Xiaomi finally makes NFC payments available on Mi Band 6 outside of China
- Xiaomi has announced an NFC variant of the Mi Smart Band 6 in Europe.
- The new model will enable contactless payment.
- It also offers Alexa support.
Xiaomi announced its 11T series and Mi Pad 5 in Europe yesterday, but these weren’t the only highlights at its launch event. For the first time, Xiaomi has launched an NFC version of its popular fitness tracker for buyers outside of China.
The Mi Smart Band 6 NFC is essentially the same Mi Band 6 that Xiaomi launched back in March. Thanks to Xiaomi’s collaboration with Mastercard, however, it now enables contactless payment.
“Payments are being processed more efficiently than ever, regardless of whether it is about picking up daily groceries, paying for public transport or simply having a coffee while the user is running,” Xiaomi writes in his blog post.
The company has not yet announced how exactly NFC payments work on the new Mi Band. We’ll have to wait and see which banks and card issuers support contactless payment.
In addition to NFC payments, the new global Mi Smart Band 6 now also offers integrated Amazon Alexa functions. Voice interaction was another feature that was missing from Mi tapes sold outside of China. According to Xiaomi, Alexa integration will improve hands-free calling for smart home owners. We suspect that Mi Smart Band 6 owners can interact with other Alexa-enabled smart home devices in their homes.
The Mi Smart Band 6 NFC is slightly more expensive at 54.90 euros than the non-NFC version, which costs 48.99 euros.
