Huawei has launched the Huawei Band 6, a new fitness tracker with a tall screen and some robust health features.
It may look familiar as it’s actually a rebadged Honor Band 6. The two companies have religiously aped each others products over the past few years, and while they’re now separate entities again, it seems that practice won’t be stopping.
So what does the Huawei Band 6 get you?
Well, a 1.47-inch AMOLED touchscreen is the main party piece, and even with such a high quality display, it still manages to muster up 10 days of “intense” use. And it only weighs 18g too, making it supremely light, and the case measures 43 × 25.4 × 11.45mm.
You’d be forgiven for thinking the Band 6 is identical to the Huawei Watch Fit, but it’s actually significantly smaller. The Watch Fit has a 1.67-inch screen and measures 46 x 30 x 10.7 m, tipping the scales at 21g without a strap, so the Band 6 is smaller in every way.
There’s an SpO2 sensor as part of the TruSeen HR sensor which will keep tabs on blood oxygen levels all-day (we did say intense use). It’s also an effective sleep tracker using the TruSleep aglorithms that we’ve tested on other Huawei wearables. The Band 6 will keep tabs on sleep stages, as well as breathing rate during rest.
There are 96 workout profiles but 11 ‘pro’ modes, which included running, cycling and even rope skipping. We presume the pro modes include bespoke data, while the other 85 are just simple timer, heart rate and calorie tracking that enable you to tag your exercise correctly.
It’s also water-resistant to 50m with a 5ATM rating.
There’s simple notifications mirroring from your smartphone on offer, but no GPS. That means the Huawei Watch Fit is still the superior device, despite the similarities.
It’s a further blurring of the lines between fitness bands and smartwatches.
We don’t have pricing, but the Honor Band 6 is set around – so this is a reasonable guide. We’ll update with full pricing and availability when we have it – but don’t hold your breath about a US release.
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.