It’s been a couple of months since I was gifted a Mi Band 4. It’s the first “health tracker” I own, and I’ve been using it to continuously track my steps, heart rate and sleep patterns.

However, even with its shortcomings in terms of absolute accuracy, I have still been impressed with my little black band because of the qualitative trends that it gives me. I wrote a Slack post in rtCamp’s #health channel the other day that summarized how I use the band and why I like it so much:

Other notes:

• The battery life is amazing. The fact that I don’t use the Bluetooth connectivity features at all (except to sync the watch data with my phone) is a contributing factor, but even so, the watch comfortably lasts a whole week with 20-30% still in the tank.
• The colour screen, that allows so much customisation is amazing. This website has a nice collection of watch faces, with one-click downloads (quirky, info-dense)
• The Mi Bandage 3rd party companion app is way less pretty than the default Mi Fit app, but it does offer more functionality. I also, don’t use most of the functionality that it offers, so it’s a net neutral for me.

In summary, I think this is a great little starting device for someone who wants to be more mindful of their activity patterns and/or who wants to get into a habit of walking/running.

While it’s definitely no substitute for motivation, which I consider a pre-requisite for any health tool to be effective, it is a useful thing to have for someone already pursuing a more active lifestyle.