Huawei Band 2 Pro Review: Mighty features for a small price

Huawei is most well known for its networking equipment, its pretty good smartphones and its weird relationship with all western governments that are concerned about the brand's ties to the Chinese government and less for its fitness wearables. With nothing special in terms of features and design, it's really easy to overlook the Band 2 Pro from Huawei. Until you see the price and how much of a fitness tracker you get for that money. 

For less than 50€ (at the time of writing), you are getting built-in GPS, a heart rate sensor and deep sleep-tracking capabilities in a package that feels far more premium than the price tag would suggest. Not only that, but the battery life is excellent. Sure, it's not a perfect fitness tracker, corners had to be cut, but even so, the Band 2 Pro checks a lot of boxes.

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Powerful sensors, budget package

Nowadays you can get fitness trackers for far less than the 50€ asking price of the Band 2 Pro and almost every one of them will have some sort of sleep tracking. What's not as common are sub 70€ devices with GPS and an optical heart rate sensor. This made me sceptical at first, there was no way that the Band 2 Pro could be accurate, especially given its small size. But I was in for a very positive surprise.

To start a workout, you have to press the single button on the bottom of the display to scroll through a list of predefined activities, such as cycling, swimming (yes, the Band 2 Pro is water resistant up to 5 ATM), outdoor and indoor running. Once you reach the desired activity, you long-press the button to start that workout. If the activity benefits from GPS, you can then press the button again to activate it. The device needs a little bit before it grabs a GPS signal, most likely due to its small size, but my previous fitness tracker, the Microsoft Band 2, always needed longer.

Design: Don't fix what ain't broken

Another reason the Huawei Band 2 Pro doesn't impress at first glance? The design. It basically looks like a somewhat thicker Fitbit Alta, with a long black display framed by steel on both sides (presumably the GPS/ Bluetooth antennae). It looks a lot like the Alta. 

Between those two steel pieces and underneath a glass screen lies quite a bit of a gap and underneath that a fairly small PMOLED panel (especially compared to the actual size of the device). The glass screen is not a touch screen and probably isn't Gorilla Glass (which is why it's quite easy to scuff up - like seriously, mine's already scratched after mere 2 weeks). Instead, you control the device with a touch button embedded on the screen's bottom bezel. 

Navigating the device with the singular button is easy and as an alternative, you can also twist your wrist. You can press to cycle through the menu: view your daily step count, do breathing exercises, measure your heart rate or launch one of the workout options using a long press. 

After starting a workout, you will be able to see some stats on the black-and-white screen that is a bit dim and difficult to see in even moderate sunlight, let alone in the brightness of a summer afternoon. There is also no way of adjusting the display's brightness, but don't worry, it won't blind you in the night if you are trying to read the time because yes, it's that dim.

You can also read your notifications on the Band 2 Pro, but the feature is not groundbreaking nor a selling point. You can only view the newest notification (notice the singular form of the word "notification") and if it's a longer message you can scroll a few rows of that message, you can't see the whole thing. Scrolling is done either with the button or by twisting your wrist. You cannot dismiss a notification from your phone after you've read it on the band and I've noticed that emojis are never displayed - there's just a blank spot where they should be.

This design is typical for a fitness tracker. It's a proven approach that worked so far and while there is room for improvement, keep in mind how much one of these costs.

A sleeper hit?

An unexpected bonus to the Band 2 Pro's continuous heart-rate tracking (which can be enabled or disabled in the Huawei Health app) is the detailed sleep analysis. The tracker uses the built-in accelerometer to detect movement and its heart-rate sensor to determine how long you spend in light, deep and REM sleep. I find this feature very useful and although it's similar to what Fitbit's Sleep Stages does, Huawei manages to go deeper with a breathing quality score and power-nap measurements.

App-solutely useful

I must admit, at first, I did not want the Band 2 Pro simply because Huawei has a pretty bad record when it comes to how it uses the data of its customers. When I installed the app, my fears were confirmed by the odd permissions it asked for upon first launch (I installed it on my Nokia 8 with Android 8.1 Oreo). It wanted access to some expected services, but there is no way I'd allow a fitness app to use my microphone, camera and to access my phone's local media storage.

Huawei, stop. Please.

After I sorted that out, I was pleasantly surprised by the ease of use and the vast amount of information it gives you about the parameters the band tracks. It can also sync to Google Fit, Apple HealthKit (for you iPhone users out there :* ) and MyFitnessPal.

In the sleep analysis, for example, you can see how much time you spend in every sleep stage, why each stage is important and tips & tricks to get better sleep.

Battery

The biggest issue with feature-packed fitness trackers is their short battery life. 

I managed to get the Band 2 Pro to last precisely 5 days while wearing it every day, using it to track my sleep, log the few times I went swimming and check the notifications from my phone. I did use the continuous heart-rate monitoring feature but not the GPS in these 5 days. 

What's a bit annoying here is that Huawei touts this 21-day battery life even on their web page, but that's most likely measured in ideal conditions, without push notifications, sleep tracking and everything else. Sure, the 3.5 hours of battery with GPS enabled seems realistic, but I consider even that a little generous.

The battery has a capacity of 100mAh and can be charged in about 1,5 hours. For charging, you get a cradle and a rather short micro-USB cable (no USB Type C here. Bummer). I don't like the way it mounts you mount the Band 2 Pro onto its cradle. The lack of magnets certainly was a cost-saving measure, but this results in an annoying fiddling with the tracker and the cable until it snaps into the right position. 

The one aspect about the cradle I like is the fact that you can detach the micro-USB cable from it, that's one less cable to carry around on holiday.

Other small annoyances

For some reason, I cannot shower while wearing it, despite it being water resistant. It keeps interpreting the water dripping on the button as touches. This keeps activating functions without my intention and is pretty annoying.

I liked the Microsoft Band 2's clasp design, even if that product as a whole was flawed. Huawei opted here for a very different design, but just like with the MS Band 2, I think that long-term durability is an issue. On my particular model, after only 2 weeks of use, the TPU/ silicone material is stretched out around the plastic component and I'm afraid it might break in the near future.

You can barely see what I mean above here

Bottom line

Huawei's Band 2 Pro isn't perfect. Its display could be brighter and interchangeable bands would make it a lot more durable. But even at launch, it was affordable and Huawei has since launched the Band 3 Pro as the successor, resulting in even deeper price drops for the Band 2 Pro. This affordable fitness tracker is packed with powerful sensors that deliver surprisingly accurate workout and sleep analysis. Right now, it's under 50€ on Amazon and in that price category, it might very well wear the crown.

Buy it here: https://amzn.to/2VTanYu