Welcome technology lovers. We will talk about the HONOR Band 9, a feature-packed wearable sleep tracker with a 1.57-inch AMOLED display. The demand for this type of gadget is constantly increasing. Because these devices come with so many helpful and important features that are very beneficial in people’s daily lives, health, and fitness. Considering those aspects, HONOR has launched this smart band in the market and the device has received a lot of responses. The device provides some features like a smartwatch. So let’s know through a detailed discussion how effective it will be to buy this wearable sleep tracker.
Starting with the Design and Display:
The reason to start with the design and display is that the display is attractive obviously, and the device is amazingly very lightweight. The device weighs only 16.3 grams without the strap and 26 or 27 grams with the strap. So you can understand how light and comfortable this portable device is on the wrist. But the main reason behind its lightweight is its small battery and plastic-built body. We will talk about the battery later, let’s talk about the body first. This is a fully plastic-built body with a glossy coating around the device. You may think that it is metallic, but it is not. Being a glossy part, it retains a lot of fingerprints.
For those whose hands are very sweaty, the glossy finish may come off when wet with sweat. There are no physical buttons around it. We have to double-tap on the screen or move our wrist to turn on the screen. Many people want to have at least a single button to control the device. But we may get used to it soon. Its health monitoring sensor and the magnetic charging port are on the backside. It features a quick-release silicone strap that is very easy to attach and detach. There is a release button that unlocks the strap and locks when pressed.
You will notice that there are no microphone and speaker holes because it does not support calling and audio playback features. Well, at the beginning we said that it is a 1.57-inch AMOLED display. Its dimensions are 43mm×27.88mm×9.49mm with a resolution of 256 x 402 pixels and 302 PPI. 60Hz refresh rate provides a smooth and responsive touch experience. The peak brightness of this display is up to 500 nits which is a bit ok under strong sunlight but not super visible. The display is slightly curved which looks quite attractive. We recommend using a screen protector because the curved display can be scratched accidentally.
Battery Backup:
We said that there are two reasons behind the device being light, one of which is its small battery. It has a 180mAh battery. HONOR claims that this battery can provide 14 days of maximum usage and 10 days of regular usage backup. However, in real-life tests, we can obtain slightly different results. We can get 14 days of battery backup if we turn off AOD mode and all monitoring sensors. It is good to say that to use the function of turning on the display through the wrist movement gesture, AOD must be turned off. If AOD is on, only the double tap gesture will work.
So we were talking about battery backup. If we keep AOD off but keep all other sensors running continuously then we can expect around 5 to 6 days of backup. But if we run all the features continuously i.e. AOD and every health monitoring feature then we can get 1 to hardly 2 days of backup. So overall battery backup is more than enough for a small smartband. Our opinion would be to switch off the monitoring sensors at other times than immediate monitoring so that you can get a sufficient backup. However, the benefit is that the device charges quickly due to the small battery and quick charge support. The magnetic charging cable is included in the box.
Exploring The OS:
To customize the smart band and view all the data on the smartphone, we need to install the Honor Health App on our Android or IOS device and sync it. There you will find the device’s battery health, heart rate, blood oxygen monitoring, stress detection, step count, sleep tracking, walking distance, calories burned, weather update, OS firmware update, etc in one spot. There is an option called wearable alarm that lets you set an alarm. You can think that if there is no speaker in the band then how will the alarm sound? Primarily here our device will vibrate. We will feel the alarm vibration on our wrist which is quite high.
We can change the vibration level through the App. And what we said to keep its sensors off for battery saving can also be easily done within this app. Find My Device, music management, and notifications support are also available through this app. That is, we can change the music played on the phone, play/pause it from the band, and see the messages and mail notifications of the phone. But there is no opportunity to reply. Swiping up from the bottom of the screen will show all notifications, and swiping down will show the quick toggles. Swipe from right to left, we will find all the applications. After that we get the facility to customize the watch faces. It is possible to change faces from the band itself but it is easier to do it from the app and can download more watch faces from there.
However, the storage capacity of this band is so low that it is not possible to keep more than 6 watch faces installed at the same time despite the watch faces of only a few kilobytes. We wanted to see how convenient the SmartBand’s OS support is. There we have to be disappointed when we apply a watch face it takes almost half of minute to set it despite being such a small-sized watch face. And watch faces don’t seem amazing or attractive as compared to the other brands. From here it was clearly understood that Honor is still very slow and behind compared to other smartwatch/smartband OS in terms of synchronization. Honor should give more importance here or it will bring a huge gap between device and user comfort.
About The Health Monitoring Features:
Although it is a low-cost smart band, it has good health monitoring features like a smartwatch. Such As:
- heart rate monitor,
- blood oxygen saturation,
- stress monitor,
- sleep monitoring,
- menstrual cycle and,
- other physical and fitness indicators.
We term HONOR Band 9 as a wearable sleep tracker because its sleep-tracking feature has shown quite effective results. Overall tests and user reviews have shown that the device has been able to record every stage of sleep quite well. It has managed to deliver results close to that of various hi-tech devices. Below we have provided a video where you can watch the whole thing.
The versatility of Sports Modes:
It has about 96 sports modes added. Including around 11 Professional Sports Modes and 80+ Custom Sports Modes that can provide you with point-to-point data on your sports level and stats. Even it will provide you with various tips and guidelines to enhance your ability and agility.
Addressing The Downsides:
To offer something better within a smaller budget than competitors, there will be some downsides that we have to accept. Let’s know what are the downsides of this wearable sleep tracker.
- Doesn’t have any buttons,
- Poor Battery Life,
- Lack of attractive watch faces and AOD faces,
- Need more OS optimization.
Strengths of this Device:
This device has several strength parts that can make you interested in this device.
- Very lightweight and has amazing comfortability.
- AMOLED Display with AOD feature.
- Many useful health monitoring features with quite factual results.
- Good wearable sleep tracker.
- Quick Charging,
- 5ATM water resistance.
Summarizing Our Overall Experience:
After an overall inspection of the HONOR Band 9, important issues have come to the fore. When it comes to choosing any smart device, we prefer the device that offers the best features and quality within our budget. Another smart band in the market around this price is quite hyped, the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro. If you look closely at this Xiaomi device, you will notice that it has countless features. There is the assurance of Bluetooth calling feature, Navigation feature, Good OS support, 150+ Sports modes, and Long battery backup. Where this device of HONOR is far behind. Considering the price, the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro is slightly more expensive than the HONOR Band 9.
But if you can get a device rich in many good and important features by adding some little amount, then that is good, isn’t it? We are not saying that the HONOR Band 9 is a useless device. It can provide good results in health monitoring with sleep monitoring at a low cost. But overall HONOR has room for improvement. If they can do that, the next devices will surely be in the queue of customers. So in the end we will have our opinion in this discussion, if you can increase the budget a little then you can check out the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro device or compare it with some other smart bands available at this price and then take a decision. We hope this wearable sleep tracker discussion will help you to make a profitable and right buying decision.