Huawei Band 11 Pro review: Brighter and more sporty

Best Prices Today: Huawei Band 11 Pro

The Huawei Band 11 Pro sees Huawei upgrade its budget fitness tracker in a few notable ways for 2026. It primarily adds a brighter AMOLED display and also features built-in GPS while keeping the price very affordable.

That’s good news for anyone who doesn’t want to spend big on a fully fledged smartwatch or sports watch, yet still likes the idea of tracking outdoor runs or rides minus a smartphone.

Elsewhere, this is a band that can track your sleep and detect any breathing issues, fire out atrial fibrillation alerts to keep a close eye on your heart health and has a cute approach to staying on top of your emotional wellbeing.

It’s a fitness tracker that can do a lot for a bit more money than the Huawei Band 11 at £69.99. Is it worth the extra spend and is this one of the best fitness trackers to buy? I strapped it on for a few weeks to find out.

Design & Build

• Available in three colours
• Silicone and nylon band options
• Waterproof up to 50 metres

The Band 11 Pro is nearly identical to the standard Band 11. You’ve actually got a slightly larger 43mm-sized rectangular case that measures in at 8.9mm thick and is made from aluminium. That’s attached to a very sporty yet smart-looking strap that’s been very comfortable to wear.

The strap comes in either green, blue (pictured) or black colours and is removable. That’s a fair fewer colour options available for the non-pro Band 11, which has a total of seven to choose from.

The Pro, though, does give you the added option of choosing a nylon woven strap if you want to ditch the fluroelastomer one.

a cheap fitness tracker that certainly doesn’t feel like one

That all creates what I’d call a pretty streamlined look altogether, which I really like. This is a cheap fitness tracker that certainly doesn’t feel like one.

When you need to interact with the Band 11 Pro, there’s a single physical button to wake up the display and push you into the main app homescreen. There’s a bigger emphasis on using the touchscreen to get around, but I like that Huawei has offered a combination of both physical and touch-based controls. Especially with those added sports tracking credentials.

Huawei has stuck to giving the Band 11 Pro the same level of waterproofing as the Band 11 and, in fact, the Band 10 and Band 9. The 5ATM rating makes it suitable for swimming, showering and using it for activities like pool swimming.

Huawei states you shouldn’t wear it for hot showers, in saunas or take it diving. It wasn’t lying. When I forgot to take it off before a hot bath, it promptly displayed a message saying it was shutting down due to overheating. After things cooled down, it was ready to power up again, so it wasn’t the end.

Screen & Audio

• Brighter AMOLED than Band 11
• Speaker and microphone not included

The screen size and resolution on the Band 11 Pro are exactly the same as the Band 11, which is an upgrade on both fronts from the Band 10. That’s a 1.62-inch, 286 x 482 resolution AMOLED display.

the upgrade in screen brightness was certainly appreciated

The biggest difference from the Band 11 is the level of brightness the screen can achieve. It’s 2000 nits vs 1500 nits on the Band 11.

It is an exceptionally bright screen, where I didn’t usually need that screen brightness too high for indoor use. When you’re outside and tracking an activity, the upgrade in screen brightness was certainly appreciated.

If you’re hoping to make calls or listen to music out loud from your wrist, the hardware needed to do that doesn’t make the cut here. This has pretty much been the story for all previous Huawei Bands.

The Band 11 Pro can tell you a call is incoming or let you know what music is playing on your phone, but can’t go further than that.

Software & Features

• Works with Android and iOS
• Huawei’s proprietary operating system
• Additional watch faces available

The Band 11 Pro is designed to give you some, but not all, of the available smartwatch features on Huawei’s more expensive smartwatches. We just reviewed the Huawei Watch GT Runner 2, for example.

You do have something that can be paired to both Android and iOS devices. I’ve had it predominantly paired to an iPhone via the Huawei Health app and barring a few minor syncing issues, the experience has been good on the whole.

if you’re new to owning a fitness tracker, you should find getting around the Band 11 Pro nice and straightforward

The software experience on the Band is pretty good, too. You can swipe from all directions from the main watch face to get to your notification stream, quick settings and widgets to view elements like activity tracking or weather forecasts in greater detail.

I think if you’re new to owning a fitness tracker, you should find getting around the Band 11 Pro nice and straightforward. It’s the Health companion smartphone app that’s a little less polished and just a busier place to get around.

In terms of those smartwatch features, you have something that will let you view phone and call notifications, albeit in slightly cramped surroundings. You can take control of music playing on your phone, see calendar appointments and there is a useful find my phone mode.

You won’t find payment support, access to Huawei’s App Gallery storefront or the ability to load and play audio files. That is to be expected given what the Band 11 Pro costs. It’s limited smartwatch support works fine on the whole. I found it perfectly fine to view notifications, control music playback and use some of the more basic smartwatch features.

Fitness & Tracking

• Added built-in GPS
• Emotional wellbeing assistant
• Pulse Wave arrhythmia analysis

The days of fitness trackers just being ways to monitor daily steps and track sleep are long gone. The Band 11 Pro can do those things and a lot more. 

That now includes the ability to track outdoor activities without leaning on your phone to do it. Huawei includes a GPS chip, which is the biggest hardware difference from the Band 11. It’s a single band GPS setup, so not the newer dual-band technology that you will find on Huawei’s smartwatches.

Outside of GPS, there’s a pretty extensive list of other sports and activities the Pro can track

I’ve been testing out the GPS on runs against a dual-band GPS-packing watch. As expected, it wasn’t quite as accurate. It typically reported longer distance data and metrics like average pace didn’t really ring true. There were times when the GPS was up to the task. If you care about super-accurate GPS, then this won’t get you that but its ok to get a rough idea.

Outside of GPS, there’s a pretty extensive list of other sports and activities the Pro can track. It covers things like pool swims, indoor rowing and cycling. For gym-based workouts, you’re bringing the heart rate tracking more into play, which I’d say performed well against a heart rate monitor chest strap. I definitely found that the good fit you get with the Band 11 Pro plays its part here.

Beyond exercise, it’s surprising to find features like pulse wave arrhythmia analysis

Beyond exercise, it’s surprising to find features like pulse wave arrhythmia analysis. This essentially uses the Pro’s optical sensors to monitor and identify signs of atrial fibrillation. This is typically a feature attached to the inclusion of an ECG sensor. The availability of the feature is rolling out and is available in some but not all countries. I was able to take the 45-second measurements in the UK and thankfully discovered there were no signs of the serious heart health disorder.

Huawei also wants you to pay closer attention to your emotional wellbeing and I think it does a nice job of presenting that through its emotional wellbeing assistant. It’s leaning on heart rate variability measurements to tell you if you’re calm or stressed, with a dedicated watch face planting a cute animal on screen to channel your emotional state.

If you’re keen on a tracker that’s a good fit for tracking daily activity and sleep, I’d say I’ve had a mixed experience on those two fronts.  As an activity tracker, you’ve got a very glanceable widget displaying your daily progress.

I did find that while daily step totals on some days were close to totals of other devices I was wearing, there were also days when there was some pretty big disparity between the numbers. At times, the Band reported as much as 2,000 more steps than those other devices.

When you’re taking it to bed, it’ll track metrics like sleep duration, break down sleep stages, generate a sleep score and check for sleep breathing abnormalities. It can also offer recommendations and insights to help you get a better night’s sleep. I found that core sleep data was, on the whole, very good.

Especially when looking at data around the times I fell asleep and woke up. Sleep duration recorded was usually reliable, too. Deep and light sleep stages were similar to what an Oura Ring 4 tracked as well. I’d say that Huawei could do a better job with the available analysis and recommendations made based on that sleep data. It’s not all that engaging or nicely presented in the app that would make you necessarily want to pay close attention to it.

Battery Life & Charging

• Up to 8 days battery life
• Up to 14 days battery life with lighter use
• Up to 3 days with always-on display mode

Huawei prides itself on making sure its wearables can last longer than the competition. The battery performance on the Band 11 Pro is very solid in most scenarios, with figures exactly the same as quoted for the regular Band 11.

The 300mAh capacity battery is capable of a maximum of up to 14 days when you’re using features like continuous heart rate monitoring and tracking 30-minutes worth of workout time. That drops to 8 days when you turn on features like continuous SpO2 monitoring or the emotional wellbeing monitoring.

If you keep the screen on at all times, that drops to 3 days.

I managed to get somewhere between those 8-14 days, with a battery drop of less than 10% a day

If you want a fitness tracker that can last a week and are happy to not have that screen on at all times, then that’s absolutely possible. I managed to get somewhere between those 8-14 days, with a battery drop of less than 10% a day. Overnight battery drop without the SpO2 monitoring switched on was typically a few percent.

If you enable the always-on display mode and also use features like GPS and all available health and wellness monitoring features, you are playing with maybe 2 to 3 days.

Like Huawei’s smartwatches, the Band 11 Pro requires a dedicated charging cable, which is always a little bit disappointing to discover. It does at least connect to the back of the Band’s case pretty securely.

When it ran entirely out of battery, it took over an hour to fully charge back up. That’s a slower charging rate compared to the Band 10 by 15 minutes. In the grand scheme of things, if you can keep things topped up when it looks like it’s getting low, you shouldn’t have to grab that cable too much.

Price & Availability

The Huawei Band 11 Pro officially launched in the UK in March 2026, while a US date has yet to be confirmed. That’s unlikely to change due to the ongoing trade restrictions between the US and Huawei.

The price is £69.99, but it’s already dropped below that at a host of retailers such as Amazon, Currys and Very, where you can pick it up for around £55. The Band 11 sits at £49.99 and can now be found for £39.99 from various places, including buying directly from Huawei.

That price means it’s still cheaper than buying an old Fitbit Inspire 3 (£84.99), though not as cheap as the Xiaomi Smart Band 10 (£39.99). It’s worth mentioning the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro (£62.99) here, which is most similar to the Band 11 Pro in terms of features, including offering built-in GPS.

Check our list of the best fitness trackers to see the top 10 right now.

Should you buy the Huawei Band 11 Pro?

The Huawei Band 11 Pro gives you a very well-rounded fitness and health band experience for the price. It looks nice and not too budget, has a good mix of software features backed up by performance that, in general, has been very good.

If you were hoping for a more affordable route to getting accurate GPS tracking from a fitness tracker-style device, then you shouldn’t expect stellar performance on that front. If you fit more into a casual workout fan that likes the idea of a tracker that can offer well-presented fitness, health and general wellbeing features, there’s lots to like about the Pro.

Given the price has dropped and the design isn’t massively different, it seems like a no-brainer to go for the Band 11 Pro over the Band 11. If you’re looking for the best of this style of tracker, I’d say it’s level pegged with the older Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro.

Specs

• 43mm case
• 8.9mm thick
• Aluminium alloy case
• 1.62-inch AMOLED display
• 5ATM waterproof rating
• Multi GNSS
• Optical heart rate sensor
• Up to 14 days battery life
• Works with Android and iOS