Xiaomi Mi Band 4 essential tips and tricks

Despite that budget price tag, Xiaomi's Mi Band has always packed in a decent array of features, making for a fitness tracker that's able to compete with the likes of Fitbit, Samsung and Garmin.

With the Mi Band 4, that's even more the case to help to make it one of the best budget fitness trackers you can get your hands on right now.

To help you get the most out of your tracker, we've picked out some handy hints we'e found useful to make the most of the Mi Band 4's features. And don't forget to check out our guide to what to expect from the Xiaomi Mi Band 5.

Essential reading: Mi Band 4 v Mi Band 3

How to change watch faces

With that lovely new color touchscreen, the Mi Band 4 is a better place to view your info including checking in on the time. You now no longer need to stare down at the same watch face either as there's now support to mix things up on that front.

Xiaomi includes a big collection of watch faces you can view from inside of the Mi Fit app. To view them, tap the Profile tab in the app and select your device from the My Devices section. Go to Band display settings and you'll be able to see what you've got to pick from. Tap on the ones you like and then choose to sync to your Mi Band.

The good news is that you can store a few watch faces on your Band and choose between them on the device. To do that, go to the More menu on your Mi Band 4 and look for Band Display. From there, you'll be able to swipe through the currently synced watch faces.

If you need any inspiration, we've picked out our fave Mi Band 4 watch faces too.

See more weather forecasts

There's a dedicated weather menu on the Band 4 to let you view the day's forecast. But you might miss the fact that if you swipe up on the display you can also see the weather for the next three days as well to help with your forward planning.

Change the screen brightness

Xiaomi has managed to put one of its best and brightest displays on the Mi Band 4. Whether you want to brighten things up or take things down a notch, you can do this from the Band itself. Go to the More menu and then select Settings. From there you'll see the Brightness setting and you can simply tap the + to crank it up or the - to dim that screen.

Setting up a reminder alert

There is a surprising amount going on in the way of app alerts on the Mi Band 4. It can actually all feel a bit overwhelming at first. One of the nice features you may want to get used to is setting up reminders.

You can do this by hitting the More option in the device settings on your Mi Fit app. The event reminders are just one of many app alerts you can set up or turn on. You can simply pick a date, write the little reminder message and even assign a vibration to it to make sure you don't miss it.

Change units of measurement

We know there are plenty of people out there that like dealing with km instead of miles or kg instead of lbs. If you want to work to the units of measurements you best understand, go to the Profile tab on the Mi Fit app and select Settings and then go to Units. Make your choices and select the back arrow in the top left hand corner to save your preferences.

Get better sleep tracking information

From an accuracy point of view, the sleep tracking has improved greatly on the Mi Band 4. It also has become a bit more useful in terms of what it can tell you about your sleep.

To get make use of the extra sleep insights, you need to make sure it's turned on inside of the Mi Fit app. To check that, go to Profile and then Smart analysis. From there you can toggle sleep quality analysis on and off if you want that extra hit of data.

Turn off heart rate monitoring

The battery performance on the Mi Band 4 is pretty good. Xiaomi promises 20 days and that's what you're largely going to get. If you'd like to keep away from that charger for longer though, there are some features that you can disable to stretch it further.

One of those features is the continuous heart rate monitoring for during the day and when you're asleep. To turn it off, head to the Mi Fit app, go to Profile and then select your Band from My Devices. Look for heart rate detection and from here you can entirely turn off continuous tracking during the day, when you're sleeping, or both.

There is also the option to adjust the frequency that the Band 4 detects heart rate. So the less frequently it has to take those HR measurements, the better it is for preserving the battery life.

Lift your wrist to view

A lot of smartwatches and fitness trackers do this, but what we like about it on the Mi Band 4 is that you can control response speed and when that feature is enabled time-wise. That's handy if you don't want it constantly going off in the night for instance.

To get to those lift wrist to view settings, go to the device page on the Mi Fit app and look for Left wrist to view data menu. From there, you can pick from normal or sensitive response speeds and the time windows the feature will be in use.

Turn on Night mode

If you keep the screen nice and bright during the day, you can get the Mi Band to automatically turn things down when you're ready to go to bed. In Night mode, you can set what time the screen brightness is lowered.

Go to the Device settings in the Profile tab on the Mi Fit app and scroll down to night mode. From there, you can set the times it turns on and turns off and it will then sync to the Mi Band after. It's as simple as that.

Reset Mi Band 4

If ever your Mi Band isn't behaving as you'd expect it to and proving a bit buggy, a factory reset can often get things up and running again.

To do this, you'll need to tap on the touch sensitive screen on the Band and swipe down to the More icon. From there, scroll all the way down until you see the factory reset option and tap.

Just be aware that doing this will usually mean that any unsynced data will be lost when you need to pair your Band 4 to your phone again.

If you don't want to risk losing that data, there is also a reboot option. You can find it by taking the same steps as described above. The reboot option should appear a few options above the factory reset option.