Not satisfied with the launch of mobile phones with camera systems this year mobile world congress, Xiaomi has announced three new smartwatches, each boasting deep sports tracking capabilities. The Watch S3, Watch 2 and Smart Band 8 Pro are all available for pre-order in the UK from today, but wider availability has yet to be announced.
The Smart Band 8 Pro is the cheapest of the bunch, costing just £60 (translated to $76) in the UK. But for that small investment, you can get a rectangular watch with a 1.74-inch AMOLED display. This watch is wrapped in Corning Gorilla Glass Victus to keep you safe while playing any sport. It looks similar to the Apple Watch, but without the crown. Xiaomi says it’s only 9.9mm thin and weighs just 22.5g, so if that’s your thing, running shouldn’t be a burden.
Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro
It features heart rate monitoring, tracking for 150 sports, pacing for runners, and guidance for warming up and stretching. The 289mAh battery lasts up to 14 days, and it’s 5ATM waterproof, so running in the rain is no problem.
Next, the Xiaomi Watch S3 is a rather classic watch design, but with a twist. The bezels can be swapped out for different styles, and each bezel activates a unique dial when applied.
Xiaomi Watch S3.
The watch features a circular 1.43-inch AMOLED display, heart rate monitoring, an aluminum alloy frame, and a battery that lasts “up to” 15 days. It also supports fast charging, with Xiaomi claiming that just 5 minutes of charging will give you two full days of use.
The motion sensor also allows you to answer or decline calls with various flicks of your wrist. It remains to be seen how this will work in actual use. The Watch S3 costs £125 ($158).
Xiaomi Watch 2.
Finally, the most expensive of them all, the Xiaomi Watch 2, comes in at a more imposing £170. The Watch 2 runs Google’s Wear OS and has a Qualcomm Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 chip at its core. Xiaomi believes you can get around 65 hours of mixed use on a full charge.
It has an aluminum alloy frame, a circular 1.43-inch display, and can track 160 different sports, including ski tracking, which uses GPS to track your descent route. It is equipped with sensors for heart rate, blood oxygen level, and sleep tracking, as well as what Xiaomi calls a “sleep animal” sensor that best describes your sleep pattern over seven consecutive days. In my case it would probably be sloth.
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