Xiaomi’s very-iPhone-X-looking Mi 8 smartphone was the highlight of its Shenzhen press event today, but the company did also unveil a number of other notable products, including an updated version of its popular fitness band.
The Mi Band has always offered a solid performance at around $30 — to the point that I’ve bought two of them for myself — and the third incarnation pushes things further. Mi Band 3 includes a longer 20 days of battery life per charge, 50-meter water resistance and a new band design that Xiaomi touts as being both more comfortable and more secure on your wrist.
Like the Mi Band 2, the third-gen tracker includes a pulse monitor and the usual fitness tracking. It syncs to the Xiaomi Mi Fit app, with data exportation to other services possible.
The Mi Band isn’t a full-blown fitness band, for example it doesn’t include GPS so it won’t help you track runs on apps like Strava, but at just 69 yuan, or around $25, it is a seriously cheap option. The Mi Band 3 will make its debut in China first, where it’ll come in a choice of red, black and blue. Like most Xiaomi products, we’ll have to wait on details of international availability but it will almost certainly be sold outside of China soon.
Aside from the Mi Band 3 and Mi 8, Xiaomi also unveiled its Mi VR Standalone product, which was developed alongside Facebook-owned Oculus, which is now home to former Xiaomi international executive Hugo Barra. Xiaomi also took the wraps off its largest smart TV to date, the 75-inch Mi TV 4.
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