The Honor Band 5 is getting SpO2 monitoring via an OTA update in Malaysia

If you’ve gotten yourself an Honor Band 5, or you’re thinking of getting one, you’ll have noticed that there’s one rather important feature missing from the Malaysian version of the Honor Band 5: SpO2, or Pulse Oxygen Saturation monitoring. In a world where many of the fitness trackers are incredibly similar—the Mi Band 4 and the Honor Band 5 were priced identically at launch—it’s been pretty disappointing to find out that the Malaysian sets didn’t come with SpO2 monitoring.

But Honor now tells us that they will be rolling out an update on the 29th of September that will bring SpO2 monitoring to the Honor Band 5 in Malaysia, along with a remote music control feature. In addition to that, the fitness tracker is available to purchase at a discounted price of RM139 on Honor’s official store, from today (September 27) up till the 10th of October 2019 (the discount is part of Honor’s Pay Day Sale).

The date of the OTA update also coincides with the World Heart Day in 2019, which tallies with the SpO2’s functionality that allows users to measure their blood oxygen saturation. This is an indicator of the oxygen supply to your body’s cells and tissues—blood oxygen levels between 90%–100% are good, while SpO2 readings below 89% could be a sign that you should stop exercising or seek medical attention.

As for the remote music control update, users can now use their Honor Band 5 trackers to control a number of music apps on their connected smartphones. This includes Google Play Music, Shazam, Spotify, as well as YouTube.

To ensure that you have the update on your Honor Band 5, head over to the Huawei Health app and click “check for updates”. Once your band is updated, select “blood oxygen monitoring” on your Honor Band 5. While Honor maintains that the device is not a medical device by any means, the Chinese brand says that the update is part of an effort to encourage consumers to pay attention to their health, and their heart.

We’ll also be releasing a fitness tracker comparison very soon, with the Honor Band 5 being one of the compared bands—stay tuned.