The Redmi Watch: A Budget-Friendly Fitness Tracker With Room For Improvement
The Xiaomi Redmi Watch sets its sights on the budget-friendly fitness wearable market, promising to deliver a watch-like design with built-in GPS for tracking your workouts. Priced at Rs. 3,999, it sounds like a steal, but can it deliver on its promise? We put the Redmi Watch through its paces to see if it offers the best value for your money.
Redmi Watch Price in India
The Redmi Watch is available in India for Rs. 3,999, offering a single size option and three dial colors: Black, Blue, and Ivory. Buyers can choose from four strap options (Black, Blue, Ivory, and Olive) to personalize their watch.
Redmi Watch Design
The Redmi Watch boasts a square-shaped dial, a common design trend in the budget wearable space. Its plastic body features a matte finish, curved corners, and flat sides. A single button graces the right side, while the other side remains unadorned. The watch houses a 1.4-inch LCD display with 2.5D glass for protection.
The Redmi Watch is water-resistant up to 5 ATM, letting you confidently wear it while swimming without any fear of damage. Xiaomi utilizes proprietary connectors for the straps, limiting your choice of replacements. However, the straps are easy to remove and attach, thanks to a simple release button and an audible click confirming secure attachment.
Xiaomi’s pre-curved straps ensure a comfortable fit, and the standard pin buckle remained secure throughout our testing. The watch’s underside houses the heart rate sensor and charging pins. Regrettably, the Redmi Watch lacks SpO2 tracking, a feature gaining popularity due to the current pandemic situation. The included charging cradle connects with a standard full-sized USB plug. The Redmi Watch packs a 230mAh battery and claims to deliver 10 days of battery life, achieving a surprisingly lightweight design at just 35g.
Redmi Watch Software
The Redmi Watch pairs effortlessly with both Android and iOS devices. You’ll need the Xiaomi Wear or Xiaomi Wear Lite app respectively for management. Setup is straightforward, and the connection remains stable as long as your phone is within range. The app requires a Mi account login and is compatible with other Xiaomi wearables like the Mi Watch Revolve and the recently launched Mi Watch Revolve Active. It offers user-friendly navigation and lets you customize various watch settings, including watch faces and notification permissions.
The Redmi Watch can store up to five watchfaces and allows you to switch them by long-pressing on the current face. You can download fresh watchfaces from the Xiaomi Wear app, providing a vast selection to suit your style. However, customization options for these watchfaces are limited.
The Redmi Watch runs a custom OS and includes heart rate, sleep, and workout tracking features. It also boasts a barometer, compass, and built-in GPS, allowing for outdoor workout tracking without requiring your phone. The watch’s interface is intuitive and easy to navigate. You can swipe down from the top for notifications, swipe up for quick toggles, and swipe left to right to access screens with information on the weather, sleep duration, heart rate, calories burned, and music player controls. Pressing the side button reveals a list of all the Redmi Watch functions.
Redmi Watch Performance and Battery Life
Our two weeks of testing showcased the Redmi Watch’s comfort and lightweight design. Weighing in at only 35g, it’s barely noticeable on your wrist. This lightweight design, along with its small size, makes it suitable for wearing to bed. The display quality is average, and the auto-brightness feature can be overly aggressive. The raise-to-wake gesture works smoothly, and the watch quickly turns off its display to conserve battery life.
The Redmi Watch efficiently delivers notifications, vibrating for incoming WhatsApp messages and allowing you to read the message contents on the watch. While responding to messages isn’t possible, the watch can notify you of incoming calls along with the caller name. You can decline or silence calls but cannot answer them directly on the watch.
Our testing found the heart rate tracking to be reasonably accurate, showing minimal deviation compared to readings from an Apple Watch SE used simultaneously. The default heart rate tracking interval is 30 minutes to conserve battery life, but you can change it to 5 minutes for more detailed data. Sleep tracking was accurate, providing a helpful breakdown of sleep quality in the app. The absence of SpO2 tracking is a missed opportunity, as this feature could have been a strong selling point.
Step tracking performance is commendable, with a negligible error rate during our manual step count test (1000 steps counted manually vs. 1002 on the watch). The Redmi Watch can track 11 workouts, including Cricket. However, due to current circumstances, we could only test its fitness tracking capabilities with indoor freestyle workouts. While this mode displayed heart rate and calories burned, we found the heart rate readings inconsistent. We were unable to test the accuracy of GPS tracking during our review.
The battery life is decent considering the small 230mAh battery. Xiaomi claims up to 10 days of battery life, but we achieved about 7 days of usage, with nightly sleep tracking, workout sessions on alternate days, and WhatsApp notifications enabled. Using more app notifications or engaging in more frequent workout sessions could lead to a shorter battery life. The supplied charger takes about two hours to fully charge the Redmi Watch, and a faster charging solution would have been appreciated.
Verdict
The Redmi Watch delivers on its primary functions, but lacks the unique features that would help it stand out in the crowded fitness wearable market. Xiaomi has prioritized a lightweight design, which is commendable, but we would have preferred a slightly heavier watch with longer battery life. For individuals primarily focused on tracking daily steps, the Redmi Watch fulfills this purpose well.
Xiaomi has room for improvement with the Redmi Watch. Adding SpO2 tracking would be a significant step forward. If you’re looking for a budget-friendly fitness wearable that incorporates SpO2 tracking, the Amazfit Bip U Pro presents a compelling alternative.
