realme Band v8 update brings music controls, stopwatch and heart rate reminder functionality


When the realme Band was launched back in March, it came with just basic fitness functionalities for sports activities. Since then, realme has released new software updates that has added more features to it, with the latest v8 software released today. It brings 3 main new functionalities — Heart Rate reminder function, Music Control, Stopwatch along with bug fixes.

The update needs to be performed via the realme Link app. Once the app is opened, realme will prompt the user to install the update, and the process will take about 10 minutes.

Once the update is completed, there will be two changes to the realme Link app. There is now a heart rate reminder function in the Band, which if turned on, will alert the user if their heart rate had dropped below a threshold value for more than 10 minutes. This threshold value can be set by the user themselves.

The second major change is the presence of two new functions in the “Custom functions” menu in the app. Previously, with the v6 update, realme added “Weather” and “Find Phone”. The two new ones in v8 are “Stopwatch” and “Music Playback Controls”. At any moment, only two functions can be enabled.

The Stopwatch function is very simple. Entering the mode with a long press to the capacitive button will start the clock automatically. Short presses to pause/resume the clock and a long press to exit the mode. The Music  playback control mode is also fairly simple. The user will see 4 buttons once the mode is activated — play/pause, forward, backward and exit. A short press will cycle through the button, while a long press is used to select the button.