Honor Band 5 comes with all new health features, gets official reveal

Honor Band 5 has received an official reveal this morning at an event in China. The fifth generation tracker retains much of the design of its predecessor, but comes with a slew of new health features.

Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets

The predecessor version is about a year old now. The device is widely considered to be a great alternative to the Xiaomi Mi Band, as it comes in at a similar price point and specs.

We knew Honor Band 5 was well in the works. Huawei CEO Zhao Ming even posted a picture of the wearable on Weibo a while back. However, it was not until today that we learned the full specs. The budget activity band was unveiled at an event to launch the Honor 9X series.

In terms of design, Honor Band 5 does not look all too different from its predecessor. Both the colour display and virtual button alongside the bottom edge have been retained. The new generation comes with an improved 0.95-inch AMOLED coloured 2.5D display with 240×120 resolution..

But more interesting stuff is happening under the hood. A few novel features are coming to the little fitness band, and they are definitely not something you’d expect to find on a budget device.

The fitness tracker is able to detect your blood oxygen levels, monitor fatigue and listlessness, alert to poor sleep and even detect hypoxemia dizziness. For those not in the know, this last one is a condition where your blood doesn’t have enough oxygen to meet your body’s needs. It’s typically a result of diseases that affect your heart or lungs. Needless to say, this can be a very dangerous condition.

Fitness trackers with a blood oxygen sensor are few and far between. Garmin Vivosmart 4 is perhaps the best known of the lot. It monitors your oxygen levels during the night, but allows users to also manually take a reading during the day. This is the first time we are seeing the feature slapped on to a quality budget activity band.

Of course, Honor Band 5 comes with all the great features of its predecessor. This includes keeping tabs on your activity, heart rate, sleep and 10 different sports including swimming (5 ATM water-resistance).

There are the usual notifications for calls and messages and the function to mute incoming calls, as well as an NFC chip for on-the-go payments. Fuelling everything is a 100mAh battery with up to 14 days of working time.

Honor Band 5 standard edition costs 189 yuan ($27) and the NFC version is priced at 219 yuan ($31). Sales for the first one kick off in China later today, while the NFC edition goes on sale on July 29th. The band is available in three colours including black, blue, and light pink.

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