Comment by pzo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pzo | Hacker News Reader

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I use those too - they are super cheap. I mostly need smartwatch/smartband for:

1. push notifications (I keep my phone on silent)

2. show time, date, weather

3. change music volumes

4. remote camera trigger

5. sleep tracking / step counter

Things I like about miband:

- dirty cheap

- 2weeks+ battery

- waterproof (I just go to swim with it or take shower and had no issues)

Things I don't like in miband though:

- screen is small to read some longer push notifications (its good to get notified and figure out if something is important or not). If seems important you will still have to fish for your phone to double check

- firmware has problems with displaying emoji and some non standard characters

- bands are of poor quality and they will after half a year or so

- same with charging cable - they keep changing charging cables so you cannot use older one and those also easy to break or hard to find where you need charging

- wish had some wireless charging

- wish had some simple google maps navigation support (just basic info e.g 'in 100m turn left', etc

- wish had some physical programmable buttons to open specific apps

>> screen is small to read some longer push notifications

I agree, but also I don't want a full-size watch on my wrist, so the latest MiBand (which is larger than the one before) is actually perfect. I can see who the sender is and what the start of the message is.

>> firmware has problems with displaying emoji and some non standard characters

Haven't had this issue so far, or haven't noticed.

>> bands are of poor quality and they will after half a year or so

I also agree, but they're still so dirt cheap (bought a box of 20 different colors for like 9,99€) that I don't really care unless they break while I'm on a scooter or doing some physical activity.

>> same with charging cable - they keep changing charging cables so you cannot use older one and those also easy to break or hard to find where you need charging

Battery life is so long that I only take it off on a Sunday while showering and leave it charging near the pc for an hour or so.

>> wish had some wireless charging

Eh, the current charger is decent and used so sporadically that it's fine.

>> wish had some simple google maps navigation support (just basic info e.g 'in 100m turn left', etc

This is one of the main thing I miss from a full fledged smartwatch, but still not worth to wear the Galaxy Watch Active I have.

>> wish had some physical programmable buttons to open specific apps

I think you can do that with some Android apps like Tasker or similar.

> bands are of poor quality

A month ago I found out there exist metal bracelets for mibands. Bought one and probably will not have problems with bands anymore. Also they look much better.

> they keep changing charging cables so you cannot use older one

5, 6 and 7 definitely had interchangeable chargers.

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