How to Configure Huawei Band 3 Pro

According to the specification, the new fitness tracker from Huawei is functionally approaching professional devices. This is not a simple bracelet with a pedometer and an alarm clock, but a gadget with GPS, round-the-clock heart rate monitoring and the ability to dive up to 50 meters in addition to tracking sleep and notifications from a smartphone. Let’s see how everything is implemented, whether such a device is suitable for an amateur athlete and whether he is able to replace professional sports gadgets.

Technical specifications Huawei Band 2 Pro

• Body colors: black, blue, orange
• Display: 0.91 ’’, PMOLED, 128×32
• Battery: 100 mAh
• Fast charge: yes, charging time 1.5 hours
• Battery Life: 21 days
• GPS Tracking Time: 3.5 hours
• Support: Android 4.4 and older, iOS 8.0 and older
• Wireless Interfaces: Bluetooth 4.2
• GPS: supported
• Sensors: three-axis accelerometer, cardiotachometer, infrared sensor

Appearance and Ergonomics

Huawei Band 2 Pro exists in three colors. black, blue and bright orange. The bracelet looks straightforward, but it fits into modern trends: a plastic capsule with a 0.91-inch PMOLED display and a touch button is complemented by a silicone strap with an adjustable buckle. Quite convenient, by the way: it can be tightly tightened around the wrist of any width, while accidentally it can be unfastened in exceptional cases.

Of course, you don’t have to wait for a wonderful picture from a monochrome display, but it consumes little power and shows sufficient brightness for use in any conditions.

Interface

Menu at Huawei Band 2 Pro is the most ordinary, linear. The interface is controlled by a single touch button, a short press of which turns over the screens with modes, and a long press launches them. For example, when you hold the button on the screen with the image of a sneaker, the bracelet will show the details of daily activity: calories, distance, duration of activity and the percentage of completed norm.

You can change the order of the screens or delete one of them (except for the clock) in the settings of the Huawei Wear app. By default, the interface has seven menu items: clock, current pedometer data, heart rate, running, bike, swimming and breathing activity.

A nice little thing: the bracelet supports gesture control. True, there are only two of them: activating the screen when raising the wrist and switching menu items with a turn of the hand.

Bracelet at work

In addition to the three-axis accelerometer and cardiotachometer, the gadget received an integrated GPS module. This makes it similar to professional devices for running and other sports in which you need to track your route, speed and distance.

Launch the training mode (there are three options. running, cycling and walking) will turn out both from the bracelet itself, scrolling through the screens to the desired mode and holding the main button for a couple of seconds, and from the Huawei Health application by clicking the “start training” button and choosing the desired type activity. The GPS turns on automatically (you can turn it off), and the route, duration of the run, calories, pace and distance are displayed on the screen.

The training mode in the pool is activated a little more difficult. by double-tapping the knuckles on the screen. and during the lesson it shows the time, distance and calories burned on the display. The number of strokes, pools and moreover, style recognition is not provided.

In general, swimming in this bracelet is more likely to show off, but things are more serious with running: the application has a “built-in trainer” function that makes up the preparation program for a specific competition date. How it works? You must select the distance, the number of training sessions and the date of the competition. and the application will draw up a schedule of classes with a certain distance and intensity, and then it will mark the days passed and count the days until the date X.

One of the bracelet modes is “Breath”. This is a strange, but curious mode, when activated, the device invites the user to focus for several minutes on deep breaths and exhalations. The bracelet sets the pace and shows animated tips, and in the end it evaluates the result on a hundred-point scale. Such exercises are intended to relax and increase concentration, a kind of meditation. Relaxing and breathing, looking at the display of the gadget. perhaps this is what dream training looks like.

Smartphone Sync

There are two programs for the Huawei Band 2 Pro. The first. Huawei Wear. provides the work of various notifications, alarms and their fine-tuning. On the main screen of this application, a small widget displays a brief summary of daily activity. statistics on steps, calories and distance traveled, but nothing more.

All details can be found in the second application. Huawei Health. Here, data from all sensors are displayed with a tape with different indicators, from a pedometer to a heart rate monitor.

The synchronization of the bracelet with the smartphone takes place in a matter of seconds. After the first start, Huawei Wear instantly finds the bracelet (if it is charged and turned on) and offers to pair with it, after which it remains only to confirm this action on the gadget screen. Subsequently, the application is synchronized with the device automatically, quickly and almost imperceptibly updating the load data.

Notifications

The functions of the smart bracelet in the Huawei Band 2 Pro are implemented in a standard volume and include notifications of messages and incoming calls, accompanied by a pleasant vibration. It is possible to display notifications from any program installed on the smartphone, even from a calculator.

Also, the bracelet vibrates if its owner has been without movement for more than an hour, and reminds you to shake yourself with a funny icon of a flexing man. Sometimes it’s only annoying (try to move while standing in a traffic jam), but more often it becomes an incentive to get up and walk at least around the room. Of course, this feature can be disabled.

Advanced Tracking Features

In addition to the already mentioned options, Huawei Wear allows you to activate two advanced monitoring modes: continuous (24 hours a day) heart rate monitoring and more accurate sleep monitoring Huawei TrueSleep. The first mode reduces the gadget’s operating time by about half, but is useful to those who care about the daily pulse schedule. Subsequently, the collected information is systematized in Huawei Health. In the same place, you can track the average heart rate at rest, its minimum, maximum and deviations outside the normal pulse zone, the boundaries of which are set in the program settings.

Illusions about the absolute accuracy of the sensor are not worth building. it is guaranteed only by professional chest devices, but a general idea of ​​the indicators and their change can be obtained. In a noticeable “lie” we Huawei Band 2 Pro during testing did not catch.

The second advanced option is the proprietary TrueSleep sleep tracking mode. He also significantly drops the battery, which he immediately warns about. In addition to standard statistics, he gives an assessment of the quality of sleep and tips for improving it.

Sleep phases in this mode are considered more accurately than in normal ones due to the constant monitoring of heart rate: in addition to deep and light sleep, analysis of its fast phase becomes available.

Normal Sleep Tracking Advanced Sleep Tracking

Regardless of the activated mode, every morning after waking up, the gadget sends a push notification to the smartphone about how much it was possible to sleep last night, which motivates to go to bed early the next evening.

Autonomy

The battery capacity of Huawei Band 2 Pro is 100 mAh, which provides the device with good autonomy. If you turn off all the bells and whistles and use the training mode three to four times a week, the bracelet lasts for two weeks (with notifications turned on).

The round-the-clock heart rate monitoring mode reduces the operating time by about three times, and continuous GPS tracking eats up the battery in three hours.

Summary

Will Huawei Band 2 Pro suit amateur athletes? Definitely. He has everything for this: GPS allows you to accurately track the distance and pace of the run, heart rate monitor. to monitor your heart rate during training. Can you count on him as a serious sports tool? No, you can’t: there are not enough different advanced sensors like a barometer and a normally implemented swimming mode in the pool. In any case, it’s great that in the class of budget wearable devices there are such gadgets as the Huawei Band 2 Pro. with a heart rate monitor, water resistance and GPS. Well, it pleases with a simple and intuitive interface, keeping statistics on activity and training, tracking sleep and other nice things like notifications and a smart alarm clock.

Pros:

• the presence of a GPS sensor;
• gesture management;
• support for round-the-clock monitoring of heart rate;
• full water tightness;
• “Personal trainer” in the application.

Minuses:

• poor implementation of the swimming mode.

Lyricist: Alexandra Mitroshina