Quality fitness tracking on a budget

Affordable fitness wearables are a dime and a dozen. In fact, Amazfit’s portfolio is based on budget smartwatches that are mostly focused on fitness. However, one of the first participants was the venerable Xiaomi Mi Band. In its sixth iteration, the Mi Band has proven time and again that a high quality, affordable fitness wearable can leave its mark on the market. The Redmi Watch is used over the Mi Band. It’s a premium option with a larger display and built-in GPS designed to bridge the gap between more feature-rich products and smart bands.

What Makes This Affordable Fitness Wearable? Find out in Android Authority Redmi Watch review.

• Redmi clock: Rs. 3,999 (~ $ 54)

The Redmi Watch is a renamed Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite for the Indian market. As such, it sits right above the Mi Band 5 and offers a larger screen and features like GPS.

Continue reading: Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite review: Basic and good all round

Here the functionality is minimal and focuses on basics like fitness tracking, notifications, and music control. Plus, you get relatively long battery life, albeit not quite as much as some larger alternatives. The biggest competition for the Redmi Watch comes from the Amazfit portfolio, which includes highly recommended products like the Amazfit Bip U.

The Redmi Watch breaks the mold by giving you a pretty sturdy package of features for the money. It’s certainly not the only one, but for anyone looking to upgrade from the Mi Band 5 in India, the Redmi Watch is a good intermediate option over the Mi Watch Revolve.

It’s one of the few options at this price point with built-in GPS, which is very nice when you’re on the go. Due to an ongoing closure, my work is limited to the street in front of my apartment. Despite the high-rise constructions, the Redmi Watch was able to hold a solid GPS lock.

Not many fitness trackers in this price range always track heart rate. The Redmi Watch is no different. The default interval of 30 minutes isn’t particularly useful. Once the clock is set to 1 minute, you can take a more holistic view of cardiac fitness. I found that the readings are slightly different when compared to a special pulse oximeter and heart rate monitor. However, the variance was only 2-3 percentage points, which is not bad for a wrist-tied wearable.

The other main use case is, of course, sleep tracking. And the Redmi Watch manages that very well. You get detailed breakdowns between sleep cycles and the follow-up was minute-by-minute. An overall sleep score is also assigned to give you a quick overview of sleep health. The built-in breathing exercise app is simple but functional, and I’ve used it a lot as part of my COVID recovery routine.

Also read: The best smartwatches you can buy

In addition to the fitness functions, the Redmi Watch offers the most important functions that you expect. The included clock, timer, stopwatch, flashlight, and weather functions should come as no surprise. Other apps include a compass, barometric pressure monitor, and a quick tile to control how music plays on your phone. The watch does not support third-party apps, nor can it be integrated with Alexa or other intelligent assistants such as the Amazfit Bip U.

Finally, the battery life is reasonable after seven days with heart rate monitoring set to 1 minute. It’s not quite as long as the nine days Xiaomi suggests, but you can lower the frequency of the heart rate measurement to get closer.

The associated Xiaomi Wear app can be used and is clearly aimed at people who start with fitness trackers. You won’t get much information overload here, and the graphics are easy to understand. What’s not so good is the total inability to export data to any service, including Google Fit. It’s not uncommon, but as someone who doesn’t like platform lock-in in general, I’m not a huge fan of the choice.

What’s not so good?

A big reason for wanting a watch-like form factor versus a slimmer band is access to notifications. However, in my time with the Redmi Watch, I found it very unreliable. Notifications stop arriving intermittently, and that is a glaring problem. There aren’t any actionable notifications, but that’s to be expected from most fitness wearables.

Like my colleague Jimmy, I found the user interface less than great. Obviously, the clock is running on a barebone software platform, which is made even clearer by the lack of animations or haptics. The lack of haptic feedback in particular is problematic when trying to navigate a training activity during a run.

I also didn’t particularly like the display used here. Contrary to what Xiaomi claims, the LCD panel is not very vivid. When turned up high, outdoor visibility is decent, but not great. It lacks levels of contrast, and some of the more vibrant watch faces out of the 200 odd options look dull in the end.

I would have preferred better quality silicone bands as well. The included look and feel cheap. It is possible to replace them, but the proprietary mechanism means you’ll have to wait and hope that a third-party ecosystem catches up.

Redmi Watch Review: Should I Buy It?

If you’re craving an upgrade to a slightly more powerful fitness band like the Redmi Band, the Redmi Watch is a decent step up. Between the GPS support, the larger display, and the support for notifications, music control, the watch gives you reason enough to waste the extra Rs. 1500 (~ $ 20) via the Mi Band 5. However, if you are not a long time user of Xiaomi’s fitness bands and your data is anchored in the ecosystem, I urge you to check out the Amazfit Bip U as well. The latter swaps the built-in GPS for SpO2 measurements, a higher quality appearance and continuous heart rate monitoring.

The Redmi Watch is a good show from Xiaomi as long as you keep your expectations in check.