Emma Oosthuizen
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The Honor Band 5 and its predecessor, the Honor Band, are nearly identical in appearance. Honor’s most recent update to its health and fitness tracker, on the other hand, includes blood oxygen tracking, new activity settings, and an improved user interface. 

The Band 5 is currently available from third-party importers for a retail price of between EUR30 (approximately US$ 33) and EUR35 (approximately US$ 39). The Band 5 is currently more expensive than its predecessor, the Xiaomi Mi Band 4, but this may change in the future. We strongly advise doing some research on the difficulties associated with importing electronic devices from China before purchasing the Honor Band 5. 

The service warranty insurance coverage is one of the more ambiguous aspects of the situation. You will almost certainly have to send the device back to the manufacturer to have the warranty repaired or replaced, which may incur additional costs. 

The Honor Band 5 is mentioned on the HiHonor online store, but the company does not sell the health and fitness tracker directly at this time. Instead, Amazon.com is currently the only retailer of the tool in Germany. 

It is, for example, water resistant up to a pressure of 5 ATM

Because the Honor Band 5 is rated for up to 5 ATMs against dirt and water, you should be able to use it safely in the shower or while swimming if you choose either of those activities. The Band 5 weighs only 23 grams (less than 0.8 ounces), making it an extremely comfortable device to wear throughout the day in our opinion. 

The Xiaomi Mi Band 4 and the Samsung Galaxy Fit e, like the Band 5, are made up of a silicone wristband and a screen unit. The latter is well-made, has a comfortable fit when worn on our wrist, and is long enough for those with thick wrists. 

The 0.95-inch panel occupies a sizable portion of the display unit, which Honor protects with a layer of glass. However, the company does not provide any information about the type of glass used. Tucked beneath the OLED panel is a capacitive control sensor, similar to those found in a variety of other fitness trackers. The one installed in our evaluation apparatus performed flawlessly during all of our tests. 

Connectivity: a wearable fitness device only equipped with Bluetooth 4.2 

The Band 5 is available in a variety of configurations, the most basic of which displays your heart rate and includes an accelerometer with six axes to track your steps. In addition, Honor offers a model in China that is compatible with Alipay and has an NFC chip. However, because this mode of payment has only recently begun to spread outside of China, this version will be limited in use in countries other than China. Alipay is accepted at a few locations in Germany, including Galeria Kaufhof, WMF, and dm; however, these are the exception rather than the rule. 

The Band 5 also has a haptic vibration system and an OLED panel, but more on those features can be found in the display section of this review. The fitness tracker communicates with smartphones via Bluetooth, but it only supports older versions, such as 4.2. The Xiaomi Mi Band 4, on the other hand, supports the more recent Bluetooth 5.0 technology. As a point of reference, the Band 5 includes an alarm, a timer, and the ability to locate your phone. 

Software that works with the Huawei Health app 

The Band 5 can communicate with devices running Android 4.4 and iPhone 9.0 or later. To pair the fitness tracker with your smartphone, however, you must first download and install the corresponding Huawei application from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. 

The Huawei Health application also includes several extra settings for customizing Band 5 and monitoring data. The app also includes a plethora of different watch faces from which to choose. 

Given the Honor Band 5’s functions and operations, it is impossible to record the action

The Band 5’s capacitive OLED display is used for navigation, and swipe gestures are supported. Swiping from the bottom up displays the available foods menu, while swiping from the left displays the most recent notifications. Depending on the application, Band 5 displays the most recent information as a sneak peek or in its entirety; however, its CPU is a little too slow to display the changes in between missed messages effectively. As a result, we observed a few stutters while conducting our tests. 

The Honor brand has also included a touch-sensitive sensing unit beneath the display that allows you to perform back controls. Another method for reactivating the tool after it has been dormant is a brief tap on the sensor. You can also enable Raise-to-Wake in the system settings, which will cause Band 5 to wake up whenever you lift your arm. 

When Honor released the Band 5 at the end of August, one of the most common complaints was that it lacked music controls and could not determine blood oxygen saturation (SpO2). Despite this, Honor’s operating system has included both of these features since version 1.1.0.96. 

Despite the fact thatEven though the blood oxygen saturation capability worked properly throughout all of our tests, we are unable to assess its accuracy. Honor claims that the SpO2 monitoring was created solely to serve as an individual guide and not for clinical applications or illness diagnosis. 

The Honor Band 4, the TruSleep sleep monitoring system and the green 3.0 real-time heart rate monitoring function are all making a comeback. The latter can be left running for extended periods, which is a useful feature. Both performed admirably in the tests we gave them and persuaded us intuitively. Our review unit mirrored the brief wake stages and changes in heart rate that we observed during our test period, which was consistent with these observations. 

However, because we were unable to evaluate its results with a more specialized tool, we cannot say with certainty how accurate they were. By the way, the Xiaomi Mi Band 4 recorded results that were nearly identical to those recorded by Band 5. 

When it comes to counting steps, however, the latter cannot compete with the Xiaomi Mi Band 4. Band 5 uses its 6-axis accelerometer to accomplish this, but the results it produces are unrealistically accurate. The Xiaomi Mi Band 4, on the other hand, is only relevant for roughly half of the actions that the Band 5 was. Honor will most likely issue a software patch to address this issue shortly.