Mi Band vs YuFit – Battle of the Affordable Fitness Bands

Xiaomi had set a new benchmark for an ‘affordable yet high performing’ fitness tracker when they announced the Mi Band last year for as low as $15. The Mi Band recently made it to the Indian market for a magical figure of Rs.999, and just as people were rejoicing to get their hands on it, the Indian mobility giant, Micromax stunned everyone (including Xiaomi, we believe) with its own fitness band, called the YuFit.

Other than the price, there are a lot of things similar between the two fitness bands, and although we’re yet to test the YuFit completely for accuracy, reliability etc., we thought of penning down our thoughts based on a month long usage of Mi Band and few hours of usage of YuFit.

Design & Display

The basic idea behind both Mi Band and YuFit is similar – a sensor filled smart unit that snaps inside a rubber strap. The two rubber straps look so similar, that you’ll find it incredibly tough to differentiate between them from a distance. When you hold them, you’ll see that Xiaomi’s Mi Band feels a lot more premium than the one on YuFit, probably due to the soft touch rubber as against a little hard and rough finish on the YuFit strap. We aren’t sure if the YuFit comes with different colored straps, but the Mi Band surely has a variety of them.

The dimensions and size are nearly identical for both the bands, but the YuFit is marginally heavier due to the addition of the display (more on that later). Even the way the strap clasps is also similar. Needless to say who got inspired over here. If you plan to wear the band all the time, Mi Band scores over YuFit being lighter and for having a better quality strap.

But the major difference is with the display. While the Mi Band is devoid of any display (has 3 LED lights), the YuFit comes with an OLED screen which can show the time, steps count, distance covered, calories burnt and missed calls/messages count. It’s not a touchscreen display, but has a touch button at the bottom which can alternate between various screens. That’s a major win for YuFit.

Related: Check out out YuFit Review

Activity Tracking

Coming to the most important aspect of a fitness tracker – which is the activity tracking – both Mi Band and YuFit have similar set of features. Both can track your steps count, distance covered, calories burnt and of course the sleep. We can’t yet comment on the accuracy of YuFit yet, but we have seen that Mi Band is crazy accurate with its activity tracking. Even the sleep tracking is automatic – i.e you don’t have to tell the app/band that you’re going for sleep, which is quite a big deal.

But the key difference here is with the calorie tracking. Although both devices can track the calories burnt, the integration of YuFit app with HealthifyMe makes a huge difference. HealthifyMe is a third party app from India which has a huge database of calorie count of Indian food, something which isn’t easily available anywhere. Of course, one can use it as a separate app while using the MiBand, but the in-app integration with YuFit makes it really easy. Moreover, YuFit users can subscribe to a subscription package of HealthifyMe which connects them to experts (nutritionists/dietitians/trainers) at a discounted price. YuFit is following Goqii here with personalized plans.

Another key difference between them is the web dashboard. Mi Band has an Android/iOS app and that’s the only way you can keep track of your daily activities. YuFit though, is expected to have a web app as well. Both devices are compatible with Android and iOS devices, and use Bluetooth to connect to the smartphone.

Battery Life

Pic Credit: GadgetsToUse

Mi Band has a stupendous battery life for a connected fitness tracker. Technically, it comes with 41mAh battery and is expected to last over 30 days. In real life usage, it goes past 60 days as it doesn’t need to be connected to the smartphone all the time. An occasional pairing with the app to sync up the data will ensure that the battery on Mi Band last months on a single charge.

With YuFit having an OLED display to power as well, the expected battery life is much lesser. Interestingly, Rahul Sharma skipped the battery part completely in his presentation at the launch event yesterday, and later, we were told that the expected battery life of YuFit is around 15-20 days. We definitely have to test it for an elongated period of time to know the exact number, but you can know for a fact that Mi Band will last longer than YuFit on a single charge. As for the charging method is concerned, both of them come with very similar proprietary chargers which can be charged from any USB port.

Summary

There;s no way we can conclude which one is better – Mi Band or YuFit – without testing out the latter in detail. The YuFit is still a month away and be sure that we will review both of them in detail soon. But for now, here are the key takeaways:

• Both the bands are more similar than different in terms of looks, build and pricing (Rs.999).
• Mi Band has a slight advantage over YuFit in terms of strap quality and lighter weight.
• YuFit scores over Mi Band by providing an OLED display. You won’t miss a watch anymore!
• Both of them have activity and sleep tracking (can’t comment on accuracy right now).
• HealthifyMe integration is a major advantage for YuFit.
• Battery life is bound to be better on Mi Band due to lack of display.
• Both of them support Android and iPhone.
• If you own a Xiaomi phone, you can use the Mi Band to unlock your smartphone automatically. This feature is missing on YuFit