For the calls, you can neither accept it nor send any message template from the band, the only two options available are to silence it or hang up.

Coming back to the UI, swiping up will take you to the main app drawer where you will find options such as workout, activity, stats, heart rate, SpO2, sleep, stress, sleep, breathing, cycles, weather, music, camera, alarm, stopwatch, timer, notifications, find phone, flashlight, and settings.

Swiping right will take you to the shortcut apps and swiping left will take you to the control center.

The touch interface is smooth and I didn’t notice any stutter while switching between the apps and home screen. The UI is pretty easy to use.

To set up the Redmi Smart Band Pro, you need to download the Xiaomi Wear Lite app. I was using the app on my iPhone 12 Mini so all the options shown below could differ if you are an Android user.

Xiaomi’s app for the Redmi Smart Band Pro is good but not the best. It shows you a variety of options to choose from. You can see all your tracking data in detail such as previous workout history, sleep data, heart rate monitoring, stress monitoring, blood oxygen level. You can customize your fitness band from the app in the profile section. If you want, you can start a workout mode directly from the app with the GPS connected. But, I noticed syncing issues with the app. Xiaomi Wear Lite app takes up hours to sync the data despite being connected throughout the day. But, an update should fix this issue. You can check out the app screenshots below.

Is Redmi Smart Band Pro the best fitness band under Rs 4,000?

I would keep it simple, the Redmi Smart Band Pro is a value for money product and I will recommend it over the Mi Band 6. The Always-On Display feature on the Redmi Smart Band Pro gives it a lead and makes it better than the Honor Band 6. Yes, there’s no in-built GPS but you don’t find it in any other fitness band in this range. So that’s not a deal breaker. There are some issues with the app syncing but that can be fixed through an update easily.

The Redmi Smart Band Pro is better than some of the smartwatches available under Rs 5,000 in India. The battery life and display are at par with most of the smartwatches. The big screen refreshes the fitness band segment and gives them a new identity. As Xiaomi claims, the Redmi Smart Band Pro is the bridge between smartwatches and fitness bands.

My colleague, Rushil, had crowned the Huawei Band 6 as the best fitness band under Rs 5,000 in his review but I would say that the Redmi Smart Band Pro deserves that crown.

Do you have any questions about the Redmi Smart Band Pro? Let us know in the comments section.