---
title: 'Best Accuracy: $10 Fitbit Air AliExpress Bands Are Amazing!'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=bFaBt4kc5As'
video_id: 'bFaBt4kc5As'
date: 2026-08-22
duration_sec: 789
channel: 'The Quantified Scientist'
---

# Best Accuracy: $10 Fitbit Air AliExpress Bands Are Amazing!

> Source: [Best Accuracy: $10 Fitbit Air AliExpress Bands Are Amazing!](https://youtube.com/watch?v=bFaBt4kc5As)

## Summary

This video reviews third-party biceps bands for the Fitbit Air, purchased from AliExpress for around $10-15. The creator, a post-doctoral scientist, tests their performance against a Polar H10 chest strap across various exercises and sleep tracking, concluding they offer excellent value and accuracy.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to Biceps Bands** [00:02] — The creator introduces AliExpress biceps bands for the Fitbit Air, noting they cost about $12 and are heavier than his homemade version, but initial performance seems unaffected.
- **Weighing the Bands** [01:22] — Weights: Velcro wristband 7.3g, plastic wristband 16.6g, homemade biceps band 12.3g, AliExpress biceps band 22.0g. The AliExpress band is the heaviest, nearly double the homemade one.
- **Heart Rate Accuracy During Exercise** [03:50] — Spinning: correlation 1.00 (perfect). Running: 0.99. Outdoor biking: excellent, benefiting from biceps placement. Weightlifting: 0.98, with some moments of too-low heart rate detection.
- **Performance Percentile Rankings** [06:49] — The Fitbit Air with the AliExpress band outperforms 88% of devices for spinning, 89% for biking, 75% for running, and 86% for weightlifting among devices tested.
- **Nighttime Heart Rate and HRV Tracking** [07:47] — Night heart rate tracking shows good agreement with reference, with occasional overestimation. HRV patterns match well, though the Fitbit Air detects slightly lower HRV values.
- **Sleep Stage Tracking** [09:24] — Deep sleep segments were detected correctly, and REM sleep detection was particularly strong, matching all reference segments. Some confusion near waking periods, but overall excellent.
- **Value and Recommendation** [10:46] — Google opened up biceps band plans to manufacturers. The band costs $10-15 vs $20-35 for official wristbands. The Fitbit Air itself is $99. The reviewer recommends biceps wearing for exercise and wrist for night tracking.

### Conclusion

The AliExpress biceps bands are a high-quality, cost-effective accessory that significantly improves the Fitbit Air's heart rate accuracy during exercise, making it a recommended purchase for data-focused users.

## Transcript

me back about 12 bucks and they really improve the performance of my Fitbit Air. I'm wearing one right now and I was a bit worried because they are quite a bit heavier than my homemade biceps band. So, I was afraid that the added
weight might make it move more on my biceps and thereby result in a more unreliable signal. But, as you will see, so far that doesn't appear to be the case. And I'm really impressed with the quality of these bands. These actually
feel even a bit better than the official normal wristbands that you get with your Fitbit Air. And I really think for the price, these are good value. I've bought some from different sellers and I always got the exact same product. So for now,
this appears to be the main one available at least a month ago when I bought these on AliExpress and I really think the quality is just very good. for those of you who are new to the channel, my name is Rob and I'm a
post-doctoral scientist specializing in biological data analysis. That's also what I show you today, some data proving, at least on me, that these biceps bands for the Fitbit Air seem to really improve performance, especially
that overall, this has been a really good investment. They're comfortable, not too expensive, and I can easily swap them out from also a wristband if you want. So, let's quickly take these two right here out of the packaging, weigh
them, compare them against my homemade biceps band, which is much lighter, and then also a normal wristband, both the plastic version and the Velcro version. I quickly grab my coffee scale. So, let's first weigh the normal Velcro
strap. So, I always have the somewhat medium to large versions. So, the Velcro medium to large versions. So, the Velcro strap um the normal wristband is 7.3 g. Then we also have the larger plastic version right here on the wrist. So
version right here on the wrist. So that's a lot heavier at 16.6 grams. Then my homemade biceps band. This is the one I've mainly been using. And this is still quite light because I basically cut apart a normal Velcro one and
attached a longer Velcro strap. So that is 12.3 g. So that's still lighter than the plasticky one that you can buy from Google. And these are quite expensive. I think these official Google bands set
you usually back maybe 20 to 30 bucks or so. So quite a bit more than these bices surprised when I opened it that it was really quite heavy. So these right here
are the biceps bands from AliExpress. I have two colors. And this part right here is really a metally part. So I was surprised at the heft of it. And indeed, it's the heaviest one out of all. So, it's 22.0
it's 22.0 g. And in this case, the let's say gray version. And I suspect that this black version is exactly the same. And version is exactly the same. And basically, yes, it's 21.9
homemade biceps band was quite a bit lighter. So about a 10 g difference or almost double the weight actually. So did that have an effect on the performance of the biases band? This actually feels like really good quality.
And just so you know how you pop it in and out. So if you have the normal Velcro version, the Fitbit Air module just goes in like this. You can then for just goes in like this. You can then for exercise pop it in here and it fits in
really easily, really snugly and no risk that it falls out because it's all at the bottom part and you can easily pop it out again. But how did this perform this relatively heavy weight and I would say feels like good quality biceps band.
Well, let's take a look at some data. This is some initial testing, but it all looks really good and I'm not disappointed with it at all as you will see. So, I want to start with the heart rate tracking during exercise. And these
are the results for spinning or indoor cycling. Now, one thing I should note, I complained that some of the biceps bands they bought of AliExpress started to
stretch over time in a non-elastic way that they would grow over time. I haven't had this issue. I also don't have the biggest biceps. I would say I have a normal bicep size and I always wear it here on the outside of my
biceps. Some of my colleagues prefer to wear it on different sides of their biceps. So, this testing was done with the actual sensor module on the outside of the biceps. Now, along the horizontal axis here for spinning, we have the ECG
chest strap, the Polar H10, which we'll use as a reference because really reliably measure your heart rate. And along the vertical axis, we have that AliExpress biceps band. Now, I only did one or two exercises for this test
because I had limited time because I'm also testing other devices and I to the same account for the testing period before this. If you want to check out that review, that is linked up here. But overall, almost all points are on or
close to the blue line with a correlation that's almost perfect, a rounded value of 1.00. And the correlation cannot be higher than one. So 1.00 00 is basically perfect agreement. Now, what about running? This
also looks really good. A slightly lower correlation now at 0.99, but still almost perfect agreement. Maybe a one or two BPM difference sometimes, but otherwise also looking really good for running. Then for biking
outside, it still looks really good. And this is where many devices struggle. But this is the benefit of wearing something on your biceps. Normally with biking outside, there's a lot of tension on your wrist and also a lot of bumpiness
going on and this really messes up the signal for a lot of devices. But if you improves performance. I'm actually working on my full circa review right now and as you will see, wearing your circa from Garmin on the biceps makes a
huge difference and it really did well there. But that video will come within a week of this one. So stay tuned for that one first. I want to finish this. Also for biking, really good results. some minor deviations right here, but this is
super minor. Nothing that would change your training. Basically, the only thing where I started to struggle a little bit is weightlifting. In some moments, it heart rate, which is why there are some points below the line right here because
it detected a too low heart rate. But still, compared to the competition, this is really good with a correlation of 0.98. We can actually see that in this overview right here where we have that correlation along the vertical axis. And
we're looking at four exercises. So spinning, biking, running, and weightlifting. And in all cases, the red dot and line of the Fibbit Air with the AliExpress bice band is really towards the top. And it's doing better than 88%
of devices for spinning, better than 89% of devices for biking, better than 75% of devices for running, and better than 86% of devices, at least the ones that I've tested for weightlifting. So, just a really good performer, at least on my
limitation of this kind of testing. I'm now also testing it on Raphael and Stefan, two of my colleagues. That video will come soon. Overall though, for exercising, using the Fibbit Air, which is only a hundred bucks, combined with
this AliExpress bice band, which will set you back maybe 10 to 15 bucks, is just really good. Really good performance. Really happy with that. But what about heart rate and heart variability tracking during night? Well,
this also looks quite good. So, here we have the heart rate tracking according to the reference along the horizontal axis and the Fibbit Air along the vertical axis, but this is at night. So, I had a heart rate of maybe 39
I had a heart rate of maybe 39 to maximum 51 BPM during the night. And in most cases, the Fibbit Air detected this correctly. There were just a few moments where I detected a too high heart rate. Not sure what was going on
there. I just have some example plots right here. So, you can see that sometimes the Fibbit Air detected a peak in my heart rate, which is higher than the peak that my reference detected. But this could also be a calculation issue.
I don't know exactly if they take the average, the median, or the maximum in a certain interval. Overall, the patterns are basically the same. The only issue I had was here during this night where for some reason it really detected an
increase in my heart rate that wasn't detected by my reference. Otherwise, looking really good. And the same is true for heart rate variability or HRV. Overall, very good agreement with a bit air detect a slightly lower HRV. You can
see that during these example nights right here. So we have the Fibbit Air in blue green and the reference in red. And the patterns are more or less identical, but the Fibbit Air detects a slightly lower HRV. Though again, this could be a
definition issues. So how they define their HRV. Overall, I would say no major complaints. But what about sleep stages and sleep stage tracking? Well, here I of the patches I was using was disconnecting during the night and I
bunch of nights. So I only had a single night of data to work with to show you. But I think this clearly shows the patterns that we also saw with my other biceps band of the Fibbit Air. So Fitbit doesn't even officially support biceps
wearing though they did give out the plans to build your own basically or for manufacturers to make their own so that they could make this kind of cradle for the Fitbit Air sort of pod I would say. And even though they don't officially
best sleep stage tracking again on me out there out of all devices I've tested. So for this night, I had two major segments of deep sleep and both of these were detected by the Fibbit Air. So they detected here on the bottom with
the Fibbit Air, the same deep sleep, but a little bit of extra was detected. But REM sleep is where it really seems to shine or at least in detecting all the same segments as my reference. So I had several sleep cycles, each of them
ending in RAM sleep here according to my reference on top. And as you can see, basically all the same segments were detected by the Fibbit Air. The only part where it struggled here was near the end where I was already partially
awake and I was alternating between being awake and being asleep. And here the Fitbit Air tends to detect more long segments of awake, which are then sometimes confused with RAM sleep. But overall, this just looks really good.
And I'm just really happy that Google decided to open up the plans on how to make biceps bands to other manufacturers because they don't make it themselves. which makes these kind of bands. Also, if you want a new wrist band, a lot
cheaper if you just buy it from a third party manufacturer because these things are quite expensive. As I said, usually you can find them between, let's say, 20 and 35 bucks. That's a lot of money for a band. Whereas a band with the actual
sensor module included is just 99 bucks. So overall, I'm really impressed at how able to put these kind of products on AliExpress and how well they are made. I hope they keep making them out of this kind of metal which just seems very
solid, not easy to break and it just feels nice and hefty without influencing always limitations to my testing. This is testing just done on me for a limited basically the same performance as my
homemade bice band, I'm really confident that you will get a good experience with your Fibbit Air if you just care about data and data quality. The app Fibbit Air and you can also do a birectional sync with Apple Health,
which is another video I plan to make also to see how well that works and how different data sources are handled. But overall, the Fitbit Air is just a really screenless wearable, especially if you're willing to wear it on your biceps
for exercise. For all the other things, so tracking at night, I think it's good enough to wear it on your wrist. But if you also want good heart rate tracking during exercise, I think a bice band is really almost a requirement because it
much. Now, if you do end up getting yourself a Fibbit Air from Amazon, or maybe you want to buy this kind of band on AliExpress, I have a bunch of different affiliate links down below, many of which give you the best discount
possible, or at most, they don't cost you any extra, and you'll be helping to affiliate links to the Whoop Strap, the Aura Ring, my favorite sleep improvement want to support every month, I also have YouTube memberships, which give you
don't forget to subscribe to the channel and like this video. That really helps me out. But given that you watched this video on the Fitbit Air's biceps band, I think you might like this video. That's my main review of the Fibbit Air on the
my main review of the Fibbit Air on the wrist and this video on the HLE pod.