As part of Xiaomi’s September 2020 launch event, the long-rumoured Mi Watch was finally announced for new markets, but despite the UK being on the list, it’s only now in mid-March 2021, that the company’s latest wearable actually hits the local market.
There was already an expectation for Xiaomi to bring its Mi Watch Color, which launched at the end of 2019, to new markets in 2020. A device spotted within the company’s wearable app back in June, called the Mi Watch Revolve, was thought to be filling this gap but until the company’s September 2020 event, no such wearable had emerged.
Instead, the global version of the company’s smartwatch simply arrived as the ‘Xiaomi Mi Watch’.
Highlights include support for 117 sport tracking modes (in Xiaomi’s own words, 17 are “precisely-tuned professional sport modes” whatever that means for the other 100), up to 16 days of battery life on a single charge, 5ATM swim-proofing, plus GPS, heart rate, sleep and blood oxygen tracking.
The casing plays host to two hardware buttons, one of which is a dedicated sports button to jump into workouts from anywhere within the UI.
Here’s a full rundown of the Mi Watch’s feature set:
- Casing colours: Black, navy blue, beige
- TPU strap colours: Black, orange, navy blue, beige, olive, yellow
- Dimensions: 49.5×53.35×11.8mm
- Weight: 32 grams (w/o strap)
- Display: Circular 1.39in 454×454 AMOLED, touch-enabled, protected by Gorilla Glass 3, up to 450nits max brightness
- OS: Proprietary w/ 100+ watch faces, custom watch face support from photos + emoji support in notifications
- Microphone with voice assistant support
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.0, GPS
- Sensors: Heart rate (w/ SpO2 support), accelerometer, gyroscope, barometer, pressure, ambient light
- Battery: 420mAh w/ up to 16 days longevity, takes two hours to charge
- Water resistance: Up to 5ATM (swim-proof)
Despite what appears to be a pretty rich feature set that challenges the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 and the Apple Watch SE, Xiaomi is aiming at the affordable end of the market with aggressive pricing of just £119 (not to mention a week-long early bird special of just £99.99, at launch).
The UK arrival of the Mi Watch coincided with the launch of the Mi Watch Lite and the regional release of the company’s current flagship smartphone, the Mi 11.
You can pick the Mi Watch up, right now, from Xiaomi’s own online store.
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