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Huawei Band 6 - Design

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Huawei Band 6 analysis by section:

Compact and lightweight, but you can see the cut in the bracelet materials

The new Huawei smartband retains the aesthetics of more compact smartwatches with a rectangular silhouette that places it in the intermediate space between the smartwatch and the monitoring bracelet.

The bracelet retains the contained dimensions of its predecessors with a thickness of 43 x 25.4 mm and 10.99 mm and only 29 grams of weight for the entire set.

The silicone strap is inserted into the metallic-looking polymer casing of the bracelet near the ends of the screen, which reduces the thickness of the bracelet to make it thinner and lighter.

The 6 strap is made of flexible, hypoallergenic silicone and comes in four finishes: Graphite Black, Forest Green, Sunrise Amber and Sakura Pink, while the bracelet case is limited to two finishes in gray and gold with a metallic texture.

The bracelets are interchangeable, although Huawei has set aside fasteners based on anchor pins or buttons to opt for a more complex fastening that requires a tool to remove the cover that protects the strap anchor and then slightly twist the bracelet. .

The strap provides multiple mounting holes, making it easy to find one that fits your wrist perfectly. The point where the attempt to reduce manufacturing costs is most appreciated is the closure buckle made of plastic, not aluminum or metal.

The Huawei Band 6 has a single physical button on the right side of the band that provides access to applications and monitoring functions in conjunction with touch screen functions.

The main sensors formed by the optical heart rate sensor and the blood saturation sensor are located on the front of the bracelet, both visible on the back of the bracelet to keep in constant contact with the skin.

The touch screen monopolizes the space available in the front, showing good use of space with quite tight frames around it. I am talking about a 1.47 inch AMOLED color touch screen with a resolution of 368 x 194 pixels and a density of 282 dpi.

As a result, the information displayed on the screen is more clearly visible without showing pixels, and at the same time displays vivid colors thanks to a very good level of brightness, which guarantees correct viewing even outside and in direct sunlight, where they are the most problematic. glass that protects the screen than the brightness of the screen itself.

There is no auto-brightness, so you will need to manually adjust it. However, at the time we tested the Huawei Band 6, the setting was fixed at 3 out of 5 possible.

The screen will turn on automatically when you raise your wrist to look at the time, in which case the response is immediate, but sometimes the display time becomes a bit short when this time is set to automatic.

As with other wearable devices, Huawei allows you to customize the watch faces from the application installed on the smartphone, and the amount of information and the way it is displayed will depend on this, which is a factor in determining the time to get relevant information from the screen at a glance.

The touch response of the screen is very good, it responds immediately to swiping gestures and allows you to precisely press various icons and buttons.

Over 90 activities and precision in records

Huawei has put a lot of emphasis on its service platforms in recent years, and health has been one of the cornerstones of this investment in benefits. The Huawei Band 6, like the rest of the Chinese brand's smart watches and sports bracelets, is synchronized via Bluetooth with the Health application available on devices running Android and iOS.

In our case, the application needed to be updated in order to recognize the new bracelet as it did not appear in the list of supported products, but after applying the synchronization it ran without problems.

The Health application is well known for storing and displaying all the information collected by devices in an attractive and useful way for the user, thanks to good data depth, which is shown in various graphs and activity histories.

The Huawei Bracelet supports a wide range of sports and recreational activities that contribute to an active life. There are over 90 activities in total, so it will be hard not to find an activity that fits your usage profile.

However, not all of these activities are available at the source. The Band 6 Training menu is most representative of outdoor and gym activities. Activities such as indoor or outdoor running, indoor and outdoor walks are available in this section. , rowing, indoor cycling, swimming or rope jumping.

However, you can customize this section for your usual activities by adding them using the Customize option.

The Huawei sports bracelet we are analyzing allows automatic recognition of the start of sports activity. However, this recognition is not immediate, so it may have passed 15 or 20 minutes without recording the activity, so we recommend doing it directly from the bracelet or from the Huawei Health app itself.

What it detects automatically and almost instantly are training breaks and breaks, in which the band displays a confirmation of this break or the option to continue or stop training.

As far as precision is concerned, we tested the Band 6 along with the Huawei Watch GT 2e - which we are also analyzing here - acting as a control device and while logic prompts this as both devices are based on very similar sensors (if not the same) it should give the same values in fact, the Band 6 tended to give slightly higher values ​​than the smartwatch.

This difference was especially appreciated in counting steps and strokes, where the sports bracelet showed values ​​between 5 and 10 bpm more than the watch. This improvement in accuracy may be a direct consequence of Huawei's TrueSeen technology, which constantly monitors heart rate to determine physical condition and level. effort by the user.

Huawei Band 6 does not have GPS connectivity of its own, but uses the GPS of your cell phone to position the workout on the map. This forces you to carry your smartphone with you if you want to use this feature but don't need to take it as the bracelet will record your performance and then sync the app and send the latest data when both devices are in Bluetooth range.

It has a very complete sleep monitoring system, which is detailed in the app, spreading the rest between the different phases of more or less deep sleep thanks to TrueSleep technology, which allows you to distinguish the entire sleep session at night from a restorative nap by setting different sleep phases to determine the effectiveness of rest.

At the beginning of this analysis, we indicated that the Huawei Band 6 has been aiming to get closer to the smart watch function. This approach is evident in functions such as blood saturation recording or stress level monitoring. When the bracelet detects that saturation is falling or stress is increasing, it recommends taking action by proposing relaxation and breathing exercises.

In addition, we also find many other connectivity features in this bracelet, such as receiving notifications and messages from the smartphone and even calls, although the functionality is not complete because, for example, despite receiving a call notification, it is not possible to participate on it because the microphone and the loudspeaker are missing but it can be ruled out.

Another thing we liked is that the message notifications show the full content, not just the first words of the message, and let you control the music playback even while data is being recorded, which is what models like the Oppo Band Sport do. don't let that we analyzed here a few days ago.

Two weeks of autonomy and efficient charging

Battery life is one of the points where the Huawei Band 6 can pull its chest. The Chinese brand has equipped its new sports bracelet with a 180mAh battery which gives it around 14 days of autonomy. While these official estimates are usually very optimistic, in this case we have to say they are quite correct.

Calculating the autonomy of use of a device is always complicated as it is different for each user. In our tests, we tried to emulate the average usage profile, with a few physical activities per week, a notification setup where we receive alerts from some messaging, mail and social media applications, etc.

For this usage scenario, we achieved 11 days of autonomy, but it would have been enough to mute notifications for a few apps or keep the screen brightness a bit more conservative to achieve those 14 days of use.

Of course, if functions such as oxygen saturation monitoring or real-time heart rate monitoring are activated, the battery will run out faster, cutting its autonomy in half.

When it comes to charge recovery, the Huawei Band 6 uses a really small magnetic charger that is reduced to a USB cable, one end of which has a special magnetic connector with two charging contacts that are attached to the back of the bracelet.

Charging is quite fast and stable until reaching 80%. From then on, the protection system is activated and charging is slowed down to avoid battery degradation. It took 15 minutes to reach 50% capacity and 60 minutes to charge to 100%.

A solvent proposal halfway between a smartwatch and a smartband

The final touch to this analysis of the Huawei Band 6 is generally very good.

It is a bracelet that excels in having the basic features of a solvent monitoring bracelet, such as ensuring good autonomy, precise measurement of physical activity and vital signs, and a bright and good quality screen. The sum of all this makes the user experience very satisfying.

The counterpoint are the absences resulting from the need to maintain a reasonable price and a certain distance from the brand's smart watches. Defects such as lack of GPS positioning or the inability to make payments due to the lack of an NFC chip.

Other shortcomings have less explanations, such as the brightness sensor on the screen or the use of such a complex belt changing system.

Team 6

1.47 inch FullView AMOLED activity tracker Integrates blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) analysis and VO2Max monitoring to measure post-exercise recovery rate. 96 training modes and 2 weeks of autonomy.

In any case, the Huawei Band 6 is available for 59 euros, which puts it in a difficult position as it puts the user in a difficult position when faced with the dilemma of investing a few euros more and buying some of the most affordable smartwatches that already exist, integrating GPS and other functions, among other things. NFC; or save a few euros and bet on sports bracelets like the always competing Xiaomi Mi Band 6 -analysis- without some precision and reliability in data recording.

In any case, the Huawei Band 6 lives up to its saga and remains a very solvent-borne bracelet and at a reasonable price for the benefits it offers.