Xiaomi’s Smart Band 11 Tracks Sleep HRV for About $43

An Oura Ring 4 costs $349, and then it asks for a monthly membership on top. Xiaomi's Smart Band 11, now official in China, costs 289 yuan. That is about $43, and it also wants to tell you what your heart rate variability did while you were asleep.

Xiaomi is not claiming the Band 11 matches a $349 ring sensor for sensor, and nobody should assume it does until reviewers spend a few weeks with one. But the price is low enough that the usual question about wrist trackers, whether the data is worth what you paid for it, mostly answers itself.

Brighter and thinner, same screen

The Band 11 keeps the 1.72-inch pill-shaped AMOLED from last year's Band 10 and pushes peak brightness from 1,500 nits to 2,000. The extra brightness buys you one thing, which is being able to read a notification outdoors in direct sun without cupping a hand over your wrist.

The body is down to 9.99mm thick from the Band 10's 10.95mm, with a 2mm bezel around the display, and the base model weighs 15.58 grams. Those sound like rounding errors on a spec sheet. On something you wear 24 hours a day, they are the difference between a tracker you forget about and one you keep noticing.

Three weeks between charges

Battery life is still rated at up to 21 days, same as the Band 10. Three weeks is the number that makes sleep tracking work at all, because anything you have to charge nightly ends up spending nights on the nightstand instead of your wrist. There is 5ATM water resistance, so showers and pool sessions are fine.

The health tracking

You get heart rate, blood oxygen and stress tracking, female health tracking, 150 sports modes, and sleep tracking that now adds HRV monitoring and what Xiaomi calls AI sleep insights. Sleep HRV and recovery scoring is the ground smart rings have been selling on for years, at prices like the Oura Ring 4's $349 plus membership.

Whether Xiaomi's version is any good is the open question, and it stays open until people wear one for a few weeks and check it against something they trust. Wrist optical sensors are the weak link in this whole category, and a 289 yuan one is unlikely to be the exception. Do not buy this expecting clinical numbers.

Price and availability

The base Band 11 is 289 yuan, the NFC version is 339 yuan, and the ceramic and all-metal editions are 399 yuan. That converts to roughly $43, $50 and $60, but those are straight currency conversions, not US prices, and Xiaomi has not announced a global release or international pricing at all. Reservations are open in China through Xiaomi's own channels and the major Chinese e-commerce platforms. It runs HyperOS 4 and works with both Android and iOS.

If you already wear a smartwatch you like, there is nothing here to move you. If you have been curious about sleep and recovery data but could not justify $349 and a subscription to find out whether you actually care, this is the cheapest serious way to find out. Whenever Xiaomi decides to sell it where you live.