Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite

The Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite is a sports focused smartwatch released in December 2020. Xiaomi is one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world and their smartwatches are quite popular.

While the Mi Bands that are manufactured by Huami for Xiaomi, this watch is not produced by Huami. The actual manufacturer of this watch is 70mai, another spin-off company from Xiaomi. 70mai is well known for their dash cams but are newcomers to the smartwatch space.

The Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite is also known as the REDMIWT02 as can be seen on the box.

This is essentially the international version of the Redmi smartwatch, REDMIWT01, sold only in China. However there are a few differences and the table below summarizes them.

Area	Mi Watch Lite (REDMIWT02)	Redmi Watch (REDMIWT01)
Sports Modes	11	7
GPS	Yes	No
NFC & Payments	No	Yes, Alipay
Voice Assistant	No	Yes, XiaoAI
Microphone	No	Yes
Barometer	Yes	No

Unfortunately Xiaomi does not disclose the chipset used for the Mi Watch Lite. While the watch responsiveness is OK, there are no animations when scrolling and refresh rate is below average.

The watch is using a proprietary operating system. There are only a limited number of apps on the watch and no app store is available to add any additional apps. What you see, is what you get for apps on this smartwatch.

Design

The Mi Watch Lite has a rectangular watch face design with a plastic case.  It looks very similar to an Apple Watch. The watch is available in black, blue and ivory which gives you some customization options depending on which band you choose.

This smartwatch is not too big at 41.0 x 35.0 x 10.9 mm and weighs 35g. The watch is slim with a thickness of 10.9 mm. It is comfortable and can be worn while sleeping.

The Mi Watch Lite comes with a 22mm thermoplastic polyurethane interchangeable strap. Thermoplastic polyurethane is typically more durable than silicone but not as soft. While not the most comfortable strap, quality is acceptable for this price point.

You can interact with the watch using the touchscreen and 1 physical button. The touchscreen works well but as mentioned before the refresh rate is not the greatest. The user interface is not the most modern and the lack of animations make it a bit less attractive than some other smartwatches.

On the positive side, the Mi Watch Lite has a 5ATM water resistance rating which allows for swimming and showers.

Screen

The Mi Watch Lite has a 1.4″ TFT Touchscreen, with 320 x 320 pixels and 323 pixel density. While not the greatest screen, it delivers a good quality picture. Indoors the display is very good while outdoors it is acceptable but not great.

Xiaomi does not indicate whether any screen protection is provided. Since it is not a rugged watch, we expect protection to be limited. That being said given the low price, overall build quality appears to be good.

Unfortunately, the watch does not have an always on screen option. The watch allows for custom watchfaces which is a nice feature.

Battery

The Mi Watch Lite comes with a 230 mAh battery. Xiaomi claims that typical usage battery life is 9 days and GPS mode battery life is 0.4 days. Real world battery life is approximately 6-7 days, while not best in class, is reasonable.

Connectivity Features

From a connectivity perspective, the Mi Watch Lite has limited functionality when compared to full featured smartwatches. The watch can only receive notifications and there is no ability to respond to notifications from the watch. Emojis are not supported as well.

Mi Watch Lite is also lacking a number of other connectivity features:

• Does not have WiFi
• Does not have a speaker or microphone and does not have the ability to answer or place calls via Bluetooth
• Does not have any internal memory
• Does not have a camera
• Does not have cellular connectivity

On the positive side, it does come with built-in GPS. GPS connectivity is fast and accuracy is good.

Finally, Near Field Communication (NFC) is not supported, hence you cannot use this smartwatch to make payments. As mentioned before the the Redmi Watch for China (Model #: REDMIWT01) has NFC and supports Alipay, while the international Mi Watch Lite (Model #: REDMIWT02) does not have NFC capability and does not support any payment systems.

Health and Fitness Features

The Mi Watch Lite comes with 6 sensors: Accelerometer, Ambient light, Barometer, Compass, Gyroscope, Heart Rate Monitor (HRM). These only cover a few fitness and health areas. These sensors allow you to track the following 7 metrics: Calories, Distance, Fitness Level, Heart Rate, Sleep, Steps, Swimming.

GPS and Heart Rate are not fully accurate and could be up to 10% off. Sleep tracking accuracy is even worse with start and end times not being captured correctly.

Also included are 11 different sports modes. When compared to more fitness or health focused watches, the Mi Watch Lite is average. If fitness and health monitoring accuracy is important to you, this watch is not ideal.

Xiaomi Wear App

The Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite uses the Xiaomi Wear app, a newer app. It does not work with the Mi Fit or Zepp apps. While the app has the basic functions and features, it is not the most refined or easy to navigate. Many features are still missing and the overall app rating is low. You can see how the Xiaomi Wear app ranks on our Smartwatch Apps Page.

Note that the Mi Watch Lite does not work with the Mi Fit app since that is based on Huami created smartwatches.

Known Issues

As this watch has just recently been released, there are no common known issues.

Verdict

Watch is lightweight and battery life is OK. Drawbacks include no notification reply ability, no 3rd party apps and no NFC. Also the Xiaomi Wear app is not mature and has limited functionality. While the price is reasonable, the drawbacks make other smartwatch options better buys in this price range.

Specifications

Published: January 01, 2021