Huami CEO: Mi Band 2 Image Circulating Online Is Fake

Just the other day, there were reports carried by many news outlets about a possible second generation Mi Band from Xiaomi being leaked on the net. The smart wristband was said to come with a touchscreen LCD display, something which was lacking in the first generation Mi Band, which was released last year by the smartphone maker. The alleged render of the device was first leaked on Chinese microblogging site Weibo, and picked up by the media at large.

But now, a post by Huami CEO Mr. Huang Wang has confirmed the render to be fake. In a funny post on his Weibo account, Mr. Wang said, “This morning, I woke up from a cozy night’s sleep, only to see reports of a fake second generation Xiaomi smart band circulating online. I did a second take, and rubbed my eyes in disbelief, thinking I was dreaming. After a while though, I realized that somebody was dreaming alright, but it wasn’t me”.

For the uninitiated, Anhui Huami Information Technology Co. Ltd. Is Xiaomi’s partner in the smart wearables business. The company was co-founded in 2013 by Xiaomi CEO and co-founder Mr. Lei Jun, and is based in Hefei, China. The CEO Mr. Wang does have a sense of humor alright, and it was indeed a funny rebuttal to the rumor mills, but the question remains then, who dreamt up this this device, and how did this ‘report’ gain such widespread coverage?

Turns out, the device said to be the Mi Band 2, actually is the image of a product which already exists in the Chinese market. The smart band is not unlike the Mi Band in its functionality, and comes with a sleep monitor and a pedometer, and has support for Bluetooth 4.0 to sync with smartphones. The device is advertised as being waterproof and is offered in six different colors.

Source: Huang Wang (Weibo.com)