Honor started selling the next generation of its smart bracelet on the Czech market Honor Band 7. It follows on from a successful series of predecessors, so we were interested in which direction this year’s newest representative has moved. The bracelet is sold in three color variants (black, pink, white-green) for 1300 CZK.
For testing, we received the apparently most interesting variant with a silver body and a two-tone silicone strap, one part of which is green and the other creamy white. Together, this mix of colors creates an unexpectedly elegant combination. This is also helped by the overall slimmer shape of the bracelet, which therefore stands out best on a woman’s wrist.
Honor Band 7 in Emerald Green (green-cream band, silver body)
The bracelet is designed to monitor basic health functions (heart rate, blood oxygenation, sleep quality, stress level), track up to hundreds of sports activities and display notifications from the connected smartphone. All this is served by a relatively spacious rectangular AMOLED display with a diagonal of 1.47 inches and a resolution of 194 × 368 pixels. The display has a completely sufficient maximum brightness and the Always On function, known more from smart watches, has also been added. Thanks to it, you have a constant overview of the time, but it drains the battery a little more than if the display went out completely after a few seconds.
Selection of watch faces • display of widgets • measured sports and health results
Overall, the bracelet is light and subtle, including the strap weighs less than 30 grams. This is also due to the fact that it does not contain any heavy materials – the body of the display looks like metal, but it is a plastic construction with a plated silver texture on the surface. Even though the bracelet looks like metal, the workmanship does not look cheap. Thanks to the resistance of 5 ATM, the bracelet can be used for normal swimming (in fresh water), but it is not suitable for diving.
All three sold color variants differ in the color of the strap and the body of the bracelet
Even with this year’s seventh generation Honor Band, the manufacturer did not decide to add GPS and other location services to the bracelet, so the device is completely dependent on the paired smartphone in this regard. In order to record the route of your run, you need to take your phone with you. Cooperation between the bracelet and the phone takes place through the Honor Health application, which is a clone of the practically identical Huawei Health application of the former parent company. You have to create an Honor ID account in order to pair the bracelet, which is otherwise useless, so it’s just an unnecessary annoyance to the user.
Familiar environment and applications
The application itself is not completely well-optimized, nor is it extra clear – there is still a lot of work to be done here. On the other hand, it provides everything necessary. It stores measured health values and overviews of completed exercises, you can use it to set the bracelet to one of the many dials on offer, and you can also update the software of the bracelet itself through it.
We know the environment well from Huawei smart watches and bracelets
The environment of the bracelet is closed and again strikingly resembles the environment of Huawei smart watches and bracelets. The system here isn’t called Harmony OS like Huawei (we couldn’t find a name anywhere), but it’s functionally and design-wise practically the same. From the main screen, you can use vertical scrolling to cycle through the widgets (showing heart rate, weather, music control on your smartphone), or down and up (blind with basic settings, received notifications). You can get to the main menu by pressing a single side button, then you can scroll through the vertical list.
The Honor Health application is used not only to store measured health and sports values, but also to set watch faces and update the bracelet software
On the other hand, the advantage of the closed environment, in which you do not get any other applications, is that it is less computationally demanding. This, together with the economy of the AMOLED display, has a positive effect on the duration of a single charge – you can easily get to 8 days. If you practically only have the bracelet to display the time and notifications, you can easily get close to two weeks. It is charged via the magnetic connector on the pumpkin, it is not possible wirelessly.
The bracelet is charged using a two-pin magnetic connector
Similar to previous generations, the Honor Band 7 is more of a mass tracking bracelet for less demanding users, which will serve them well for basic measurement of health functions and display of notifications. It is also suitable for occasional sports, the limit here is the lack of GPS, which makes it necessary to always carry a smartphone with you. The advantage is a good endurance for one charge, a sufficiently large and bright AMOLED display with Always On mode, as well as an elegant design and quite tasteful virtual dials offered.
