Xiaomi seems to be gearing up to launch a new smartwatch based on Wear OS 3, which is a direct competitor to the Pixel Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch 5.
The brand has been operating in its corner of the smartwatch market for some time now. Similar Xiaomi Watch S1 and recently discovered Xiaomi Watch S1 Pro (pictured) runs on the heavily modified and isolated MIUI Watch OS, not Google’s Wear OS platform.
That’s all about to change, says a recent report 9to5Google. The website claims to have learned from a source familiar with the development that Xiaomi is building a new smartwatch that runs on the full version of Wear OS 3, which means full support for Google Play services.
The new smartwatch will apparently connect to the same Mi Fitness (Xiaomi Wear) app that runs on non-Wear OS smartwatches today.
While this will be a departure from the rest of Xiaomi’s recent lineup, you can expect the new product to run under the same Xiaomi Watch branding. As the report points out, this could be a bit of a problem for fans of those early watches, given the different expectations they may have had.
Although the Xiaomi smartwatch is not as advanced as something similar Google Pixel watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 in terms of features or full app ecosystem, they have much better battery life. The newly released Xiaomi Watch S1 Pro can last up to two weeks on a single charge, while the aforementioned Wear OS 3 smartwatch can barely last two days.
Xiaomi’s Wear OS 3 smartwatch is set to launch later in 2023.
