I took Xiaomi Mi Band 4 for a walk by the sea. The band can be thrown away

Sea, beach and electronics are a very poor combination. It's been a long time since I realized it as painfully as yesterday when I went to the Baltic for the first time with the Xiaomi Mi Band 4 band.

I have been more or less the lucky owner of Xiaomi Mi Band 4 for about half a year and so far I haven't had anything to complain about. The band does exactly what I would expect from a product ripped off for a PLN 100 promotion. And even more.

The statistics collected by Mi Banda 4 resemble a random number generator more than reliable data, but even a pedometer allows you to estimate the movement tendency for a given day - whether I was moving enough or maybe below the average.

As a watch, the band works ... well, miserably, because you have to do either very deliberate movement of the wrist or touch the button to show the time. But at least her working time is better than any smartwatch; I can squeeze it three weeks on one charge. In addition, the band is so non-invasive that I do not even need to take it to sleep.

However, I wear it almost non-stop since the day of purchase, because one thing Mi Band 4 does really well: it sends notifications. When I don't have a smartwatch on my wrist, I often miss important messages and phone calls. With Mi Band 4 such a problem ceases to exist because the vibrations are strong and it is impossible to miss the notification.

In addition, Mi Band 4 also allows me to control music from the wrist, which I especially appreciate when washing dishes, when I want to quickly rewind a boring podcast fragment or a disliked song, and do not want to touch the phone with wet hands.

There are a few Mi Bands in our editorial team. Including some almost destroyed, completely scratched. Until yesterday I thought that editorial colleagues handle bands roughly, because on my Mi Band 4 there is not a scratch.

And then I went with the Xiaomi headband to the beach.

Xiaomi Mi Band 4 + beach = disaster.

Since I have a dog, in a warmer time I am by the sea almost every day, because the beach is the only place where I can safely unleash a leash of a hyper-active hunting dog without fear of chasing animals into the woods. Therefore, my time at the sea is very active - a walk of several kilometers, interspersed with playing with the dog, throwing sticks into the water, etc.

Just a few minutes for a watch or wristband to look like this:

Inevitably, with a wet dog on hand, you can't avoid splinting your wrists with salt water.

For a few hours at the seaside I didn't pay much attention to what was happening with the band. I didn't care when I fell in the sand (or when a dog in the heat of play made a mistake on the wrist with a stick). Zero reduced treatment - Mi Band 4 tolerated what every other watch would endure.

Only after returning to the car, when I rinsed my hands with sand with clean water, did I see the scale of damage. Which, to tell the truth, I didn't expect at all:

I spent maybe three hours on the beach, and the band looks as if I scrubbed it with sandpaper or used very carelessly for several months. Meanwhile, just a moment earlier it was like new!

I will add that most of the scratches visible in the photo are not surface. Dragging my fingernail across the screen, I can feel myself hooking on most of them.

According to the official specification, the Xiaomi Mi Band 4 screen is covered with "2.5D tempered glass with fingerprint repellent coating". It is known that sand is able to scratch most types of glass, but I expected that Mi Band 4 will withstand the surface sanding of the screen (after all, I did not rub the sand into the glass).

Anticipating comments: it is not true that every watch in a similar situation would end up the same way. I already took Garmin Fenix ​​and Fossile watches covered with Gorilla Glass to the beach, which endured visits to the sea much better (although Fossil looked a little better than Xiaomi after a few weeks ...).

Of the watches I use, the beach visits are best tolerated by ... an ordinary watch. Timex Boost Shock, which I tested almost two years ago, costs just over PLN 300 today, and it is impossible to plow. I went with him to the sea throughout the last year, several times a week he looked like this:

I also took him in even more difficult conditions - in the mud, snow, a mixture of both; still looks like new today. There is not a single scratch on the mineral glass covering the dial.

And most likely he will come back to my wrist, because after what happened to Xiaomi Mi Band 4, I am afraid to put any other smartwatch on the beach.

Although G-Shock just showed its first smartwatch , so ... who knows?

The band can only be thrown away.

The scratches on the screen are so deep that it has become very illegible. However, this is the smallest problem. Unfortunately, this morning it turned out that due to significant scratches, the touch button is barely working - it takes several / a dozen attempts to "surprise". I also do not know if it is a matter of deep scratches or maybe some salt water has got inside, but Mi Band 4 has already touched itself several times, automatically scrolling through the interface elements after unlocking.

Unfortunately, in this condition I see no chance to continue using this band. The more that today I go to the sea again and I'm afraid to think in what condition Mi Band 4 would return if I subjected it to such treatment again.

I don't regret spending PLN 100 on this band. In fact, I'm not even a shame that you have to give it to recycling, because it did not cost much and provided me with value far exceeding its price. My only regret is that I can't buy it a second time because it would be completely pointless.

It is a pity, because the presence of notifications on the wrist on the beach turned out to be a real game-changer for me. I usually don't hear or feel the phone notification in my pocket. Not when the sea is humming next to it, but a pointer over 40 kilos raging around.

Not that you need notifications when playing with your dog, but ... it's good to know when your wife is calling.

If you want to take Xiaomi Mi Band 4 to the beach, invest in protective glasses.

The summer season is approaching and everything seems to indicate that despite the epidemic, Poles will flock to the sea in crowds. Xiaomi wristbands are an extremely popular product in Poland, which is not surprising - we have in the national DNA coded like good and cheap things. Many sunbathers will probably have such a wristband.

If you do not want to throw the money spent on the blindfold (or rather: in the sand), I highly recommend investing in protective slides. Not in foils that peel off after the first contact with water, but in decent screen protection, which - as you can see - is not strong enough in itself.

Such slides can be bought at very low prices, from a few zlotys for a few slides of low quality, to about 20 zlotys for decent tempered glass, glued to the screen of the band.

This is a small expense that will allow you to avoid a hardware disaster like the one described above. I would say that it is worth investing 20 PLN even when you are not going with Mi Band 4 on the beach.

Because, in fact, the Xiaomi band is fantastic equipment, especially for its price. Only ... not very durable.



I took Xiaomi Mi Band 4 for a walk by the sea. The band can be thrown away

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