Honor adds a display and heart-rate monitor to its $30 fitness tracker

Why it matters to you

Fitness trackers are getting cheaper and while this one may not launch outside of China, we will likely see similar ones in the near future.

Honor is moving a little deeper into the fitness tracking landscape. The company, which is owned by Huawei, announced the new Honor Band A2 — which represents a pretty huge improvement over the original Honor Band.

The device now features a 0.96-inch OLED display, along with a built-in heart-rate sensor, and IP67 waterproof rating. When it comes to metrics, the device is able to track steps, sleep, and exercise — and it will even give you a notification if you have been sitting around for too long.

Of course, the screen is not just for fitness tracking — it will also deliver notifications such as text messages and phone calls. You can also manage those notifications — so you can dismiss or mute notifications quickly and easily. While the 95mAh battery seems small for somewhat used to the 2,000mAh+ batteries in phones, Honor says the battery will last up to nine days.

Perhaps the best thing about the fitness tracker, however, has nothing to do with its features — the band comes at only $30, which is an excellent price for what seems to be a capable device.

Unfortunately, however, the device is not going to be very widely available. It will only be available in China on June 9 and it comes in black, green, white, and red. The device is compatible with both Android 4.4 and above and iOS 8.0 and above — so the vast majority of people with a reasonably modern phone will be able to make use of the device.

The Honor Band A2 is a follow-up to the Honor Bad A1, which was a pretty good band in its own right. Still, it did not feature a display and as such could not really deliver things like notifications. It was also only available in China — so we do not really anticipate the Honor Band A2 ever expanding beyond Honor’s home country — despite the fact that we might not want to.