I’ve been using the new HUAWEI Band 6 for the past few weeks now and I’m happy to report, I’m more than satisfied with this budget friendly device.
The “Band” line from HUAWEI is their fitness band line that comes at a reasonable price. It’s not overly fancy but it has all the bells and whistles you need for working out. The Band 6 is the sequel to the Band 4, which of course doesn’t make any sense since there was no Band 5 but that’s modern day tech for you. The watch is lightweight, has a great battery life, and some really groovy fun features.
The design of the watch is simple enough. It’s thin, non-removable silicone band attaches to the Band 6 body and comes in four different unique colours. Amber Sunrise and Forest Green are both really nice options opposed to your standard black you so often see. Of course, the Huawei Band 6 comes in a black colourway but it is nice to have some options for those who want to peacock a little.
I’ve had my watch on pretty much since I got it and the AMOLED screen has remained pretty clean as well as lightweight enough for me not to notice it’s even there, even in 45 degree plus weather. The Band 6 is water-resistant to 50m so I can shower with it no problem. Truth be told, I can’t actually take it off because it will expose an incredibly embarrassing tan line. Thankfully it’s thin but it’s still noticeable all the same.
It’s a shame you can’t replace the band and swap the color scheme but this is a rather minor gripe and realistically not something I’d do anyways.
The touch screen is 1.47” and is very bright, so bright that I’ve dropped mine to a 1 level of brightness. Even in bright sunlight I’ve really not had much of a struggle figuring out the screen was showing me. Only on a few occasions I’ve had to boost it but even then I never had to go past level 3 (the standard in box level). The touch display is easy to navigate and works well even with wet or sweaty hands.
“The Band 6 works with the Huawei Health app which is available on both the iOS and Android store.”
The device itself has one button on the side which brings you to your workouts, settings, heart rate and all the other features you’ll find within the device. It’s quick and snappy and I love the simplicity of it.
On the back of the device is a magnetic dock charger and an optical heart rate sensor. The charger is specifically made for this device so be sure to keep a careful eye on it. It does charge remarkably fast and I found my watch going from 20% battery to full in nearly 30-40 minutes. The Band 6 also has ‘TruSeen 4.0 heart-rate monitoring’ and an option to view all-day SP02 information. If that wasn’t enough it also has a Gyroscope and an Accelerometer, but no GPS unfortunately. Having no GPS is the one big miss for me with this watch.
Huawei advertises the watch lasts up to two weeks on a single charge, but I found it to be more like 7-8 days with all features on, which is still impressive enough compared to say my Apple Watch.
The Huawei Band 6 works with the Huawei Health app which is available on both the iOS and Android store. You don’t need a Huawei device to use this watch. It’s incredibly easy to download the app on iOS but on Android you will need to side-load it or install through the Huawei App gallery. The app itself is very user friendly and works pretty well and is integrated into the iOS ecosystem nicely.
“The main reason I wanted to try out the Band 6 was for the fitness features.”
The main reason I wanted to try out the Band 6 was for the fitness features. It has 96 workout modes, 11 are considered “professional” while 85 are basic tracking. I found the boxing and jump rope ones work very well, though I found on a few occasions my boxing wraps seemed to prevent the watch from recording my workout accurately. The jump rope one is neat as it very accurately counts your skips. Is this important, not really but it’s fun knowledge to know and brag about when we’re allowed back at the bar.
Some of the basic training workout modes are quite funny, and I would have loved to test out fishing to see how it worked. Not sure a watch is really required there, but hey, it’s available. I’d recommend turning on auto-detect workout in the settings so you never miss a workout. I found it was good for when I went out walking as it always picked it up.
You can set up notifications on the Huawei Band 6, from text messages to phone calls but I opted to turn them all off. You could see the text on your wrist but couldn’t respond so I had no real use for it. I also don’t think I’m a Bond Villain and have no need to type things out on a small watch hand when I could just as easily use my phone.
I found the sleep tracking a little hit or miss. I found it would think I’m sleeping when my phone’s Nighttime mode would turn on. This wasn’t always the case but I did notice It wasn’t truly capturing my sleep data as much as I would have thought. It does give some sleep tips within the app but nothing revolutionary.
Overall this is a great watch, with a nice design and a wonderful price. It should give fitness junkies all they need for recording their workouts. Overall I am really impressed with this watch and would highly recommend it to someone who just wants a great fitness tracker without the needs of a more expensive smartwatch. I feel I can bang this one around and not worry about it breaking. I put it through some rigorous testing and it looks as good as new. I’m overall quite impressed with the Band 6 and think it’s worth taking up real estate on your wrist.
