TECH REVIEW: Huawei’s affordable health-tracking wristband

Huawei Band 6

Cool factor 3/5
Usability 4/5
Value for money 5/5

After it was kicked off the Google Play Store and all Android services, Huawei took a knock in phone sales, which hit its market share. It is no longer a top-five smartphone manufacturer.

But it’s too soon to write off the company’s line of wearable tech. The FM reviewed the new Huawei Band 6 fitness tracker, and the most important thing to know about it is that it pairs with Android and iOS devices.

The Band 6 has a 1.47-inch full colour display with anti-fingerprint coating that lets you interact with it like you do with a smartphone by using swipes and gestures. It has a more elongated design than its sibling, the Watch Fit, and has a single power/home button to the right. Its UV-treated silicone strap is lightweight; I found it comfortable to wear daily.

The band has incorporated some features that have become more popular thanks to Covid: all-day SpO2 blood oxygen monitoring, as well as a wellbeing focus to measure stress and, if required, for doing breathing exercises. Other features include heart-rate monitoring, sleep tracking and 96 workout modes.

The vivid display is great for checking your stats and data. It shows graphs and metrics, so you don’t have to go to the accompanying Huawei Health app to pick these up.

Like most fitness trackers, the Band 6 can alert you if your heart rate is too high or too low. This is now also applicable to your blood oxygen levels.

Sleep tracking is detailed; the Band 6 provides eight metrics and can identify six sleep issues. It offers more than 100 personalised sleep recommendations to help improve the quality of your rest. However, I found only the information about sleep stages to be useful.

Fitness activity can be detected automatically. Plenty of modes are supported, including rope jumping, which also differentiates your jumps.

The tracker is water resistant up to 50m. It does not have built-in GPS, so if you’re an outdoor runner you would need your smartphone for this.

The fitness band has a phenomenal battery life of up to 14 days, depending on how intense your daily routine is. I’ve been impressed with how infrequently it needs to be charged. And five minutes of it yields two days of usage.

The Huawei Band 6 is an affordable fitness tracker with the latest in health tracking and excellent battery life. But it is not a smartwatch, nor does it have GPS.

It costs R1,699 and works with Vitality Rewards.