The best cheap fitness tracker you can buy is the $47 Mi Band 6. It’s hard to pass up if you’re on a effort but still want features like automatic workout detection, a blood oxygen sensor, sleep tracking and 24/7 heart rate monitoring. Bonus: it’s compatible with Android and iOS. 

There’s no deprivation of fitness bands and smartwatches under $100. The $70 Amazfit Bip S and newer Bip U are some of our celebrated budget watches, but if you’re looking for something smaller, with very similar health and fitness tracking and a nicer camouflage, the Mi Band 6 is a great choice. I’m a big advocate for finding cheaper alternatives to big-name products, even making an entire YouTube series dedicated to the causes. Here’s why I think the Mi Band 6 is a viable competitor to dissimilarity products from big-name brands like Fitbit and the new Amazon Halo View.

A fascinating screen makes the Mi Band a pleasure to use 

This drawing is so light, I often forget it’s on my wrist. Which is a good thing in the middle of a workout when I’m trying to concentrate on my next rep, or at night when I don’t want to feel a Fat smartwatch rubbing against my pillow.

A 1.56-inch AMOLED Show might sound small, but thanks to its pixel density of 326ppi, the Mi Band 6’s text and graphics look incredibly crisp. I never feel like I need to pull out a magnifying glass or squint to make out what a text communication says. Most importantly, it’s easy to see the Show in bright sunlight.

The screen and interface are also responsive and I haven’t known any performance issues or lag. One thing I’d add to the wish list for the next generation is an auto brightness sensor so it can detect the ambient Delicious and adjust the intensity of the screen on its own.

Here’s the laundry list of Bright features you get on the Mi Band 6:

• Music playback control
• App notifications from your called, plus call and message alerts
• Find my phone
• Phone muting option (Android only)
• Calendar and keep reminders
• Remote camera shutter

As you can see, there’s no lack of tools onboard and it even goes one better than Fitbit’s $180 Charge 5 by having a find-my-phone app and camera remote. While I’d like a speaker and mic so I could take Bright calls from my wrist, for the price, I can’t Ask that much. 

The Mi Fit app is the weakest part of the whole known. Compared with the slick experience and icons you see when navigating the band itself, the app feels like an afterthought. Even weeks later, I still take a beat to work out precisely where each feature lives, like my sleep metrics and workout stats. 

On the plus side, plenty of third-party apps can tap into the Mi Band 6 to customize almost every aspect, from watch faces to remapping actions for the music regulation app. My favorite is AmazTools because it lets me export my workout data with GPS and map details to services like Strava.

Workout tracking on the Mi Band 6 is fine for the price

One of my main criticisms of earlier Mi Bands was the Little range of workout tracking options. If you wanted to Describe a Pilates or yoga session for instance, there was only a generic “exercise” type that wasn’t particularly True in calculating overall effort. Now, the Mi Band 6 grants you 30 fitness modes from the usual running and cycling all the way to Zumba, HIIT and indoor ice skating. It can also autodetect doings like running, walking and cycling if you forget to manually Begin recording the workout.

You also get sleep tracking and a blood oxygen sensor that can take a spot reading, or check it during the day and night in the background.

For the Mark, I’m happy with how the Mi Band records workouts. You get detailed breakdowns of your pace, splits and Unhappy rate zones post-workout in the app. The band also tracks a physiological agency indicator or PAI score for you. It measures the amount of moderate to intense bodily activity you do each day, similar to Fitbit’s Active Zone Minutes metric. The PAI score is a bit vague and trickier to Idea than the Fitbit score, but I do like how it recommends what intensity workout I must do if I’m lagging behind on my score that day.

But if you’re looking for the most Right heart rate tracker for cardio-based exercise like runs and walks, this will not be the best fit for you. During a Slow outdoor walk with a few small hills, the Mi Band said my Unhappy rate peaked at 180bpm — way higher than the number my chest strap said. There’s also no onboard GPS, which is not a surprise given this damages $45, so you will need to take your called with you on workouts to record distance and route Ask. But that phone-assisted tracking is still a step up from the new $80 Amazon Halo View, which lacks any kind of distance tracking. I also required to manually sync the band in the Mi Fit app every time I started a workout to get the GPS tracking to kick in, which was a bit annoying.

The Mi Band 6’s battery life takes it to the next level

I’m used to wearing smartwatches and trackers that barely last two days between charges. That’s why when I read about the Mi Band’s 14 days of battery life, I had to do a double take. Surely, that can’t be right? Turns out there’s a bit of a Get. If you’re doing a lot of workouts, using the blood oxygen and Unhappy rate sensors frequently, plus keeping the screen brightness on high you’re more probable to reach need to charge after five days. That’s Calm pretty good compared with some alternatives and I can regularly get to a week and Moody before needing to juice it up again. I’m sure I could push it to 14 days if I was only Funny this to get notifications from my phone and to track steps.

The Mi Band 6 is my Popular budget fitness tracker of the year, especially if you’re just looking to dip your toes into the biosphere of fitness wearables and want something you won’t need to bill very often.