Xiaomi Mi Band 5 Pro surfaces: Hopes high for Alexa powered budget tracker

The Xiaomi Mi Band 5 went live earlier this month in its homeland China but those of us in the western world are having to wait until July for the international variant to arrive.

The Chinese tech giant has confirmed a global launch for its 5th-gen budget fitness tracker for July but there haven’t been too many details as of yet.

However, hopes are now high for a Xiaomi Mi Band 5 Pro – which may well be the international model – as the ‘Pro’ moniker has been uncovered within the Mi Fit app.

Eagle-eyed spotters at GeekDoing noticed a model labelled Kongming Pro within Xiaomi’s fitness app. Kongming is the codename that Xiaomi used for the Mi Band 5; the NFC-less model was knows as Kongming L.

Previously there has been suggestions about a codename ‘York’ for the global Mi Band 5 but Pro would definitely be more apt if the purported feature list rings true.

Remember, we’re anticipating not only contactless payments on a Mi Band outside of China for the first time, but also a SpO2 sensor and built-in Alexa. The Chinese NFC version has voice functionality courtesy of Xiao Ai, so we know the hardware is in place for Amazon’s digital assistant.

The Xiaomi Mi Band 5 will go on sale in China on 18 June, costing ¥229, which is around £25. If previous generation Mi Bands are anything to go by, we’d expect similar pricing for the global model.

Roll on July…