Xiaomi’s First Wear OS Watch Runs a Custom Skin, Looks Fine

Xiaomi announced the Mi Watch today, it’s first Wear OS smartwatch. Typically, this would be a day – as a Wear OS fan – to get excited, but there’s no telling if we’ll ever see this watch anywhere near the US. It also runs a custom skin on top of Wear OS and looks like a big, plain, thick square of a device, rather than something sleek like a Fossil Gen 5 or Apple Watch.

The Mi Watch does have a decent set of specs and features, though. You have eSIM support for cellular connections, NFC, heartrate monitor, GPS, 1.78-inch AMOLED display, 44mm case, 1GB RAM, 8GB storage, 590mAh battery, Bluetooth 4.2, WiFi, and a Snapdragon Wear 3100.

The watch runs MIUI for Watch, so that’s a full custom skin on top of Wear OS. You’ll find sleep and sports tracking, access to a variety of apps, mobile payments, and a bunch of watch faces. It’s very much like the smartwatch experience you would expect from Samsung or Apple or Google, only it has Xiaomi’s skin on top.

The Mi Watch goes up for pre-order today in China at RMB 1999. If there is ever a way to buy this in the US, we’ll try to let you know.

// Xiaomi | Mi