The Tragic Murder Attempt of my Mi Band 8

Water, oh water. It’s always water.

No, didn’t swim with it. Heck, I wouldn’t have any swimming-related issues ever because I can’t swim 😛

But first, let me share my dumb habit: I always bring my Mi Band 8 to the bathroom when I shower. HHAHAHHAHAHAH!!!!!!! Also yeah I don’t wear it when showering, I just place it somewhere in the bathroom. Now, if I always shower with cold water that wouldn’t be too much of an issue because the band got 5ATM water resistance. The issue is, I occasionally shower with hot/warm water. Yikes..

From the official site:

50m water resistance: […] The band has a water resistance rating of 5ATM (50 metres in depth). It can be worn in the swimming pool, while swimming near the shore, or during other shallow-water activities. However, It cannot be used in hot showers, sauna, or diving. Furthermore, remember to avoid the band being directly impacted by swift currents during water sports. The water-resistant function is not permanent and may decline over time.

Welp, okay, it’s water-resistant, not thermal expansion-resistant. The warm bathroom probably has caused the waterproofing of my band to worsen over time because of the heat. Or, condensation occurred inside the band. And possibly, vapor/water may have found its way to the inside of the band, probably worsening the band over time.

“DUDE, HOW CAN YOU BE THIS CARELESS??!” yeah, my bad, of course. It’s my fault. The thing is, I wear it as if it’s a part of me so I don’t pay full attention to it all the time.

A few days ago, I showered with hot water because the weather was quite cold. I forgot to take the band off for the first few minutes, but I did eventually. Unfortunately, the hot water (which felt warm because of the cool air) had already touched the band.

After I finished showering (haven’t took the band out yet from the bathroom), the Mi Band got handed to me because “its vibration in the bathroom was causing some ridiculous drilling-like noise” 💀 Yeah, it vibrated (with max intensity) non-stop. The touchscreen worked for the first few minutes but went kaput afterwards. The sensors were also kinda broken—the step counter keeps increasing out of nowhere. However, I can still connect it to my Gadgetbridge. Tried sending some reboot and factory reset commands using the debug function, but none of those did anything to the band.

Reading from several people that had the similar issue, I realized that the hot water + vapor + water probably killed the band 🤷 And the band ran out of power while I was on some Reddit threads. Even when powered off, the band was still vibrating like crazy. I blew the band with a hairdryer with the lowest setting (so I don’t accidentally apply more heat) to try to make the ventilation better. Also, I applied some pressure to the band (from the top + bottom) to try to fix any loose connections.

A while later, the vibration magically stopped. I waited for a while before charging the band and after that, the band worked again. Like, everything works flawlessly (at least up until now).

So yeah, no more water or heat or vapor.