Huawei Band 4 Pro Review

The Huawei Band 4 Pro is a fitness-focused smart bracelet with built-in GPS, positioned below Huawei’s full smartwatches. This review covers the Huawei Band 4 Pro across design and display, health and fitness tracking, the Huawei Health app, and battery life. It launched at $99.99, and its main distinction in this category is the on-board GPS.

Design & Display

The Band 4 Pro keeps a small screen on a wristband body. In our outdoor use the display stays readable; some find it on the dim side, but it holds up in daylight. A night mode optimizes the brightness automatically. The band is water resistant to 50 meters, which makes it suitable for swimming and water sports alongside land activities. It comes in Graphite Black, Ginger Red, and Rose Gold.

Health & Fitness Tracking

The built-in GPS tracks routes and marks them on a map. In our tests the route tracking is accurate. It covers outdoor runs, walks, and cycling, and with the 50-meter water resistance it extends to swimming. The Band 4 Pro also measures blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), giving a reading of general oxygen levels.

For heart-rate zones the band uses two calculation methods. The first is Percentage of Maximum Heart Rate, based on maximum heart rate and age. The second is Percentage of Heart Rate Reserve (HRR), based on the maximum heart rate percentage together with the resting heart rate. Choosing the right method matters for reading training results correctly.

Starting a workout needs only the wristband: users select an exercise on the device and begin. The band signals at points during the session and shows a summary on its screen afterward. The fuller analysis lives in the Huawei Health app, and that analysis is detailed. TruSleep 2.0, carried over from earlier Huawei watches, tracks sleep through the night for users who want a nightly sleep breakdown.

Software & Apps

The Huawei Health app controls most of the Band 4 Pro. Users set the watch face, choose which app notifications reach the wrist, and adjust how heart rate is measured for each exercise. On the band itself, users can play music over Bluetooth and read social and messaging notifications, and the band alerts users when heart rate runs low or high. During a workout the app is not needed; it is used mainly for the report afterward.

The app carries one caveat worth planning for. Following the split between Huawei and Google, the Huawei Health app on Android also requires Huawei Mobile Services to be installed, which adds a step to setup. The app itself remains in the Google Play Store. Because the app handles much of the band’s setup and analysis, this extra step matters for users on standard Android phones.

A separate review covers the Huawei Watch GT: https://www.techblimp.com/2019/02/01/huawei-watch-gt-review/

Battery

The Huawei Band 4 Pro carries a 100 mAh battery. Because the screen and body are small, that capacity stretches further than the number suggests, and battery life depends on which features are active.

Usage scenario	Battery life
Reduced features (TruSleep, continuous heart rate and raise-to-wake off; screen checked about 30 times a day)	up to 12 days
Full features enabled	about 5 days
Continuous GPS during training	about 7 hours

The charger is a clip-on USB cradle included in the box. Seating the band into the clip can take a couple of attempts. Once connected, a full charge takes about 1.5 hours.

Who Is Huawei Band 4 Pro For?

The Huawei Band 4 Pro fits users who want built-in GPS, long battery life, and swim-ready water resistance in a wristband rather than a full smartwatch, at a $99.99 launch price. It offers SpO2 readings, two heart-rate calculation methods, TruSleep 2.0 sleep tracking, on-band workout reports, Bluetooth music, and notifications, in Graphite Black, Ginger Red, and Rose Gold. Users on Android who prefer not to install Huawei Mobile Services will want to weigh the Huawei Health app requirement first, since the app handles much of the band’s setup and analysis.