Amazfit Band 5 tracks blood oxygen at under $50

Huami has announced the Amazfit Band 5, a fitness tracker with a Blood oxygen saturation measurement tool as well as Amazon’s Alexa built-in.

The Amazfit Band 5 will go on sale in the US today priced at $44.90 and will launch in other countries from October. It is based on the Xiaomi Mi Band 5.

With Apple marketing the new Watch Series 6 as a health tool, Amazfit is keen to point out you can get similar features in a device that costs under $50.

The Band 5 features a BioTracker 2 for continuous high-precision heart rate measurement as well as OxygenBeats. That’s not a record label, but the ability to measure the oxygen levels in your blood.

“Compared with the results of professional oxygen analyzers, the average error of OxygenBeats is only 1.67%, reflecting accuracy superior to that of most wearable wrist devices for blood oxygen detection,” said Huami.

Support for Alexa will come later via a software update but when it does users will be able to use the band like an Amazon Echo smart speaker to control smart home devices, add things to shopping list, ask questions and more.

The Band 5 also features a 1.1in AMOLED display, Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity and only weighs 12g without a strap. A tiny 125mAh is able to power the fitness band for up to 15 days of typical usage and 25 days in power-saving.

The Amazfit Band 5 also has a 5ATM rating which means it’s waterproof up to a depth of 50m. As well as sleep tracking, the band also boasts the ability to track menstrual cycles and stress. There are also 11 sports modes including swimming.

Check out our  best fitness tracker chart.