Xiaomi's popular fitness bracelet has another successor for 2022, this time under the name Xiaomi smart band 7. Since the Chinese giant stopped using the name "Mi" for its products in the meantime, its designation was slightly changed.
In our review, we will look at what improvements the novelty brings compared to last year's model and whether it is worth replacing the Mi Smart Band 6 with its successor.
Where to buy Xiaomi Smart Band 7?
Xiaomi Smart Band 7 in the official global version intended for the European market comes on sale before its official launch in Europe. The availability was ensured by a certified dealer on the DHgate platform, who offers the latest fitness bracelet directly from a German warehouse.
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Technical specifications
Model designation | M2129B1 |
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dimensions | 46.5 x 20.7 x 12.25 mm |
Weight | 13.5 g |
Display | 1.62 "AMOLED |
Resolution | 182 x 490 px |
Maximum brightness | 500 rivets |
Display protection | 2.5D tempered glass |
bracelet | 160 - 224 mm TPU |
Bluetooth | 5.2 |
NFC | no (only in version with NFC - M2130B1) |
Battery capacity | 180 mAh |
Endurance per charge | 14 days |
Supported OS | Android 6.0 or iOS 10.0 and higher |
Water resistant | 5 ATM |
dials | 100+ species (dynamiče + possibility of modification) |
Activity monitoring | 120 sports (of which 3 primary + statistics) |
Content and quality of packaging
The new Xiaomi Smart Band 7 fitness bracelet arrived in a small box measuring 7.5 x 17.3 x 2.2 cm and weighing only 112 g. The box was placed in an envelope with bubble wrap reinforcement, as is standard for similar products.
The interior is divided by a paper reinforcement into three parts, in which we find the bracelet itself, a magnetic charger without an adapter and a user manual, including the Czech language. This is a global version of the bracelet, which we had available for testing before its official presentation.
The packaging is simple, but it fulfills its purpose and the bracelet, including accessories, sufficiently protects it during transport to the customer.
Quality of workmanship and design
The design has not visibly changed since the previous version of the Mi Smart Band 6. Despite the fact that the fitness bracelet is slightly larger, it still retains its very compact dimensions. The main unit without bracelet measures 46.5 x 20.7 x 12.25 mm.
In our case, the bracelet is black, made of TPU. Its range is 160 - 224 mm, so it encircles a smaller but also a larger hand. At the bottom there are sensors for measuring individual bodily functions and a connector for charging.
The quality of processing maintains a high level, as we are used to from older versions.
1.62 ″ AMOLED display with always-on function
As was the case with all older versions of the popular fitness bracelet, this time the display in the new version with serial number 7 has been slightly enlarged. Specifically, up to 25%, which brings us to the size of 1.62 ″. If we compare the Mi Smart Band 6 with the new Xiaomi Smart Band 7, the larger display is visible at a glance.
AMOLED technology with real black and beautiful, rich colors is a matter of course. The resolution is 182 x 490 px with 326 ppi and the maximum brightness can reach 500 nits.
Finally, the presence of the always-on display function, which can be scheduled for a certain time range or left on throughout the day, will also be pleasing. At the moment, however, we lack the ability to customize the appearance of the always-on display. Its design is always derived from the design of the main dial.
First turn on and pair with the application
When the bracelet display lights up, you will be prompted to download the application with the QR code. In our case, he referred to the Mi Fitness application (original name Xiaomi Wear), but this application did not yet support the Xiaomi Smart Band 7 fitness bracelet at the time of writing the review. You can currently find it there and you can also use the Mi Fitness application.
Initially, we had to reach for the Zepp Life application. She looked for a bracelet in the area immediately, so we didn't have to look for a device in any list. Pairing is easy and fast. As usual, just confirm the pairing request on the fitness bracelet display and everything else will happen automatically.
After successful pairing, the application immediately offered us a firmware update, which lasted approximately 10 minutes. During testing, we used software version 1.16.0.7.
Main menu and quick access screens
Xiaomi Smart Band 7 on the main screen displays the primary time in a design layout in the style of analog clock, heart rate and weather. Swipe right or left to get to the screens for quick access to weather and music playback. You can customize the items to be displayed here in the application, including their order.
The main menu has not changed and is accessible by swiping your finger up. Due to the size of the display, it can display a maximum of 3 menu items at a time, while the rest need to be scrolled. However, scrolling is smooth and fast.
The menu contains a total of 14 items plus a folder called "more". The content of the menu can be changed, including changing the order. The preset menu displays the following items:
Menu items | ||
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Analysis of personal activity | Heart rate | PAI |
spO2 | Exercise | Exercise history |
Status of activities | Stress | Sleep |
The weather | Hudba | Alarm clock |
Plan | settings | More |
The "More" folder combines 9 more options:
Contents of the folder More | ||
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The light | Women's health | Breathing |
Stopwatch | Timer | Find a phone |
Silent mode | Events | Pomodoro timer |
In the Zepp Life application, you can also find the option to change the menu content among the display settings. Whether you want to completely omit some functions, change their order, or move some from the "More" folder to the main menu, it's up to you.
Heart rate monitoring and SpO2
Heart rate measurement is a very basic function of almost all fitness bracelets. This function is often associated with measuring the level of oxygen in the blood, also known as SpO2.
Both measurements of bodily functions are available in the main menu and have a very similar design. Heart rate measurement usually takes about 6-7 seconds, while SpO measurement2 it is a bit slower and more problematic. It takes about 15 seconds and at the beginning of it you will be warned to close your bracelet as tightly as possible and stay calm.
Here, we really sometimes had to press the bracelet to our hand for the measurement to take place successfully. However, it is the same with many other bracelets and smart watches. The display of the smart bracelet also shows older measured values in a small graph, from which it is difficult to read the exact values. More detailed information can be found in the application, where it is clearer.
Heart rate measurement and SpO2 we also compared it with an Omron pressure gauge and a pulse oximeter. The value of blood oxygenation almost always matched the one we measured with an oximeter, but the pulses were no longer so accurate. Xiaomi Smart Band 7 often measured a higher heart rate. After physical activity, the difference was also 10 - 15 pulses.
Measuring the length and quality of sleep
The new fitness bracelet also has a function for measuring the length and quality of sleep, which is also not new. The wristband display shows the total length of sleep along with each phase, including their duration. These include deep and light sleep, REM and wakefulness.
The individual phases are also shown in a small graph, which is limited by the time when we went to bed and the time when we woke up. At the bottom of this screen you will find a button to go to settings, where you have the option to turn on breathing monitoring and advanced sleep monitoring. Without this feature turned on, the watch will not measure the REM sleep phase.
Tracking sports activities
In the bracelet we find 16 basic sports such as running, walking, cycling, football, swimming and more. At the end of the list, however, there is a button with all the sports, which are divided into individual categories. There are up to 120 of them in total, including less traditional sports or leisure activities such as archery, flying saucers, e-sports or table football.
The bracelet in this version does not have GPS, so it can only determine its position using a paired smartphone. However, such localization did not work for us at all in the Zepp Life application. When we later tested with the Mi Fitness application, we no longer had this problem and the bracelet determined its position within a few seconds.
In the case of Zepp Life, we started the activity where the position is required for distance measurement from the application, not from the watch. However, Xiaomi Smart Band 7 shows in the activity history only those that were launched through the fitness bracelet, so we found those that we launched through the application only in the application.
The wristband's small display shows quite a lot of activity data. For cycling, this is, for example, distance, duration, average speed, calories burned, average and maximum heart rate. Below we find a kind of training evaluation called "Training effect".
Advanced training evaluation
Xiaomi Smart Band 7 also offers the overall status of activities in the menu. Here, the training load is displayed, which is symbolized by a number together with a graphical display on the scale and verbal evaluation. In our case, the rating was mostly insufficient or average, as we do not exercise regularly. We will also find VO here2Max and calculated recovery time after intense training.
VO2Max is a very interesting data that defines the maximum volume of oxygen that a person is able to use. The higher the number, the better your condition. Here, however, we again encountered a problem using the Zepp Life application, as the fitness bracelet did not calculate any VO value for us.2Max even after several trainings (running and cycling).
When tested with the Mi Fitness application, the bracelet easily calculated the VO2Max after the first run, which we tracked through the bracelet. However, the calculated value was not synchronized with the application, so it is only displayed in the bracelet.
More than 100 dial designs
There are 5 dial designs in the bracelet memory, 3 of which have the look of an analog clock and the other two are digital. This includes the animated design of the month, which we also know from other watches by Xiaomi.
You will be happy to customize the individual elements of the dial, which can display various data such as heart rate, battery capacity, number of steps taken or even an alarm clock, calories burned or the weather. These changes can be made directly on the watch display.
Notifications and their reliability
There is also a display of notifications on the Xiaomi Smart Band 7 display. However, you must first turn it on and grant the application the necessary permissions. The application itself informs about everything during the notification settings.
Here you will find notifications of an incoming call with the display of the caller's name and the function of automatic answer in the form of SMS, notifications of applications, SMS, notification of achieved goals or a reminder that you have been sitting for a long time and have to stand up.
We had all the mentioned options turned on and we mainly used notifications from chat applications such as Messenger, Viber or WhatsApp. Notifications are displayed reliably, with accents as soon as they are received. However, some smilies still do not display the bracelet correctly, but we appreciate that it also displays longer messages or e-mails.
Short answer to calls
Xiaomi Smart Band 7 finally offers the ability to answer calls with short, preset messages. There are 5 of them in the application and their specific wording is as follows:
- I'm busy now, we'll call later.
- I have an appointment. I'll call later.
- I'm a little busy right now. Call me later, thank you.
- Thank you.
- OKAY.
Quick answers are always in the language you have set. In our case, we used the Czech language most of the time, so they are in Czech. The advantage is that quick answers can be customized in the application, or you can create your own.
On an incoming call, the quick answers worked for us without any problems. The bracelet rejected the call and the caller received a text message from us. However, replies to messages from chat applications such as Messenger or Viber did not work for us. The bracelet kept reporting a "Failed" error, with no further explanation or justification.
With the Mi Fitness application, we did not even see the button for sending a quick response after receiving the notification from the platoon applications. So this functionality is probably not supported yet, but we believe that it will be added in the near future.
Endurance and charging
Endurance is always difficult to assess with smart watches and fitness bracelets, as it depends very much on the style of use of individual functions. At the beginning, we used the bracelet to the full, so we had constant monitoring of heart rate, stress and SpO2. We also had notifications enabled from chat applications, Instagram, Facebook, Gmail, advanced sleep tracking, and the display was active quite often.
With such intensive use, we were able to discharge the Xiaomi Smart Band 7 to 16% in just 4 days. Later, we tried to turn off continuous stress monitoring, SpO2 and heart rate, but we left notifications on. In one day of such use, the battery capacity decreased by approximately 15%.
Endurance thus significantly affects the way in which the individual functions are used, but in our opinion, the value given by the manufacturer for 14 days is an unattainable value. Charging takes approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Zepp Life application
The Zepp Life application environment is designed very well, it offers a clear and colorful display of individual data from the fitness bracelet. The home screen is called “Data Card” and by default it shows steps, distance traveled, calories burned, sleep data, heart rate, PAI, exercise history, female health, weight, point score and exercise status.
The order or even the content of this data card can be customized according to your own needs. You can easily remove features that you do not use from the home screen of the application, and conversely, those that you use you can often put in one of the top positions.
When you click on the individual functions, more detailed information is displayed, which is often really very detailed. For example, the Sleep tab displays statistics for the past day, week, month, or even year. Daily sleep statistics consist of a score, total duration along with individual phases or even a short nap, breathing quality or sleep analysis, where you can find out if your sleep was adequate.
There are also various statistics regarding the comparison of our average sleep with the last one or a comparison with similar users.
Mi Fitness app
As we mentioned in the introduction, we used Xiaomi Smart Band 7 with Zepp Life most of the time, as it was not yet supported in Mi Fitness. However, after the official introduction of the bracelet for the European market, it was added to this application, so we tried it out as well.
The first change was language. Despite the setting of the Slovak region, the language of the application remains English (of course, the bracelet still worked in Czech). The initial screen of the bracelet also consists of a daily overview of individual data. In this case, however, we can only change the contents of the introductory card, not the order of the items.
Overall, the application offers slightly less data compared to Zepp Life. For example, data on the regularity of sleep based on information collected in recent days and other statistics or comparisons with similar users are missing.
Bracelet settings
In addition to changing the dial design or enabling notifications, Zepp Life and Mi Fitness also offer various other settings. One category is related to health monitoring.
Here you will find the setting of continuous heart rate measurement (every 1/10/30 minutes, or intelligent monitoring), warning of too high or low heart rate, more accurate monitoring of sleep and breathing monitoring, measurement of stress levels, continuous monitoring of oxygen saturation even with warning of too low value.
We appreciate that all the above-mentioned settings can be made not only in the application, but also directly on the watch display. The user thus has a choice, unlike some other watches.
The bracelet setting item in Zepp Life offers the ability to adjust brightness, active display length, always-on display, wrist light, turn on notification screen, do not disturb mode, lock and password when the bracelet is out of wrist, link settings, language and night mode . Of these settings, not all of them are available on the watch anymore.
Mi Fitness has slightly fewer settings and lacks, for example, brightness, active display length and always-on display settings. If you use the Mi Fitness application, you will only find these settings in the bracelet.
It is interesting to set the vibration, where you can choose your own vibration style for some events such as an incoming call, event reminder, alarm clock, SMS or notifications from applications. You can then set the vibration style and its length by tapping the display. It is a pity that the vibrations cannot be adapted separately for a specific application such as Messenger, Viber and the like.
Xiaomi Smart Band 7: Final Evaluation
We had the opportunity to test the new Xiaomi Smart Band 7 fitness bracelet before the official sale started. It offers a larger display compared to its predecessor, namely 1.62 ″ AMOLED, the ability to answer calls with a short, ready phrase, VO calculation2Max, 120 sports and evaluation of training and load efficiency.
We were slightly disappointed by the Zepp Life application, in which the bracelet could not obtain a position from a smartphone or calculate the value of VO2Max, which is a great pity, as we personally liked this application more than Mi Fitness, which by the way is only in English.
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We appreciate quick answers to an incoming call using preset phrases, straight from the bracelet. It is a pity that we can only answer a call and not messages from chat applications or SMS messages.
Can you please advise me where to change the text of the replying sms?