Xiaomi’s Mi Watch Rivals The Apple Watch For Less

Xiaomi officially unveils the Mi Watch, a smartwatch that looks like an Apple Watch. Ofcourse, the key difference being that the Mi Watch runs a skinned version of Google Wear OS.

The Xiaomi Mi Watch has the same curved rectangular touchscreen with a similar scroll and pill-shaped button setup found on the Apple Watch. It has a 1.78-inch AMOLED display with a 326ppi pixel battery and a 570mAh battery which translates at 36 hours of use, according to Xiaomi. Powering Xiaomi’s new wearable is a Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 processor paired with 1GB RAM and 8GB of internal storage. The smartwatch also supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, a heart rate monitoring feature, and eSIM support for 4G LTE connectivity.

Pricing aside, the biggest difference between the two smartwatches is the OS. The Xiaomi Mi Watch uses a custom Wear OS skin: MIUI for the watch. Apart from that, Xiaomi also developed specific apps for the Mi Watch such as lighter versions of Tasks, Recorder and Notes apps. Xiaomi will reportedly have its own app store for  MIUI.

Pricing and Availability

The Xiaomi Mi Watch is currently a China-exclusive which launched last November 11, 2019, with the base model starting at CNY 1,299 or $185 or Php 9,300. There’s also a metal strap version that comes in a stainless steel case later this year for Php CNY 1,999 or $290 or Php 14,600. We expect the Mi Watch to be available in the Philippines as early as January 2020.