Xiaomi Smart Band 10 Pro Review

A year after the Smart Band 10, Xiaomi has produced a "Pro" version of it. The headline addition is not the slightly larger screen but built-in GPS — still an uncommon feature on a fitness band at this price. The result follows the template set by the Smart Band 9 Pro and edges closer to being a proper smartwatch, though the absence of a microphone and speaker stops it short of that description.

The Smart Band 10 Pro adopts a rectangular shape, where the standard Smart Band 10 keeps a more oval silhouette. Its grey aluminium case gives it a genuinely premium look. The lower cover housing the heart-rate sensors is plastic, but it is completely hidden once the band is on the wrist, and the overall finish is neat and appealing.

Although slightly larger than the standard model it derives from, the Smart Band 10 Pro still suits slimmer wrists. The aluminium version weighs just 21.6 g without the strap, which helps day-to-day comfort. A thinner case would still be welcome, but Xiaomi has made progress here: at 9.7 mm the Smart Band 10 Pro is 1.1 mm slimmer than the Smart Band 9 Pro, which measured 10.8 mm. Full case dimensions are 32.16 x 42.83 x 9.7 mm.

There is no physical button anywhere on the band, so navigation depends entirely on touch — a decision with real consequences for usability, covered below.

Water resistance is rated at 5 ATM, so the band can be worn in the shower or for surface swimming. It is not designed for scuba diving or for high-pressure water sports such as surfing or water-skiing.

The strap supplied with the review unit is grey silicone — a material that is unpleasant in serious heat but perfectly comfortable for the rest of the year. Xiaomi sells alternatives in other materials on its own site, and nylon options are the better choice in summer for their breathability. The attachment system deserves credit for its simplicity: a small button releases the strap, and fitting a replacement takes seconds. Unlike most smartwatches there is no lug mechanism, which makes swapping straps considerably easier.

Do not be misled by the "Pro" name: the screen is only marginally larger than the standard model's. The AMOLED panel measures 1.74 inches against 1.72 inches on the Smart Band 10. The meaningful difference is its shape, which is closer to a smartwatch and therefore displays more information across its width.

Resolution is 480 x 336 pixels at 336 ppi, which is pleasant in daily use and keeps information perfectly legible. The bezels are a little thick, though that is hard to hold against a device in this price bracket.

Xiaomi quotes a peak brightness of 2,000 cd/m². That figure is not straightforward to confirm on a screen this small, but in practice there is no difficulty reading the display in direct sunlight, and the ambient light sensor adjusts intensity well enough that manual intervention is almost never needed.

Night-time behaviour is less convincing. Unlike rivals such as the Huawei Band 11 Pro, the Smart Band 10 Pro does not automatically switch the screen off when a scheduled sleep mode begins — an odd omission on a health-focused device. Raise-to-wake can be disabled, which limits accidental activations, but stray contact with the screen can still wake it. That leaves the automatic standby mode, which detects when you have fallen asleep, doing the work. A true sleep mode that reliably switches the display off completely would be preferable.

An always-on display is available, keeping a simplified watch face permanently visible. It looks good, but the cost in battery life is considerable. Eight watch faces are preinstalled, with many more available through the Mi Fitness app, ranging from restrained designs to dense, data-heavy layouts.

The Smart Band 10 Pro runs 32 MB of RAM and 256 MB of storage — enough to operate the band and store activity data, but not to install third-party applications. Phone notifications come through, whether from WhatsApp, YouTube or Instagram, but they cannot be answered from the band, which has no virtual keyboard. Software is HyperOS for connected devices, a heavily pared-back version of the system used on Xiaomi phones.

The complete absence of a physical button quickly becomes noticeable. One would have allowed an instant return to the watch face or quick access to shortcuts. Everything instead runs through gestures: swipe up for the full app list (activity statistics, workouts, sleep tracking, heart rate), down for notifications, right for common functions such as the torch, alarm and settings, and left for widgets including live heart rate, fitness status, weather and sleep tracking.

Navigation is fluid and intuitive overall, but some gaps are puzzling — chiefly the inability to switch the screen off automatically from a set hour, which on many competing devices simply follows the sleep schedule.

The battery-saver mode is also poorly judged. Once enabled it severs the connection to the phone and leaves only the clock, pedometer and NFC chip accessible, and the band must be manually resynchronised with the app afterwards. Given how long the Smart Band 10 Pro lasts anyway, the mode has limited value.

The Mi Fitness companion app, by contrast, is straightforward. Pairing works via a QR code displayed on the band, and the whole process takes around thirty seconds. The Health tab gathers estimated calories burned, step count, training time, sleep duration, heart rate, blood oxygen and stress level. The Training tab collects workouts along with fitness indicators including VO₂ max. The Device section allows detailed configuration — heart-rate measurement frequency, high and low heart-rate alerts, advanced sleep tracking, breathing-rate monitoring, blood oxygen tracking, stress monitoring and inactivity reminders — each of which affects battery life to some degree. The Profile menu holds general settings, saved route history and synchronisation with third-party services including Strava, Zepp, Apple Health and Suunto. Mi Fitness offers less than Zepp Health, the app used by Amazfit watches, but it covers the essentials with an unusually clear interface.

The sensor array comprises an optical heart-rate monitor, a blood oxygen (SpO₂) sensor, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, an electronic compass and an ambient light sensor. What separates this from the non-Pro Smart Band 10 is a single-band GPS receiver, which records outdoor activity without needing to carry a phone. It supports the five main satellite constellations: GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou and QZSS.

GPS accuracy. Single-band chips are theoretically less precise than dual-band systems, particularly where buildings or dense vegetation interfere with the signal. Measured against an Apple Watch Series 9 worn simultaneously, the results split sharply by environment. On a first run through a park the band traced the reference route faithfully, with slight zigzagging but only 80 metres more recorded over 6.69 km — a difference of about 1.2 per cent. A second park run was better still: 4.11 km against the Apple Watch's 4.08 km, a gap of 30 metres, or 0.7 per cent.

In central Paris the picture changed completely. In a dense urban environment the single-band chip struggled to hold position, zigzagging frequently and repeatedly cutting through buildings rather than following the route taken. The Apple Watch recorded 4.05 km; the Smart Band 10 Pro recorded 4.69 km — an overrun of 640 metres, or 15.8 per cent. Across all three runs the average deviation was +5.06 per cent, and the error would only compound over longer distances. Runners tracking performance closely or preparing for a race need a more capable GPS device. For occasional outings in open ground, the band is entirely adequate. It is also slow to acquire a signal: expect at least 30 seconds before a walking or running session can begin.

Heart-rate accuracy. Compared against a Polar H10 chest strap worn at the same time, the optical sensor performs well above its price. On a steady-paced run there is a pronounced lag as intensity rises, running 4 to 5 bpm behind at times, but once the pace settles the two curves sit almost on top of one another, with only occasional artefacts and slight latency during small variations. One glitch appeared at the end of the session, with the band reporting 160 bpm against an actual 137. During interval work it again lagged slightly on the first accelerations before locking on, then tracked the reference closely through both efforts and recoveries, picking up small fluctuations with surprising precision for this class of device. Average deviations across the two sessions were −0.15 and −0.31 per cent — among the better results for a fitness band.

The band covers the now-standard health features, with a pedometer and accelerometer handling step counting and more than 150 sport modes available — the obvious ones such as walking, running and swimming, alongside Pilates, sailing, boxing and judo. It can estimate VO₂ max, though a sustained high-intensity effort is generally needed for a reliable figure.

There is no ECG, which remains the preserve of higher-end smartwatches. More surprising is that heart-rate variability — a useful marker of stress and recovery — is measured only during sleep. It cannot be viewed during the day or measured on demand.

Sleep tracking is comparatively thorough. Both the band and the app show actual sleep duration and time spent in REM, light and deep sleep as well as periods awake. The algorithms rate sleep efficiency as a percentage, provide an analysis of the night with suggestions for better recovery, and produce an overall sleep score drawing on duration, physical recovery, mental recovery, the time you fell asleep and the consistency of your bedtime. Stress monitoring estimates four levels, from relaxed through mild and moderate to severe. An activity score collects the day's headline numbers — calories burned, daily goal, step count and active time — in one place, with a biscuit icon that converts calories burned into an equivalent number of biscuits.

The Smart Band 10 Pro carries a 350 mAh battery. Xiaomi claims up to three weeks of light use with power saving on and the always-on display off, up to 15 days in more normal use without always-on, and eight days with it enabled.

Tested under demanding conditions — heart-rate measurement every minute, the highest frequency Xiaomi offers, plus continuous blood oxygen, stress and sleep monitoring, all with the always-on display active — the band lasted exactly seven days and three hours. That is slightly below expectations but excellent given how punishing those settings are, and it comfortably outlasts the Huawei Band 11 Pro, which managed three and a half days under the same regime. The standard Smart Band 10 still holds the advantage at nine days.

Charging uses a proprietary magnetic cable. It is convenient enough, but the supplied cable is very short and terminates in USB-A rather than the now-standard USB-C. A full charge from empty takes around an hour and a half, which is typical for the category.

The clearest dividing line between this and a smartwatch is the lack of a speaker and microphone, so calls cannot be made or received on the band. The alarm relies solely on vibration, which proved somewhat weak — heavy sleepers may not feel it.

Communication with the phone runs exclusively over Bluetooth 5.4. There is no Wi-Fi, so the band cannot receive notifications once out of range of the phone, even when both are on the same wireless network.

In the UK the Xiaomi Smart Band 10 Pro is listed on Amazon UK at £69.99 in the Silver aluminium finish, model number BHR08WBGL, and is in stock at the time of writing. Xiaomi also produces the aluminium model in other colours and offers a ceramic version at a higher price, along with a range of alternative straps that are quick to swap thanks to that button-release system.

The Smart Band 10 Pro gets a great deal right for the money. The aluminium case looks and feels better than its price suggests, the screen is bright and easy to read, the interface is quick, battery life is genuinely strong at over seven days under heavy load, and the heart-rate sensor is accurate enough to train with — a rare thing at this level.

Its limits are specific rather than general. The single-band GPS is dependable in open ground and unreliable in a city, which matters most to exactly the runners who would otherwise be drawn to a band with built-in GPS. Add the missing physical button, a screen that will not reliably switch itself off at night, heart-rate variability restricted to sleep and an always-on display that costs more battery than it is worth, and you have a device that falls just short of being a reference point in its class rather than one that misses the mark.