The new fitness tracker is only available in China for now
The Honor Band 5 has now officially been unveiled, with the next generation fitness tracker promising tantalising new features for the same budget price tag.
At present, the new fitness band is only available in parent company Huawei’s native China, though a US and UK release date is expected later in 2019 – putting it in direct competition with budget fitness trackers from Fitbit, Garmin, Samsung and Xiaomi.
More reading: Best cheap fitness trackers
We’ll be reviewing the Honor Band 5 over the coming weeks, but until then, get up to speed with everything the company’s latest fitness tracker has to offer, including the design, features, release date and price.
Honor Band 5: Design
The Honor Band 5 is very reminiscent of its predecessor, with the same slim, curved profile, silicon bands and capacitive touch button to interact with the screen. You’ll also get the same waterproofing, meaning you can wear it in the pool or shower. Let’s highlight the key design specs for those interested in buying.
- 0.95-inch, AMOLED colour display
- 240 x 120 pixel resolution
- Water resistance up to 5ATM (50 metres)
- Available with green, pink, black and blue bands
- 14-day battery life
Honor Band 5: Features
This is where the big changes between the Honor Band 5 and its predecessor exist. Not only do you get the activity tracking, exercise monitoring, heart rate monitor support and notification experience, but an SpO2 monitor is now on board.
This essentially allows the fitness tracker to act as a blood oxygen monitor, and Honor would be the first major company to activate this on a wearable. Fitbit first released a device with a similar sensor on the Ionic back in 2017, and later on the Versa and Charge 3, though has yet to make use of it.
Such a sensor is able to detect the amount of oxygen in the blood, offering more accurate insights into sleep and fatigue levels. This should, in theory, allow you to organise your rest and exercise periods more efficiently.
Read more: Blood oxygen sensors explained
This is compounded by the inclusion of dedicated tracking modes for 10 different sports. We don’t officially know just what these are yet, but expect it to include all the usual suspects, such as running, cycling and swimming.
When you’re done with exercising, you can also make use of the built-in NFC chip for contactless payments – though whether this feature makes it overseas (the Honor Band 4 NFC didn’t release in the US or UK, for reference) remains to be seen.
Honor also states that the 100mAh battery should last for around 14 days, and suggests this could be stretched out even longer in the device’s power-saving mode. Again, this is the same size battery that was packed inside the previous generation, which we found actually lasted around 5-7 days with regular use, only stretching out when features like heart rate monitoring were turned off.
Honor Band 5: Price
The Honor Band 5 will cost CNY 190 when it hits shelves on 29 July, which translates to roughly . There’s also an NFC version of the tracker, which bumps the price up to CNY 220 (.
However, while we can translate the price, that doesn’t necessarily mean the device will eventually cost that amount when it travels. Previous Honor Band models, for example, have typically cost around , despite the Chinese version costing considerably less.
We’ll update this section when we have official pricing details for the US and Europe.
Honor Band 5: Release date
As we’ve seen in past Honor announcements, the initial release of the Honor Band 5 has been reserved for China. Confirmed during the Honor 9X smartphone event, the company noted that sales would begin on 29 July.
However, what we don’t know is when it will make its way into other territories, such as the US and Europe. Typically, we’ve seen this happen a few months after; the Honor Band 4 was released in October 2018 in Europe after a summer release in China, for example.
None of this is guaranteed to happen, naturally, but it would be surprising if we didn’t see a release in different markets before the end of 2019.
We’ll update this section when official details from Honor emerge.