Oppo, which is a well-known brand for its smartphones have also made their mark in IoT and smart wearables. The audio peripherals and its smartwatch has been shaking up things up in the Indian Market with their product lineup. However, Oppo lacked in the wearable market where they had only one product: Oppo Watch. Now, they are back again with one more product to be added to its wearable portfolio – Oppo Band Style which offers continuous SpO2 Monitoring and is the company’s first fitness tracker. We’ve spent almost 10 days with Oppo Band Style and here’s our review.
DESIGN & DISPLAY
The Oppo Band Style is Oppo’s first and affordable fitness tracker which is similar to the OnePlus Band. It consists of the same removable tracker module which is inserted in a silicon strap that can be pulled out for charging like other Xiaomi Band’s. The main change here is that it ships with two 14mm sized bands for aesthetics, an aluminium alloy clasp (a stainless steel ring that surrounds the removable tracker) which suits more on women, and a standard sports strap-like band with a thickness of 11.95mm that is more suited for the men.
It boasts a 1.1 inch AMOLED Display with a resolution of 126×294 which is strengthened with a 2.5D curved glass for protecting its display from scratches. The display is bright and offers punchy colours on-the-go due to an AMOLED panel. The response time of the screen is good as we didn’t encounter any problems while navigating into the UI or in indoor and outdoor situations.
At 10.3 grams(without the band), it enters into the category of being the lightest fitness tracker. You barely notice the weight while you are wearing it. Both the straps are made of good materials, we didn’t face itching or uncomfort during our review period of this band.
The optical heart rate sensor, SpO2 sensor, and POGO pins for charging are on the back. It offers water-resistance up to 50 meters and can withstand 5ATM water pressure which makes it a perfect companion to take along for your swimming sessions.
ACTIVITY & FITNESS TRACKING
It keeps a track of all the basics that other fitness bands offer: Steps, Distance, Calories, Resting, Active Heart Rates and Sleep. Additionally, you also get a SpO2 sensor to track Blood Oxygen levels. The in-built GPS is missing but expecting it at this price point won’t be justified. Alternatively, it relies on your smartphone’s GPS to track the path.
It features 12 Workout modes: Outdoor and Indoor Run, Fat Burn Run, Outdoor Walk, Outdoor, and Indoor Cycling, Elliptical Trainer, Rowing Machine, Cricket, Badminton, Swimming Pool, Yoga, Free Training.
During our evening walk of around 3.20kms, it didn’t track the GPS location but it displayed the analysis of duration of the session, the number of kilometres and calories burned, with Real-time heart rate (BPM), and cadence (SPM or Steps Per Minute) monitoring. It can record heart rate measurements every 6 minutes to every second. You can set it to every second but that will deplete the battery faster. It also has an Auto Pause option which will automatically pause the session when you are stationary and continue it when you’ll start moving.
The SpO2 sensor works great as we’ve compared it against Pulse Oximeter where the readings were nearly the same. You can continuously monitor your blood oxygen even while sleeping. Sleep tracking works accurately and shares the analytics about sleep quality.
SOFTWARE & BATTERY
The Oppo Band Style isn’t a smartwatch but you can use it to keep a track of notifications and alerts. Pairing the band requires an app i.e, HeyTap Health. The HeyTap Health app is available on both the App Store and PlayStore to download. The UI of this app feels very similar to the OnePlus Heath app. However, the synchronization didn’t take much time and the band was ready to work right away.
The band can store up to 5 watch faces and additional ones can be downloaded from its companion app, which has a total of 46 watch faces. Distinguishing it from the OnePlus Band, it offers extra 9 watch faces. Alongside, you can even apply your photos on the watch face or apply the world clock as a watch face.
All controls are accessible through swipes and taps as there is no physical button to access the UI. It supports gestures like swipe left to right to switch between watch faces, swipe up or down to browse through the menu, hold the screen to go back to the home screen, and favourite and finally cover the screen with your hand to turn off and on the screen.
Keeping the fitness features aside, it offers some nifty-addons which include Music controls, weather, stopwatch, timer, alarm, remote camera button, Find Phone and Breathe. The Raise-to-Wake feature was slow when we started using it but that problem was fixed with a new software update within 5 days of usage.
In terms of battery, it packs a 100mAh battery which can last up to 12 days of standby(as per OPPO). In our review period with brightness up to 100 %, workout session of around 2 hours, and Heart rate set to every 2 minutes; it delivered up to 6 days of battery standby. You can save the battery by tinkering with some settings to get the most out of the battery.
THE UNBIASED VERDICT
The Oppo Band Style is priced at INR 2999 and is available in two colours: Black and Vanilla. As an introductory offer, you can save INR 200 if you purchase it between March 8 to March 23 and get it for INR 2799 on Amazon, Flipkart and other offline stores.
It boasts a bright colour display, continuous heart rate, and Sp02 sensor, easy-to-use UI, accurate sleep tracking. However, it still lacks features like Stress Monitoring and Period tracking which is a disadvantage when compared to the Mi Band 5.
So, if you’re planning to buy a Fitness Tracker which suits the aesthetics of both males and females, then you should go for the Oppo Band Style. But if Stress Monitoring and Period Tracking is a must-have feature for you then go for Mi Band 5.
Disclaimer: We tested the OPPO Band Style as our primary smartwatch for more than 10 days. All our reviews are unbiased and are published without the brand getting to read them before you guys. We don’t change our reviews on pressure from brands and that’s the reason we are not sent review units from companies like Samsung, OnePlus, and a few more.
