introduce
Xiaomi’s watch selection is a little complicated compared to its peers. Xiaomi makes both proprietary operating system wearables, such as the Watch S3 and SmartBand 8 Pro, as well as full-fledged Wear OS watches, such as the Watch 2 Pro, and the protagonist of our review today – the Watch 2.
So what does the Mi Watch 2 lack compared to its sibling we reviewed in October, the Mi Watch Pro? The most obvious downgrade is the aluminum case, which weighs 36.8 grams, which is lighter than the Watch 2 Pro’s 54.5-gram stainless steel case. The Pro has a push-down rotating crown and its two buttons, while the Watch 2 only has buttons. Then there’s the included strap itself, which is TPU for the non-Pro and fluoroelastomer for the Pro, which feels more durable. Obviously you can get higher quality straps with each watch, and Xiaomi itself offers leather options.
Before we move on to the comparison, a quick unboxing. The Watch 2 comes with its own proprietary charging disc and TPU strap.
Xiaomi Mi Watch 2 unboxing, strap options
Less obvious changes are the lack of a bioelectrical impedance analysis sensor (which can track your BMI, bone structure, hydration and muscle mass), and the lack of eSIM functionality.
The upside is that the Watch 2 gives you the same display, a 4nm Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 SoC, rare dual-band L1+L5 GPS, and tons of health and fitness tracking options. Let’s dig a little deeper.
Design and build quality
The Mi Watch 2 Pro’s glass dial has raised edges, while the Watch 2’s dial is exposed and almost flat. Its edges are slightly curved.
The display below is not an edge-to-edge unit, there yes It has a bezel surrounding it, underneath a glass cover with a 12-hour scale. The dial is always black, but the Watch 2 is available in black or silver.
Xiaomi uses a frosted case with two lugs on both sides, 22 mm apart. There are no prominent design elements on the sides of the round case – there are two buttons on the right side, which sit very flush with the body. On the Pro, the rotating crown button is very noticeable and some might say adds a bit of design flair.
These people may feel that the Watch 2 is too simple, and indeed the watch has almost no features.
Xiaomi makes up for this by offering a healthy selection of watch faces in the Mi Fit app. On this subject, it’s a bit strange that a company that deliberately ditched the Xiaomi brand in favor of Xiaomi neglected to make changes to its premier Android fitness app.
Xiaomi Mi Watch 2 has an excellent 1.43-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 466x466px and a maximum brightness of 600 nits. It’s easily bright enough on sunny days and has a responsive auto-brightness mode indoors. There is also always-on display support.
The two buttons on the side of the Watch 2 are your only navigation buttons. Press the top button once to go back from any app or screen, or go to the app list if you’re looking at the watch face. For recent apps, pressing twice and holding both will open Google Assistant.
Pressing the lower button once will open recent apps, while pressing it twice will open Google Wallet. The lack of a crown means you also need to swipe up and down on the display to move around.
The strap of Xiaomi Mi Watch 2 is made of TPU material with strong grip. You get the watch in black or white, depending on which one you buy. It’s a standard 22mm strap with easily removable lug nuts and a slider on one side. We like the standard band and applaud Xiaomi for insisting on using a more suitable 22mm band for the 47.5mm wide Watch 2.
The vibration motor on the Watch 2 is very powerful and looks the same as the one on the Pro. This has both a positive and negative side – it can be a bit jarring at times, especially for a wake-up alarm. We want a grain slider to control the intensity of the vibration.
Xiaomi Mi Watch 2 is simple, lightweight and eye-catching. This is a great option for those who want an unobtrusive watch to wear 24/7 (all day and while sleeping).
Wear operating system
Like the Pro, the Mi Watch 2 runs Wear OS 3.5 – an older version of Google’s Watch software. As of this writing, only Google’s Pixel Watch 1 and 2, OnePlus’ Watch 2, and Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4, 5, 5 Pro, and 6 run Wear OS 4. There’s no word yet on if and when the Watch 2 will get Wear updates. OS 4, but for sure the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 supports it.
As a Wear OS watch, even if it’s running a slightly outdated version, the Mi Watch 2 has access to Google’s full suite of apps – YouTube, Google Maps, Google Pay, as well as popular choices like Spotify, Facer, and Todoist.
You can also activate Google Assistant with your voice or a button. It’s the full Google Assistant experience—you can ask the Assistant any question, turn on the flashlight, and make calls.
Controlling Xiaomi Mi Watch 2 is very simple. Swiping from the bottom of the screen opens the toggle menu, while swiping from the top closes the notification shade. As with any other Wear OS watch, notifications are a mixed bag. If you get the image from WhatsApp or Viber you will see the image, but if you get the image from Messenger you will just see a text bubble called “Photo”.
You can customize which apps can easily connect to the watch from your phone. To answer on the watch, you can send emojis (like messages), send voice messages, and even type responses on the small QWERTY keyboard on your wrist.
Google Wallet supports Google Pay and works perfectly on Watch 2. However, using Google Pay requires you to lock your watch with a PIN. The watch is smart enough that you only need to enter your PIN once and it will stay unlocked as long as it’s on your wrist. However, once you take it off, you’ll need to unlock the watch every time the screen turns off.
The more interesting preloaded app is the Pressure and Altitude app, which provides exactly that – air pressure in hPa and altitude in meters. You also get the minimum and maximum range for the day.
Barometer and altimeter
There’s also a barebones compass app.
Fitness and health tracking
Xiaomi Mi Watch 2 comes with fitness and health tracking features. It supports over 150 sports modes, some of which come with detailed analysis and coaching techniques. Dual-frequency GPS uses both the wider L1 and faster, more accurate L5 bands to provide tracking accuracy within meters.
We put the GPS through its paces and found its performance to be on par with the Mi Watch 2 Pro. Locking takes anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute (longer if you’re under tree cover in a forest). We put the GPS through some careful testing – we ran to see how accurately it measured our speed, then stopped suddenly to see how quickly it recognized that we’d stopped moving. All changes are registered very quickly. We then checked our movements on a map and found the Watch 2 to be very accurate.
The watch is also 5ATM water resistant, making it suitable for swimming.
Fitness tracking is a bit rudimentary, but that’s true of most smartwatches. There are countless sports and fitness tracking modes, but we found no clear difference between freestyle training and football tracking – both simply measure your heart rate, give you a summary of average HT, min and max, and then calculate Your calories are based on these numbers.
Outdoor runs are even more detailed – you get distance, time, pace, elevation data and VO2max time.
workout screen
Sleep tracking is very detailed. The watch monitors your sleep cycles (deep sleep, light sleep, REM sleep) and gives you detailed information on your waking hours. All of this is highlighted with additional information – whether you’re getting enough deep sleep, whether you’re getting too much light sleep or wakefulness. The watch will supplement breathing data and blood oxygen tracking during the night.
sleep tracking
There’s also in-depth menstrual cycle tracking, all-day blood oxygen monitoring and breathing exercises.
We can debate whether this smartwatch (or any other mainstream watch) is accurate enough in its dimensions to compete with professional fitness and health tracking tools. But the idea is to pack as much useful data as possible into as beautiful and useful a package as possible.
Battery Life
Like the Watch 2 Pro, the Watch 2 is also equipped with a large 495mAh battery. That’s 70mAh more than the Galaxy Watch6 Classic. For more power than the Watch 2, you need to look at last year’s Galaxy Watch5 Pro (590mAh), the OnePlus Watch 2 (with a 500mAh battery), or the TicWatch 5 Pro and its massive 628mAh unit.
However, Xiaomi claims that the Watch 2 has a runtime of up to 65 hours, which is equivalent to nearly three days. We didn’t get that much, but we also used the watch for continuous heart rate monitoring, one or two daily workouts, and overnight sleep tracking. During this tedious process, Watch 2 lasted about 30 hours. Omitting exercise gave us two full days.
Obviously, these numbers are much shorter than proprietary OS watches like the Huawei Watch GT 4 or Xiaomi’s own Watch S3, or those always-on watches with a second monochrome display like the TicWatch 5 Pro.
Charging is done via Xiaomi’s proprietary disc. It has two pins that you need to align correctly with the watch, otherwise the watch will sit awkwardly on the puck and won’t charge. It’s not as convenient as Samsung and Huawei’s chargers, which have nothing to do with where you choose to place them. At this point, watches should just use wireless charging standards and that’s it – EU, let’s make this happen.
in conclusion
Xiaomi’s Wear OS one-two punch is now complete. Where the Pro is an all-around, no-compromise watch, the Watch 2 has everything you need, most features anyone could want, and at a price that everyone agrees is reasonable.
Some people may insist on using bioelectrical impedance sensors or eSIMs, but we’re sure not many will. What we miss even more is the rotating crown on the Watch 2 Pro, because without it we found the Watch 2 to look too simple.
That’s not a bad thing for minimalists looking for a simple and effective smartwatch. They don’t need to go any further than the Mi Watch 2.