Huawei Band 6 comes with a two-week battery life
Huawei is one of the most popular makers of smartwatches, and their latest Band 6 features a larger screen and even more workouts and features than before.
It's hard to overlook the stunning 1.47-inch AMOLED display, which makes seeing and reading details on the screen much easier than on the previous Band 5, which had a 0. 95-inch screen. The long rectangular shape is elegant and features a solitary button on the side. It has a typical design for a smart band but the larger display and wider size does make it look more distinctive.
Around the back are two pins that magnetically connect to a proprietary charging cable, so there’s no messing around with trying to clip on a dongle.
Around the plastic back are several optical sensors. The Huawei Band 6 is the first smart band to support continuous SpO2 monitoring, as well as a full range of health monitoring features such as heart rate, sleep, stress, and menstrual cycle tracking.
My review unit came with a black silicone rubber band, but other colours are available to fit either a black or gold-coloured watch frame body. The universal strap is wide enough to fit large wrists but has holes to fit small wrists as well. The buckle style clasp is easy to close and open and can be easily removed and swapped with other compatible straps.
Daily charging is a common feature of more expensive smartwatches but the Band 6 has a claimed battery life of up to two weeks. During my time of testing, I was only able to manage 10 days but this was with sleep monitoring and all-day heart monitoring turned on. This means you can go on a weeks holidays or a long weekend without having to worry about bringing an extra charging cable.
The Band 6 can be paired with Android or iPhone but the Huawei Health app is required for it to work. Once downloaded, you then have to add it as a device through the app. This will then show you a wealth of information, such as a thorough rundown of your night's sleep, your daily heart rate range, stress levels, and SpO2 levels.
Of course, you can also track your steps, distance, calories burned and workouts from within the app and on the band.
There’s a large selection of customisable watch faces to choose from apart from the default nine that come as standard. It’s nice to be able to change the watch faces but the levels of customisation are limited.
The automatic stress test has to be enabled and calibrated. When on, Band 6 will monitor your movements and take stress measurements when you are still. Your stress level is calculated based on fluctuations in your heart rate. Of course, it isn’t active when you exercise and you have to have the strap tight enough for it to work properly.
Automatic SpO2 also has to be enabled and will measure and record while you are at rest. Generally, there’s no need to enable this as it will adversely affect battery life but can be helpful when asleep and in high-altitude areas where you may have concerns about the levels of oxygen being absorbed into your blood. You can perform manual heart rate, SpO2 and stress tests.
Sleep tracking works brilliantly using Huawei TruSleep which monitors your sleep patterns and can detect and track your state of deep sleep, light sleep, REM sleep, or awake periods during a nights sleep. It will evaluate the quality of sleep and suggest some practical ways to improve it.
If you don’t want to track your sleep or would rather not wear it in bed, you can turn sleep monitoring off and gain extra battery life in the process.
As a smartwatch, the Band 6 offers some basic features including notifications for the apps and messages you want to see. You can turn all notifications off too if you’d prefer. It’s worth noting that although you can see new messages, you can only read but not reply to them.
You can see incoming calls too, including caller ID, but you can’t answer them via Band 6 although you can reject calls, which has come in handy.
Useful apps including the Breathing exercise app to help keep your stress levels to a minimum and the Find Phone is a must-have option on any smartwatch. You also get a stopwatch, timer, alarm, weather and activity records but that’s about it with no other apps available to download.
As a fitness band, Huawei Band 6 has all of the features most will need including 96 workout modes. These provide helpful data tracking and analysis for those who want to improve their fitness levels. However, the lack of a built-in GPS means you will have to bring your phone with you for accurate distance tracking.
The Huawei Band 6 is a stylish smart band with lots of features including good fitness tracking. The excellent battery life is convenient and it’s nice to see additional options such as SpO2 monitoring as well as accurate sleep tracking in a relatively inexpensive smart band.
Available now €59 from Huawei
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