[REVIEW] Xiaomi Mi Watch is an excellent smart watch with AMOLED display, accents and Spotify support

Xiaomi has only a few smart watches in its direct portfolio. Most smart watches are sold under one of the brand's subsidiary brands. We've already tested the Mi Watch Lite, but this time we'll look at the bigger brother of this watch, Xiaomi Mi Watch.

This watch is also known as Mi Watch Color. However, the global version is called Xiaomi Mi Watch. In the review, we will look in detail at the individual functions of the watch and their reliability.

Where to buy Xiaomi Mi Watch?

You can purchase the global version of the Xiaomi Mi Watch from an international Xiaomi dealer at the Aliexpress online marketplace. The watch is available in a Polish warehouse, so you don't have to worry about any extra fees.

Current coupons for Xiaomi Mi Watch

Technical specifications

Contents of the package

The Xiaomi Mi Watch smart watch comes in a blue oblong box showing the watch and basic parameters. The watch itself is placed in a reinforced cardboard box with a protective foil on the display.

Under the watch we find a pair of compartments, which contain instructions for use and a charging cable, without an adapter. Thanks to the hard box, the watch is well protected against the adverse effects of careless handling during transport.

Design, workmanship and controls

The tested watch is available in blue. Blue is not only the bracelet, but also the construction of the watch, which is complemented by black elements. Overall, the watch has a very high-quality impression. They are made of polyamide reinforced with glass fibersnami.

The display is covered with tempered glass and the watch has only two buttons. One is used to go to the main menu, the other provides quick access to watching sports activities. The bracelet is made of TPU material and also looks good. Unlike conventional bracelets, it has a fine texture on the outside, which, however, traps dirt and dust.

Pairing with Xiaomi Wear

The Xiaomi Mi Watch, like the lightweight Lite version, works with the Xiaomi Wear app. We already wrote about the application in reviews on Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite.

Pairing is very easy. The application immediately found the watch near the smartphone, but if it does not, just choose the model from the application menu. We first chose a language on the watch. You will also find Czech here, but we chose English. English is not on the menu.

In the next step, we just confirmed the pairing on the watch, where the numbered code is displayed, the same as in the application. The whole process is simple and took us only a few minutes.

Watch display and environment

Since the watch has an AMOLED display with a size of 1.39 ″ with a resolution of 454 x 454 px, the display is very nice and delicate at first glance. The colors are bright, black is completely black and we have nothing to complain about the display.

In addition to the time, the pre-set watch face also shows the date, battery capacity, steps taken and calories burned. You can get to the main menu by pressing the top button labeled "Home". The menu is the same as in the lightweight version of the Lite watch, so the individual functions are displayed as small square icons in a grid. There are up to 23 of them, which means a lot of functions.

Icon symbols are self-explanatory, but not all of them are clear at first glance. However, after a few minutes and trying all the functions, we quickly got used to the individual symbols. The most used functions, notifications and the quick access screen are also available by swiping your finger across the screen to different sides of the main dial.

Heart rate and SpO2 measurement

One of the common features of fitness bracelets and smart watches is heart rate measurement, which is not missing here either. You can turn on a continuous heart rate measurement throughout the day, when you are constantly informed about your heart rate. If you want to save battery, you can turn off this feature and measure your heart rate via the main menu whenever you want. Such a measurement takes up to 10 seconds.

We compared the heart rate measurement accuracy with an Omron pulse oximeter and sphygmomanometer. In most cases, the deviation was minimal or non-existent. After physical activity, differences in the range of 10 - 12 bpm appeared in places.

Blood oxygenation cannot be set for continuous measurement. SpO2 can only be measured once and this measurement takes longer than the heart rate measurement. Sometimes it happened that the watch could not measure the degree of oxygenation for the first time or the measurement itself took almost 1 minute. However, the accuracy is good, comparable to a pulse oximeter.

Sleep monitoring

Monitoring the quality and length of sleep is also a popular feature of a smart watch. Information about sleep can be found in a relatively detailed form and directly in the watch. The score of the last sleep and its length are displayed here. There is also a clear chart where we see the various stages of sleep such as REM, light sleep, deep sleep and the time during which we did not sleep.

Sleep tracking seems to be reliable because unlike some other watches, Xiaomi Mi Watches do not count all the time spent in bed as sleep. The recently tested, albeit significantly cheaper Imilab W12 watch counted in our sleep all the time we lay in bed, whether we slept or just lay there.

But Xiaomi Mi Watch does not count such an ordinary lying down in the morning, nor does it count the beginning of sleep immediately from going to bed. The watch thus monitors vital functions during sleep, which help them to detect it. Occasionally, however, the sleep graph contained an empty space as you can see in the photo above.

Additional features and settings

In addition to the standard features we wrote about above, you will find many others here. An interesting feature is the energy monitoring, where you will find the total score, as well as a graph of when you drew and spent energy.

There is also monitoring of stress levels. Here you will also find a clear graph with a timeline showing the level of stress during the day - high, medium, low and stress-free.

The watch also displays air pressure, has the function of a compass, weather, breathing exercises, stopwatch, timer, alarm clock, control of the camera application on a smartphone, control of music playback and you will also find Amazon voice assistant Alexa. Music control also works for Spotify - you can switch between tracks, pause playback or adjust the volume.

In terms of settings, the offer is quite rich. Interestingly, however, most settings are made through the watch menu and not through the application. The application does not contain most of the settings at all, and with a few exceptions, you set everything via the watch.

The watch settings menu offers a choice of four dial designs, brightness adjustment (automatic or on a scale of 1 to 5), silent mode, hand-held display illumination function, heart rate monitoring settings, automatic activity detection, language and more.

There is also support for the always-on function, where there are 8 different designs, whether classic analog or digital. However, using this feature should reduce the endurance per charge by about half.

Activity tracking and GPS

Xiaomi Mi Watch can track activity in up to 117 different sports activities. The watch menu contains 17 sports, but you can add more at any time. The sports that can be added are nicely divided into categories.

We will also find less traditional sports such as parkour, paragliding, various dances, martial arts and even car racing. We tried a classic walk during the autumn walk. We monitored the activity not only on the watch, but also using a smartphone and the Runkeeper application, so that we could compare the results.

The watch caught the GPS signal in the open almost immediately. During the walk, we walked 2.39 km, burned 232 kcal and took 3602 steps. The watch also displays a lot of other information such as cadence (steps per minute), pace (time per 1 km), heart rate and more.

Using the Runkeeper app, the smartphone measured a distance of 2.12 km and a slightly worse pace.

Dial design

As we mentioned above, you will find 4 different dial designs in the watch. However, others are available in Xiaomi Wear, divided into several categories.

Altogether, there are more than 130 different dials, many of which are really nice and usable. You don't know how to create your own design. Although Xiaomi's official site lists the ability to customize with your own photo, we haven't found that option anywhere in the app.

Notifications and their reliability

Notifications are one of the few features that you set up directly in the application. Here you can turn them on or off, and also select specific applications from which you want to receive notifications.

The list contains all the applications that we have installed on the smartphone. The peculiarity is that the only setting - the lighting of the display after receiving the notification is set via the watch, not in the smartphone via the application.

We don't like this division of settings between the watch and the app. We would welcome the opportunity to set everything you need from one place, or to have the same settings available in the watch and in the application.

As far as the reliability of the notifications is concerned, we did not notice any problem here. All of them notifications are displayed reliably with accents and smileys. We only lacked a history of notifications where we could look at previous reports. Incoming call notification shows the caller's name, number and a pair of buttons - cancel the call and mute the ringtone.

Xiaomi Wear application options

The Xiaomi Wear application is one of the better ones, especially in terms of design. On the home screen we will find all the necessary data about the number of steps, calories burned, last sleep, but also about all other functions that measure heart rate, SpO2, stress and the like.

With all the information we find a lot of interesting information and statistics in a daily, weekly or monthly report. The application also stores all monitored sports activities.

In the tab of our profile we see the current battery capacity, the possibility to change the design of the dial and several settings. These include settings for notifications, incoming calls, weather, and you can customize the items that appear by swiping your finger across the clock screen.

Endurance and charging

The battery in the Xiaomi Mi Watch has a capacity of 420 mAh, which according to the manufacturer should be enough for 16 days of normal use. However, common use is not specified. We made full use of the watch, we had all notifications turned on, the display turned on at hand and continuous heart rate monitoring.

During testing, we often had the display lit, and with such intensive use, we lost 40% of the battery in 5 days. When the always-on display is switched on, the battery capacity decreases faster and it is not a problem to discharge the flashlight by 30% in 24 hours.

However, charging is relatively fast. From 15% to 100% it took us about 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Xiaomi Mi Watch: Final evaluation

Xiaomi Mi Watch is a beautiful smart watch with a fine AMOLED display with a size of 1.39 ″. They lack GPS support, heart rate monitoring, SpO2 measurement, sleep tracking, stress and energy levels.

You will enjoy a really rich offer of sports, during which you can watch the activity. Altogether there are up to 117 of them, including martial arts, dance and car racing. One of the disadvantages for us is the division of settings, some of which are only available in the watch and part only in the application. You will not be able to set everything you need from one place.