Xiaomi's Mi Band Now Plays Nice with Google Fit

When Xiaomi launched the Mi Band quite some time ago now, we were all surprised and a little skeptical that a fitness tracker could be really much use at such a low, low price. Depending on where you buy it from, the Mi Band can be found for as low as $15. We reviewed it not too long ago, and while we found it a little small for our Western meat hooks, it’s an impressive wearable considering it’s low, low price tag. Many think of Xiaomi as a company that ships Android devices minus the Google, and while that is true in China (Google Play is mostly non-existent in China) the Mi Band app was available in the Google Play Store, and still is, complete with proper English. Now, it’s getting updated with Google Fit support.

Google Fit support is being added as part of the v1.4.923 update, which also brings with it some software optimisation and bug fixes. While this sound fantastic, this won’t turn the Mi Band into a “Google Fit Band” and instead works as more of a data dump. See, the Mi Band has such good battery life because it doesn’t constantly sync with your smartphone as say, an Android Wear watch would, instead it only syncs data when you ask it to. So if you do it everyday, you’ll sync a little data each day, don’t do it for a week and you’ll have a longer sync time. All the new update does, is dump this data into Google Fit when you choose to sync your band with your phone. Still, it’s better than nothing, and might be one of the cheapest ways to see what Google Fit could be like with dedicated hardware.

With Google I/O kicking off tomorrow, we’re sure the search giant will have some interesting information to share with us concerning Google Fit. Especially when we consider that Google Fit was launched during last year’s Google I/O and the interest that the company is showing in ways to get people fit like Android Wear’s Games in Motion initiative among others. For those looking for a fitness tracker, but aren’t sure how much use they’ll get out of it, the Mi Band could be the best option, even more so now with Google Fit support.