Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsTerrible "upgrade" from the Mi Band 5!
Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2021
The Mi Band 6 sucks! I loved my Mi Band 5, and was very impressed with it. I decided to give that one to my six year old daughter so she can see her steps and her sleep, and ordered the Mi Band 6 for myself since it just recently became available in the US.
The screen and resolution does look nicer in comparison to the 5's. But that's the only real improvement I can see.
1. The notifications don't work as well, and it doesn't show me the full text of all my SMS and other messages. Only the very top line with the time received on the second line, rest of screen blank. Big waste of screen space. For emails, it does show enough of the text of the email that it fills the screen, but it doesn't let me scroll down like the 5 does. I tried playing with the settings on the "Notify for Mi Band" app since it has a lot more customization but I haven't been successful in improving the notifications in any way.
2. Sleep data is awful. With the 5, I figured it wasn't 100% accurate, but the fall asleep and wake up times were accurate at least, and the mix of the sleep types were interesting. The sleep types were usually off compared to what I got in the "Sleep as Android" app every day, but they were close! The difference was small, so I was pretty pleased with the Mi Band 5 especially for the price of it being so low. The 5 was maybe $35, and I paid $60 for the 6, so I'm feeling very ripped off.
This morning, I woke up and the Mi Fit app has zero sleep data for the last night. I've been messing with it for 20 minutes, resyncing and trying other things to get my sleep data to appear, and nope. It's just like I pulled an all nighter 😒🙄. My steps seem to have synced though.
No idea whether the steps are accurate. I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't, but I purchased this mainly for sleep tracking and notifications. The steps are just a little bonus to show me how sedentary I am 😂. I would love it if the band had more functionality to respond to certain notifications or do other actions but for the price point I wouldn't take a star 🌟 away for lacking in that area. I'm taking one star away for the 6's notifications being a downgrade from the 5's, and I'm taking 3 stars away for the extreme sh ttiness of the sleep tracking on the 6.
I do wonder whether I just got a dud and some 6's work just as well as my 5, but I think I'm too frustrated with it to bother with getting another one. I'll just get myself another Mi Band 5, or maybe even splurge for a fancier one that has more functionality with SMS/calls/notifications.
(Heres a bonus review of the multipacks of 3rd party replacement wristbands with different colors:
The physical band and the wristband itself seems to be identical to the previous version. I have had issues with both the 5 and the 6 randomly loosening and falling off my wrist, sometimes I dont even feel it fall off. I ordered third party replacement wristbands from Amazon, a pack with like 16 different colors, not expecting much due to the cheap price.
But turns out these replacement bands are even better, because the holes in them are much smaller and harder to poke the peg into, so they stay on so much better and hasn't loosened or come off of me once. The material isn't as smooth and silky feeling as the original, and they are less flexible so I was worried they wouldn't be as comfortable, but they're just as comfortable and I can't feel the difference at all while wearing.
Also, if you want to put one of these bands on a child, the replacement bands have more holes in them and allowed me to put the band on my daughter tight enough that it fits her tiny little wrist perfectly. With the OEM wristband, the smallest hole fit loosely on her, and she had to wear it up higher on her forearm than you're supposed to. The replacement bands fit both the 5 and the 6 so we can share the pack, which is cool. The picture I shared is with my daughter and I both using the third party replacement bands. I'm wearing real, she's wearing pink. )
