Xiaomi Mi Band 7 Pro
The Xiaomi Mi Band 7 Pro will launch in July alongside the Xiaomi 12S smartphone according to documents posted on Chinese social network Weibo.
Their launch event will be held on Monday July 4, although they may only be available to the Chinese market initially.
Xiaomi’s strategy is fairly clear here. The Xiaomi Mi Band 7 Pro has a much larger display than the Mi Band 7, a style similar to Huawei and Honor watches of the past few years including the Honor Band 6 and Huawei Watch Fit 2.
These wearables offer the look and feel of a smartwatch, and the features and battery life of a simpler fitness tracker. You get phone notifications and exercise tracking, but most likely not an expansive app store stacked with additional software.
The Xiaomi Mi Band 7 Pro’s feature set has not been leaked yet, but it’s likely to share many of the same characteristics as the Mi Band 7. These include a sharp OLED display, more than 100 exercise modes, a heart rate sensor and all-day blood oxygen saturation monitoring.
One clear question is whether it will have on-board GPS. The Mi Band 7 only offers Connected GPS, meaning it needs to be connected to a phone to provide maps of outdoors workouts.
There’s also a question mark over music support. Xiaomi usually offers control of music played back over a connected phone, but dedicated storage on the watch itself for phone-free playback using wireless headphones is less common.
Such features will largely determine how much the watch costs. The Weibo leaks suggest the Mi Band 7 Pro will cost 399CNY, equivalent to $60, although the actual US price is likely to be higher.
A price fairly close to that of the standard Mi Band 7 suggests the Pro may lack full GPS, although Xiaomi has pulled off some impressive technical feats with a small budget in the past.
The Xiaomi Mi Band 7 Pro is expected to launch this coming Monday.