The five wearable trends of 2021 every fitness band should have

Huawei SA has released its newest wearable, the Band 6, which offers enhanced health and fitness monitoring, a more smartwatch-like design, and battery life at a friendlier price. 

Here’s a look at some of the latest wearable trends and how the new Huawei Band 6 manages to tick all those boxes.

Health and wellbeing focus 

The pandemic has highlighted the need for a deeper focus on monitoring health and wellbeing. The new Huawei Band 6 offers fitness tracking, sleep tracking and stress monitoring. You can set goals for yourself daily for steps, hours active and moderate/high intensity activity, with up to 96 different exercise modes. 

TruRelax lets you monitor stress levels, and if your reading is too high, you can do breathing exercises straight from your wrist. TruSleep 2.0 tracking displays four different sleep states, including quality of sleep. The data allows you to detect six sleep problems and offers more than 200 sleep improvement suggestions. All information and data is displayed in easy-to-understand, colour-coded graphs on your wrist or on the Huawei Health app.

SpO2 monitoring

One of the biggest trends — or rather necessities — we’ve seen during the pandemic is the need for monitoring blood oxygen levels. This is especially among Covid-19 patients, where doctors typically request that patients perform these tests from home. The Band 6 has all-day SpO2 monitoring, which is important for chronic low blood oxygen saturation that can lead to fatigue, memory loss, and brain and heart damage. The fitness band’s new TruSeen 4.0 heart rate monitoring technology uses an optical lens and artificial intelligence-based data processing for accuracy, throughout the day. It also supports instant alerts that you can set if your heart rate is too high or too low.

Stylish, while functional

Gone are the days where fitness bands were functional without style. Consumers are looking for a combination of both, and the Band 6 is a fashion-forward accessory that’s sleek yet sporty. It may look similar to its sibling, the Watch Fit, but the Band 6 has a slimmer display and is more elongated in design. It features a touchscreen display and has a single power/home button to the right, which also lets you access all apps. The Band 6 is available in Graphite Black or Sakura Pink. The lightweight strap weighs 18g and is made from a skin-friendly, UV-treated silicone that is also dirt-resistant.

Large, colour display

Some fitness bands released in 2020 still feature black-and-white displays, which seems dated, but this is no longer the case. The Band 6 has a 1.47-inch AMOLED FullView display with a 64% screen-to-body ratio that allows it to display more information for its size. It has a full-colour screen with a 194x368 high-resolution display that is 221 pixels-per-inch, which is functional by presenting workout and health data in a more user-friendly display ratio. Interactions with the display are more like a smartphone than a typical fitness band; you can intuitively swipe up, down, left or right on the Band 6. All of these gestures will take you into different settings.

Long-lasting battery

One of the most requested features among wearables is longer battery life. Huawei promises two weeks of battery life on the Band 6, due to its highly efficient chip set and smart power-saving algorithms that enable continuous heart rate and sleep monitoring. In a typical use setting, the Band 6 promises 14 days of wear, and for heavy use, up to 10 days. It comes with a magnetic charger and if you run out of battery life, a quick five-minute charge will yield two days of usage — almost unheard of among other fitness bands. 

* Exclusive to the Huawei online store: Pre-order the Huawei Band 6 online — pay R49 and get an extra R200 discount off the balance of the purchase price.

The Huawei Band 6 will be available on Huawei’s online store and across select retailers in SA from June 18 for R1,699.

This article was paid for by Huawei.