Honor Color Band A1 — Impressions after two months of use — GonzoMAG

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Frankly speaking, of all the wearable devices (those smart gadgets that we put on ourselves), wearing a fitness bracelet seems to me the most logical. This can be a cute accessory that will be useful to absolutely anyone, regardless of whether they are involved in fitness or not. Still, smart watches — let’s admit this fact — did not take off: after all, for several hundred million smartphones there are approximately tens of millions of all smart watches. Notifications, short replies to messages, built-in applications — so far it all looks rather weak against the backdrop of a powerful Swiss chronograph or any G-Shock, and a weak battery is still a serious problem with these wearable electronics.

What do fitness bracelets offer? Nothing special. Most of them count steps and record sleep phases; a minority have a watch and a screen in principle. But most importantly, smart bracelets are a truly new class of devices that do not force you to put Vacheron Constantin, Certina, Omega or Casio G-Shock on the shelf. It can already be stated that fitness bracelets are undoubtedly more popular and in consistently high demand. There is no need to hide the fact that the latter is due to affordable price tags, because becoming the owner of a bracelet or giving it to a friend is not very expensive. You can buy a Xiaomi mi band 2 from about 1,500 rubles. However, its delivery will most likely have to wait.

It’s time to tell you about another pleasant and fairly affordable solution, which you can order now and will cost only 1990 rubles. Honor Color Band A1
is a fitness bracelet, which, as you might guess, is produced by Huawei
under the brand Honor
. We remember well smart bracelets from Huawei, in particular the Talkband line, in which the “core” of the bracelet was a wireless headset that also counted steps.

The bracelet clasp has become a little worn over the course of a couple of months.

Color Band A1 is a simple and nice-looking device that performs three functions: counts steps, tracks sleep phases and records the level of UV radiation. The latter is extremely interesting and fresh! And let’s be honest — the Honor Color Band A1 is also beautiful: we got the gadget in black (there is a version in turquoise). On the one hand, the device is invisible on the hand, on the other, it looks extremely nice if you look closely, thanks to its interesting diamond-shaped texture. The belt is made of rubber, and the “core” itself is made of metal. By the way, the device is not afraid of water, in any case, washing your hands in it is definitely not forbidden.

The device arrived for testing at the end of November 2020, so we accumulated these impressions over two months of communication with the bracelet. What should be noted right away is the battery life. On the website, the manufacturer claims 28 days of operation. We can’t say for sure, since we have never discharged the gadget to zero: the first time, the bracelet worked for 21 days and we still had 21 percent of the charge left! So everything here is extremely confident and truthful. By the way, the battery status is displayed in the notification panel of the smartphone. The fitness bracelet is charged from a special cradle, which is “molded” to a strong magnet. The cradle is attached to two contacts on the back of the “core”, charging the bracelet.

The second is a convenient and simple application that quickly synchronizes with the bracelet. It works stably, but not without problems. In general, here you can see the number of steps taken: statistics are kept for each day and stored within the program. A typical story for such applications is the owner’s profile: here you enter age, gender, weight and height.

In the application menu, you can set the time of notifications: the bracelet will vibrate when there are incoming messages and calls. You can also set a smart alarm. It is possible to find a lost bracelet using a special button: by pressing it, the bracelet will begin to vibrate and flash blue. Naturally, this is relevant if you have buried it somewhere on your desktop. The device works via Bluetooth, so the distance from the bracelet to the smartphone should be up to 10 meters.

Interestingly, the app has settings for the UV monitoring version. The fact is that there is a version of Color Band A1 with a leather bracelet and a golden “core”. Note that there is silence about this version on the Huawei online store website.

But as we wrote above, the program is not without its flaws. For example, localization errors appear periodically. But the most important thing is the very strange gradations of calories burned. To understand, 500 calories are approximately equal to one burrito eaten (let’s just say that the dish is not very familiar to Russian users). At the same time, the gadget equated 330 calories to three bananas, which is very important for minions. But these are still flowers. At 850 calories and above, everything will be equal to the number of eggs, presumably chicken. Burn 880 calories, get 8 eggs (this is exactly what is written in the program, one might say — the author’s spelling). Walked for 1300 calories — 12 eggs, and for 2000 — 21 eggs. In general, for this part I would like to get a more diverse assessment and familiar dishes — such as soup, salad, burger, and so on.

The third thing that definitely needs to be noted is counting steps. In general, Honor Color Band A1 performs purely, demonstrating performance on par with bracelets from other manufacturers (Sony, Withings, Garmin and others). Basically, the device counts honestly and there is no situation that we encountered with one of the bracelets — when you get up in the morning with almost completed the norm of 10,000 steps. At the same time, your humble servant was not noticed in sleepwalking, and all other devices swear that I do not walk at night.

However, despite the precise work, you can “walk up” extra steps if you shake the device in your hands.

The device counts three types of steps: walking, running or cycling. The latter is good news, since not all bracelets can count the distance on a bicycle or scooter. True, it was not possible to test this, since, frankly speaking, it is difficult to ride a bicycle and scooter in winter.

By the way, steps are automatically converted into calories and distance, which is very convenient. As we understand, everything is calculated based on height and weight, as well as the average step length.

Sleep is also considered in three gradations: without sleep (the period of falling asleep or staying awake between dreams), deep and shallow sleep. Note that during the entire period of working with the bracelet, the maximum time without sleep was 18 minutes. Otherwise, the division into deep and shallow sleep is quite simple and understandable. It is important to say that a smart alarm clock should, in theory, work precisely during the light sleep phase in order to quickly and efficiently wake up the user.

It is important to note that the device periodically stops synchronizing with the application and transmitting data about walks and sleep. So we lost data from the first week of the new year 2020. It’s simple — we didn’t log into the app these days. If you look into the program, such problems will not happen.

Results

In two months, I honestly fell in love with the Honor Color Band A1. I liked it right away, and when we realized that it accurately calculates steps and divides them into walking, running and cycling, it became even more interesting. It should also be noted that the battery life is long — almost a month without charging — this is not a joke. It’s comfortable, looks great, and lasts a long time. The main thing is that it counts steps and sleep, which allows you to monitor your quality of life. In addition, the bracelet can assess the level of UV radiation and suggest what you should use to protect your skin. Of course, like cycling, this will be especially important in the summer.

It is also important to note that the “core” of the Honor Color Band A1 is protected according to the IP57 protocol, which means it can be briefly immersed in water to a depth of one meter. Thus, you can wash your hands and even take a shower without removing the device. However, swimming in a gadget and marking it as a workout will not work.

Overall, the Honor Color Band A1 makes a good impression, despite some application glitches and localization flaws in it. And overall, this is one of the most affordable and at the same time coolest solutions on the market. Only the Xiomi mi Band can really compete with it, although you can’t buy it here and now: you have to wait for delivery and hope for fast and accurate work. And here is a wonderful working bracelet with a long operating time for 1990 rubles. By the way, if you don’t buy it for yourself, it can be an excellent gift for the upcoming holidays (February 14 and 23, March 8).