Solely purchase one in all these!

What’s in a reputation? We’ve requested it most likely 100 occasions within the final yr with the best way phrases like Professional, Max, Lively, and Plus get added to tech merchandise, however what do these names actually imply? Typically, they imply quite a bit, like providing you with a further sensor, a much bigger show, or higher supplies. Different occasions, nevertheless, these names add confusion to an in any other case easy set of units.

Xiaomi’s Good Band 9 collection (often known as the Mi Band 9 in some markets) has change into a kind of circumstances. Its inexpensive health monitoring lineup has grown to incorporate three wearables — the Good Band 9 Professional, Good Band 9 Lively, and the usual Good Band 9 — and all three price effectively underneath $100. So, with little room to distinguish between the three, how are you imagined to know which one to purchase?

The common Good Band 9 has been one in all our favourite worth health trackers ever because it launched in mid-2024, however the Professional and Lively are new additions that I’ve been testing for a number of weeks. Although, if I’m being trustworthy, it truly took me a few day of utilizing the Professional and Lively to resolve which I’d advocate between the newer pair, and right here’s why I’d solely ever go Professional.

After I first unboxed the Xiaomi Good Band 9 Professional and Band 9 Lively, I’ll admit they threw me for a loop. I’m new to the Xiaomi Band ecosystem (my colleague Kaitlyn normally checks these), and I’m so used to the feature-rich, button-packed Garmin expertise that holding a easy, buttonless health tracker in every hand confused me. I wasn’t certain activate both health tracker, not to mention pair it to my Pixel 9. And but, a small a part of me appreciated the simplicity — or at the very least would get pleasure from it as soon as I figured it out.

After a short while, I lastly picked up on the truth that each the Good Band 9 Professional and Lively solely activate when linked to Xiaomi’s proprietary, two-pin USB-A charger. Not the obvious of directions, however I suppose most individuals plug their units in to cost after they first get them, which is sensible. Anyway, as soon as I acquired each health trackers powered on, I headed out to a espresso store to do some work exterior the consolation of my condominium and end organising my Good Bands whereas there.

Sadly, I additionally didn’t know that the Good Band 9 Professional and Lively would energy off after a sure period of time left unplugged if not paired with a cellphone. By the point I’d settled down on the espresso store, that they had finished simply that. So, I ran again house, grabbed a charger, and began the method once more, pairing each wearables to my trusty Pixel 9. In the end, I used to be able to discover my first Xiaomi wearables.

And, as I eased into each health trackers, I discovered that Xiaomi’s swipe-based navigation was fairly easy. The 1.74-inch Good Band 9 Professional and 1.47-inch Good Band 9 Lively supply comparable slides, providing you with fast management over the music in your cellphone, in addition to entry to the climate and a sleep report from the earlier evening. The 2 wearables hold their slides to a minimal, although, so that you’ll must swipe up from the underside edge to entry an app drawer for every part else, together with exercises moreover working, a better have a look at your coronary heart charge, and a look at your calendar appointments.

That mentioned, whereas the fundamentals of the Xiaomi Good Band 9 Professional and Good Band 9 Lively are the identical, utilizing the 2 feels fairly completely different. The AMOLED face on the Good Band 9 Professional feels a lot bigger and extra responsive than the TFT face on the Band 9 Lively, and the sq., smartwatch-like design (let’s be actual, it appears to be like like an Apple Watch) permits the extra premium tracker to arrange its apps in rows of three quite than the seemingly countless single column.

The finer components of each watches are opposites, too — from the construct high quality to the way you connect and substitute watch bands. The place the Good Band 9 Professional body is aluminum alloy, the Lively is plastic. The place it connects through quick-release bands that appear and feel fairly a bit like these for an Apple Watch, the Good Band 9 Lively is extra like a capsule that you simply slot right into a plastic and rubber body. It’s merely a distinction in polish that makes Xiaomi’s dearer health tracker really feel a lot better.

There are a number of variations underneath the hood, too. Most notably, the Good Band 9 Professional packs a 350mAh battery (up from the 289mAh of the Good Band 8 Professional), which is kind of a bit bigger than the 300mAh of the Good Band 9 Lively. Xiaomi claims that the previous offers you 21 days of battery life with common utilization, whereas the latter tops out at 18 days — each of which I’ve discovered to be fairly correct. I’ve been carrying the Good Band 9 Professional for out of doors runs for over two weeks, and it’s nonetheless round a 60% cost. The Good Band 9 Lively hasn’t joined me on too many adventures for an important cause that I’ll come again to, so it’s nonetheless at an almost full cost.

Even the coronary heart charge sensors themselves are completely different. The Lively sports activities a reasonably easy row of three dots, the highest and backside of that are inexperienced LEDs. Xiaomi’s Good Band 9 Professional, then again, has a a lot bigger, round sensor with two inexperienced LEDs and two white LEDs for additional protection.

After I finally drain one in all these low cost health trackers, I’m not trying ahead to charging it. Like most wearables, Xiaomi’s Good Bands depend on a proprietary charger, this time a magnetic rectangle with two small pins. The magnets’ energy is okay — they keep in place with out challenge — however I can’t say that I really like that there’s a proper and incorrect option to join the charger.

In contrast to a Garmin watch, which might connect with its four-pin charger in both course, or a Galaxy Watch, which simply sits on its magnetic pad, the Good Band 9 Professional and 9 Lively must be lined up excellent earlier than they’ll cost. When linked, the Good Band 9 Professional is the considerably quicker of the 2 to cost, taking about 75 minutes, whereas its Lively companion takes nearer to a full two hours.

On the brilliant facet, Xiaomi’s slick, easy design continues to its Mi Health app — essential for pairing any of the Good Band 9 fashions. It’s arrange with massive, easy playing cards to your each day sleep and coronary heart charge, in addition to different metrics like blood stress and blood oxygen, although essentially the most useful graphic is perhaps one which Xiaomi borrowed from Apple. Somewhat than a collection of rings to shut, Mi Health presents you with an empty rainbow of steps, energy, and lively minutes to fill, every with its personal animation when you hit your aim. Simply ensure to pair Mi Health with Strava should you plan to share exercises — I forgot to sync the 2 for a few week and missed out on fairly a number of kudos.

In fact, a health tracker is simply nearly as good because the health that it, effectively, tracks, so let’s transfer on to what it’s prefer to work out with out buttons. Fortunately, it wasn’t practically as complicated to me as the unique setup course of, solely taking a swipe and a faucet to get to the out of doors working interface. Nevertheless, when you get previous going for a run, the variations between the Good Band 9 Professional and Good Band 9 Lively open up significantly as soon as once more.

For essentially the most half, Professional merely means greater than Lively. Xiaomi’s extra highly effective health tracker presents virtually triple the variety of actions of its funds counterpart, round 150 in comparison with the 50 of the Good Band 9 Lively.

Don’t get me incorrect — I don’t assume anybody will ever use each single exercise on both health tracker — however typically extra really is extra, particularly when the sports activities that the Lively surrenders embody most sorts of swimming, among the ball sports activities, and about half of the gym-based exercises. Additionally, I can’t work out why the Good Band 9 Lively comes with out swimming assist, because it’s nonetheless 5ATM water resistant. Anyway, I’ve largely relied on the out of doors run mode as I get again into common working following a busy fall marathon season, however the truth that the Good Band 9 Professional helps monitoring for issues like darts, tug of conflict, Bridge, and fencing is just unbelievable.

I discussed above that Xiaomi’s Good Band 9 Lively hasn’t precisely discovered its method onto my wrist as an everyday health companion, and the reason being that it doesn’t include a GPS as commonplace. As a substitute, it depends in your cellphone’s linked GPS, which means that it’s important to run with a number of units directly. For some individuals, that’s commonplace apply, particularly in the event that they need to hearken to music, however I are likely to run with as little as potential, making it powerful to seize the Good Band 9 Lively and bounce out the door.

The Good Band 9 Professional, nevertheless, does include a GPS, so I’ve been capable of strap it on one wrist whereas my ultra-accurate Garmin Fenix 8 occupies the opposite as a management gadget, and I’ve been fairly stunned by a number of of the outcomes. I took each watches for a simple five-mile run round Baltimore’s harbor and located that whereas the distances weren’t spot on (Garmin gave me an additional tenth of a mile), I felt like Xiaomi’s map behaved higher by means of a number of of the taller buildings in Harbor East.

Within the map above, each wearables dealt with my journey alongside the waterfront and return leg alongside Thames Avenue simply fantastic, although Garmin would have you ever consider I ran proper by means of the parking storage on Level Avenue in a rush to get house, whereas the Good Band 9 Professional precisely saved me outside. Xiaomi’s map wasn’t good — it did throw me by means of the facet of Ceremony Espresso — however typically caught to the roads barely higher. Different barely wider-open runs have put the 2 wearables virtually on prime of one another concerning GPS accuracy, so seeing Xiaomi account for tall buildings barely higher is fairly spectacular.

Digging into my coronary heart charge throughout each wearables, nevertheless, tells a special story. Garmin’s monitoring (proven in purple) is far more constant than Xiaomi’s, peaking a number of beats per minute decrease at 166 whereas retaining a tighter vary throughout the whole phase. I hold my Fenix 8 paired with my dependable Polar H10 chest strap for nearly all runs, so to see the wrist-based Good Band 9 Professional observe me at practically 170 beats per minute whereas each Garmin and Polar had me proper round 160 isn’t nice information for Xiaomi’s optical sensor.

There’s extra to well being monitoring than merely going out for a run, although — the Xiaomi Good Band 9 Professional and 9 Lively additionally supply helpful sleep metrics. The quantity of information offered varies barely relying on which health tracker you choose up (solely the Professional offers you an general sleep rating), however I’ve discovered that each supply a breakdown of my sleep levels (pretty frequent amongst health trackers) and assign me a Sleep Animal after seven days of constant put on.

What’s a Sleep Animal, you ask? Apparently, it’s an animal with comparable sleep habits as you do, together with sharks, owls, penguins, and sheep. So far as I can inform, the brown bear is the most effective sleep animal, because it will get plenty of deep, restful sleep — particularly when in comparison with one thing just like the owl, which stays up late and sleeps fitfully. I’ve but to earn my animal, although, as I hold carrying my Good Band 9 Professional for 3 or 4 days in a row after which forgetting about it with both the Fenix 8 or no wearable on my wrist for an evening.

If there’s one downside to an inexpensive health tracker, nevertheless, it’s the shortage of general smartwatch options. There’s simply not a lot you’ll have the ability to do with the Xiaomi Good Band 9 Professional or 9 Lively exterior of logging sleep, monitoring runs, and checking notifications. This didn’t shock me with both budget-friendly wearable, nevertheless it’s nonetheless price mentioning should you have been hoping they’d really feel extra just like the Apple Watch that so clearly impressed Xiaomi’s designs.

Extra particularly, which means you possibly can’t obtain third-party apps like Spotify, Google Maps, and even Strava to any of the Good Band 9 fashions. What you see once you fireplace up the health tracker is just about what you get — fundamental apps to manage music (solely play/pause, although), a compass, a distant digital camera shutter, and a few semblance of a flashlight that simply turns the show to a shiny white shade. It’s not excellent on the Good Band 9 Lively’s TFT panel, nevertheless it’s there, I assume.

In contrast to the Chinese language fashions of the Good Band, which include a Xiaomi assistant, the worldwide fashions don’t have any good assistant assist for instructions. If you need entry to Google Assistant on one thing like a rival Fitbit, you’ll must spring for the Sense 2 or Versa 4, which price considerably greater than Xiaomi’s budget-friendly trackers. Personally, I don’t a lot thoughts the shortage of an assistant — I’m not normally James Bond speaking into my watch anyway — however I’d admire even a tiny speaker that chimes as I knock off a mile or a kilometer quite than the haptic suggestions that makes me verify for a notification.

Maybe extra annoyingly, a number of options on the Good Band 9 Professional and Good Band 9 Lively are lower than common on Android telephones. Though each fashions have a distant digital camera shutter app, its compatibility is “just some fashions,” and occasion reminders are restricted to Xiaomi and Redmi units. Apparently, the digital camera shutter and occasion reminders work fantastic throughout all units working iOS 12 or later.

Final, and probably least handy, is that neither low cost health tracker has an NFC chip. At this value level, it will have been asking a good bit anyway, however I really like the pliability to cease for espresso and pay with out my cellphone, and it’s a bit annoying to know that the Chinese language fashions once more have a bonus right here as these do have NFC assist.

So, given the selection between a health tracker with 150 exercise modes, a a lot brighter AMOLED face, quicker charging, and a built-in GPS and one which has, effectively, just about none of that, I feel the reply is straightforward. I’d fortunately advocate the Xiaomi Good Band 9 Professional to somebody out there for an inexpensive, approachable health tracker that appears fairly a bit like a way more premium smartwatch.

Granted, there’s just about no contesting the truth that the Good Band 9 Professional is the higher wearable than the Lively — it prices twice as a lot, so it needs to be twice nearly as good. However, once we’re nonetheless speaking about two wearables that can run you lower than $100, a little bit bit extra worth goes a good distance. Positive, you may purchase the Xiaomi Good Band 9 Lively and nonetheless have a bit of change left over, however it’s important to ask if it’s well worth the smaller, dimmer show, the necessity to take your cellphone with you any time you need to observe exercise outside, or the marginally easier sleep evaluation.

After which, there’s the opposite impediment standing in the best way of recommending Xiaomi’s Good Band 9 Lively: Its different sibling. Sure, Xiaomi has the OG third mannequin within the Good Band 9 collection, the vanilla Good Band 9 ($54.7 at Amazon), which additionally presents fairly a bit extra to your cash and is way, a lot nearer to the Professional than the Lively. It shares a metallic body, three weeks of battery life, a crisp AMOLED face with its dearer sibling, and a staggering variety of actions to trace. Essentially the most that the Good Band 9 shares with the Lively, by comparability, is its lengthy, slim design — that’s it. That mentioned, it nonetheless lacks linked GPS, so if that’s a dealbreaker then the Professional is price the additional money nonetheless.

In fact, should you’re within the US, you might need a troublesome sufficient time monitoring down the Professional within the first place. Xiaomi’s common Good Band 9 mannequin and the Lively are extensively out there on Amazon through sellers, however the most effective of the three isn’t out there but. In that case, the most effective various proper now might be the Fitbit Cost 6 ($159.95 at Amazon), as band-style health trackers don’t appear to be fairly as fashionable as they as soon as have been. The Cost 6 appears to be like and feels a bit just like the Good Band 9 with all the additional premium options of the Professional, however provides useful integrations with Google Pockets, Google Maps, and YouTube Music, which makes it far more attractive to these within the Google ecosystem.