Mi Band 6: Your favorite Fitness Tracker just got better

Mi Band 6 – NFC Edition

How about I tell you of a device that is among the leading competitors for its best fitness tracking performance? Sounds unrealistic or fabricated? Fortunately, for your relief, it is not a fantasy. It is none other than the popular Xiaomi Mi Band 6, perennially part of the best cheap fitness trackers, now introduced its new NFC edition release of global version. If you are looking for an affordable, secure, more functional device, then it’s a perfect choice for you all.

Mi Band 6 had many updates including NFC

Brief details about implementation of NFC

Over the past six months, Mi Band 6 has acquired several better updates enhancing the functions and security of the device.

Now, I would like to give you a brief about interesting facts of the NFC edition of the global version. It took months for Xiaomi to prepare the global NFC version, mostly because of agreement arrangements and optimization of the Xiaomi Wear App with banks and cards. There are two requirements to make online payments; software to process the transaction and keep your payment card linked to the global payment systems, and hardware to enable NFC communication. There are few banks and cards supported, and the rest are not supported, so Xiaomi had to create simpler version compared to Apple or Google pay. You need to complete the setup with the app, activate Xiaomi pay, add a supported bank card currently, only Mastercard is supported, and do the payment once confirmed it’s working,

A quick reminder! Before proceeding to the details, I would like to tell you that this review is based on a few days of using it. However, tests performed for analysis can help you attain a complete picture of its performance and upgraded features. To help you weigh the pros and cons, I have summarized and categorized its features into respective subheadings. As always, the ball will always be in your court.

Packaging

Box of Mi Band 6 NFC

Although I have not been lenient or uncritical about the packaging, Mi Band 5 was better and now Mi Band 6 has better improvements than the former one. Xiaomi underlines style while keeping it simple, making things awe-inspiring. On the box, you can see features are stamped, highlighting sleep time tracking, increased amount of workout modes, and the water resistance, altogether enhancing user’s experience.

The company gives you the Mi Band 6, charging kit, user guide, and warranty cards. There is an extra ultra-big brick of paper. The charging cable is identical to the last year’s edition. Fortunately, you are going to need it after 15 days of the charge, which means you are going to survive one week without having to worry about battery runout.

Design

Fitness tracker’s design

Astonishingly, the design is pretty much similar to last year’s Mi Band. Mi Smart Band 6 sticks to a classic shape with an innovative large screen and rounded edges, making it comfortable to wear and look fashionable. With fitness trackers, we can notice the same shift as it occurred with smartphone displays, just now implemented on a smaller scale. We either get to see an improved screen-to-body ratio or larger displays.

Mi Band 6 has both of these advancements; there’s a significant development with the maximum brightness as well. Mostly, the user fails to have a good experience because of hard-to-read text and small icons blurred to eyes.

Specifications

Allow me to escort you out of the maze of confusing specifications. For that, I am going to give you a simple and quick overview of the Mi Band 6 features. A major one is the 1.56 AMOLED display with a peak brightness of 450 nits. The 125MAh battery is the same as the former generation, 30 fitness modes 6 of which include auto-detection, HR-sensor, SPO2 sensor, lastly, sensors to track steps and movements, sleep, stress, deep breathing tracking too can be found among its specifications list.

Undoubtedly, a few of the features are remarkable, like the larger display to make things clearer and obvious.  Moreover, it is 50m water resistance which means it is wearable during swimming. Mi Smart Band 6 now features 19 new fitness modes such as Core training, Pilates, Boxing, Ice skating, and Zumba. Exercise duration, calories burned, breathing, and heart rate is prominent at a single glance, making it easier for more efficient exercise.

NFC Edition

Mi Band 6 requires Xiaomi Pay App to use NFC

For payments, we need to open the Xiaomi Pay app. The band has to be connected, otherwise, you cannot open the menu. The app will ask you to add a security pin, this is the pin you have to enter in order to unlock the band and do the payment. Then you can add the card, enter the details, enter the details and go to the next section. There’s a database with the supposedly supported banks card. Once you see the confirmation that the card has been added, when you need to pay something, just swipe and select the card, press the next key, and then you have one minute to complete the transaction by placing the Mi band close to the bank terminal.

Overall, it is easy to set up and use and supported by both Android and iOS, meaning that regardless of the phone generation, even if it doesn’t have NFC, you can enable contactless payments by getting the Mi Band 6 NFC edition. Note that the original Mi Band 6, without the NFC chip, cannot be upgraded through just software, so if you need to support contactless payments, you need the NFC edition.

Software

Music UI in Fitness Tracker

To test the credibility of the device, we perform tests, draw out conclusions, and present results. The initial test is of navigation, that’s the biggest change compared to the last models, as the capacitive button is removed, now it is all about swipes. Swiping actions are required to operate it. Swiping left and right switches between some functions – cards. They are customizable by you. It feels better keeping less of them active. And while doing these swiping actions we can go through the navigation.

Among the available apps and functions, the HR sensor is the first one. It is responsive to even abrupt changes in your pulse. We count on continuous HR, which means that it can monitor your heart rate 24/7. This helps a lot to detect sleeping, and this is the next interesting feature we take a look at. Through this, you can find out a lot about your sleep cycles, and all that data is very well shown in the smartphone app. You can also measure stress. This is SPO2 measuring. Blood oxygen saturation.

Our experience with the features it provides

During covid situation in the past months, we learned about its importance critically. You don’t have medically certified accuracy, but the tracking features seem to be pretty precise and accurate because I’ve compared them to a chest HR monitor and Oximeter. Besides health tracking, mi band can help you organize your daily tasks.  There is a convenient alarm that gently wakes you up. Moreover, there are plenty of useful chunks of data like; there’s a timer, pedometer, activity summary, weather forecast, music player controller, and now even including camera shutter.

We notice the subsequent prominent upgrade in sports is having a chance to experience 30 workout modes on a fitness tracker is a great deal! Most trackers don’t support that much, let alone other sports watches. So, a great way for Xiaomi to prove their commitment to athletes and their desires. And a good integration with the popular app Strava. It is very easy to start each one of these activities. If your smartphone is connected during the workout and GPS is on the Mi band 6 will borrow the signal and detect even more, including speed, pace, and route.

Mi Fit App

Xiaomi’s compatible App for both Android and IOS

Mi Fit is an app, available for both Android and iOS, and works impressively. It provides everything you need to know with tracker collecting data and showing in beautiful graphs and charts which are a delight to read. Most configuration options are accessible from the settings menu on the Mi Band 6 too. This huge library of watch faces is only available here. It is a store full of colorful and creative watch faces that will make the Mi Band 6 look customizable the way you like. Moreover, there are options to integrate with third-party apps and databases like google fit or Strava.

Final Verdict

Mi Band 6 is a perfect match to live up to anybody’s expectations. For the fans of having a modern watch with extra functions, or the athletes that need to record training data on the go, or business people – to receive notifications and set reminders easily. Or people that need a good  HR and sleep tracker. For the tech enthusiasts that want to try a lot from everything. Mi Band 6 makes a pretty clear point. The king is back to conquer the land by its majestic approach!

Where to Buy

You can buy this device here and also if you are of those people who prefer video over scrolling through text, you can check our video, here. Also be sure to check more of our reviews on variety of gadgets, here.