Xiaomi’s Watch S3 is one of the best affordable smartwatches out there

The Xiaomi Watch S3 was a part of a trio of Xiaomi wearable launches designed to go huge on well being and health options at low costs.

Sitting in between the Watch 2 and the Sensible Band 8 Professional, the S3 is a totally spherical smartwatch that permits you to whip the bezels on and off for various seems and contains options you usually don’t anticipate finding on a watch at this value – simply £129.99 within the UK – like a dual-band GNSS mode to offer out of doors train monitoring accuracy a lift.

It’s a smartwatch not striving to straight compete with smartwatch huge hitters from Apple, Google and Samsung, however that doesn’t imply it needs to shortchange you on efficiency both. The Xiaomi Watch S3 definitely guarantees rather a lot for much less and manages to ship on most of what it’s promising.

Take a look at our chart of the most effective smartwatches to see alternate options.

Design & Construct

• Works with interchangeable bezels
• Black or silver colors
• 5ATM waterproofing

Out of the field, the Xiaomi Watch S3 clearly seems like a well-built watch if a bit on the unoriginal aspect in look.

There are two color choices – black or silver, and I had the black model to check, which is matched up with a fairly customary fare flurorubber strap that’s been comfy to put on and simple to get on and off.

You do even have the choice to go for a leather-based strap, which you would possibly need to do should you just like the look of Xiaomi’s extra intriguing bezels.

Mike Sawh

The case physique is created from an aluminium alloy with a chrome steel bezel giving the watch a pleasant weight and that bezel does have a particular trick, which units the S3 aside from rivals. You’ll be able to rapidly twist the bezel to take away it, letting you swap in extra bezels to vary the look of the watch.

The detachable bezel included is a fairly plain affair however I did have a further ceramic one to place as a substitute, which definitely provides the S3 a extra eye-catching look. A pleasant added contact whenever you add in a brand new bezel ring is that it suggests a watch face to go with it.

Mike Sawh

Outdoors of that detachable bezel Xiaomi retains issues easy elsewhere. There are two bodily buttons that sit fairly flush with the best aspect of the case.

There’s the optical sensor across the again the place you’ll additionally drop it on the disc-shaped charging cradle. A 5ATM waterproof score means you possibly can go swimming with it so long as you’re not going deeper than 50 metres, which appears unlikely for most individuals.

Display & Audio 

• 1.43-inch AMOLED show
• Helps always-on mode
• Consists of microphone and speaker

It’s at all times pleasing to discover a good high quality color display screen on an affordable smartwatch and that’s precisely what you’ll discover on the S3.

It’s a not too hulking 1.43-inch, 466 x 466 decision AMOLED touchscreen that may be set to always-on. There’s a sensible always-on show mode to provide the finest degree of battery life by protecting the display screen on whenever you want it most.

There’s additionally a properly responsive raise-to-wake gesture help should you worth having extra battery life as a substitute.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

The show is vibrant and vivid maxing out at 600 nits, although there’s some fuzziness across the icons and a few colors are a contact oversaturated. It doesn’t hamper the expertise, however it’s an indication you’re not getting the most effective of the most effective right here. 

Xiaomi does discover room for a microphone and speaker enabling you to take calls out of your wrist, so long as it’s paired to your smartphone over Bluetooth, in fact. You’ll be able to deliver up a keypad that fills the display screen and name high quality is nice sufficient to make it usable as a wrist-based cellphone, although it does battle in noisier environments.

Software program & Options 

• Runs on Xiaomi’s HyperOS
• Contactless funds through Mastercard
• Appropriate with Android telephones and iOS

Not like the Put on OS-packing Xiaomi Watch 2, the Watch S3 runs on Xiaomi’s personal HyperOS. It’s a model of the working system that’s additionally packed onto Xiaomi’s telephones, TVs and sensible residence tech amongst different units.

It’s an working system that performs good with iPhones and Android telephones and my testing with an iPhone noticed no connection pairing or syncing points.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

It’s a predominantly gesture-based expertise, so swipe left and proper to see your widgets filled with info like coronary heart charge, music controls and alarms. There’s no unhealthy lag and the software program runs good and easy general.

There’s a clearly Apple-inspired, however definitely extra primary, hands-free mode the place you possibly can flick or shake your wrist to reply or reject calls, open your voice assistant, take a photograph or examine in on the climate.

The highest bodily button launches the app tray and the underside one provides you fast entry to the exercise monitoring display screen. Notification help works properly and is optimised to the S3’s display screen and when you can merely dismiss notifications, they’re good and simple to look and take in on the transfer.

Xiaomi gives an honest array of core smartwatch options right here. You’ve received Amazon Alexa to tick the sensible assistant field, the onboard music participant is an Android-only characteristic, although in contrast to different smartwatches doesn’t work with third-party music providers to allow you to load on offline playlists. 

The core smartwatch expertise is definitely excellent. It’s not as clunky as it may be on smartwatches at this value and a giant a part of that’s right down to the very well-functioning HyperOS, which reveals Xiaomi is listening and refining its working system.

The contactless cost help that can solely work with Mastercard pay terminals which may very well be a ache and the watch face choices are fairly in depth with extra obtainable through the app.

Health & Monitoring 

• Over 150 sports activities modes
• Twin-band GNSS mode
• 12-channel, optical coronary heart charge monitor

The Watch S3 has the sensors and the modes to be a smartwatch that may do every part from monitor your coronary heart, sleep, runs, pool swims, allow you to loosen up with respiratory workouts and even inform should you’re in good coaching form.

On the sensor entrance, you’re getting a fairly typical set of movement and optical sensors together with a 12-channel coronary heart charge sensor that guarantees a coronary heart charge accuracy of 97.95%.

There’s an automated exercise recognition mode for actions like working, strolling and indoor rowing and Xiaomi even manages to seek out room for a devoted ski mode. There’s built-in GPS to trace out of doors exercises and a dual-band GNSS mode to spice up out of doors monitoring accuracy, which is uncommon to seek out on a watch at this value.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

So far as being a smartwatch I’d belief to do all of these items it’s a case of being good at some issues and never fairly so dependable sufficient for different issues.

In case you’re counting on it to be your each day health tracker to trace your each day steps, coronary heart charge, stress and sleep I’d say the S3 does a superb job. I discovered each day step counts have been round 500-800 steps out from comparable monitoring on a Garmin watch and an Oura Ring Gen 3 I wore alongside it.

When repeatedly monitoring coronary heart charge, each day resting coronary heart charge averages have been properly consistent with Garmin’s very dependable monitoring and whereas most readings in the course of the day didn’t completely match up, in addition they weren’t wildly out both.

While you take the watch to mattress you’re going to seize sleep length, sleep phases together with REM, common coronary heart charge and get a sleep rating, which can be in comparison with different Xiaomi customers. You’ll even be assigned a sleep animal when you’ve worn the watch to mattress for seven nights.

Information like sleep length, sleep stage breakdowns and sleep scores are near the Oura Ring Gen 3, top-of-the-line sleep trackers I’ve examined. The presentation of the info within the Mi Health app is fairly primary, however that’s not essentially a foul factor right here and makes it simpler to glean on probably the most helpful stats.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

By way of sports activities monitoring, you will have 150 sports activities modes to choose from and that features pool swimming, out of doors biking, mountain climbing and, in fact, working. Runners also can profit from accessing working programs to get new runners aware of various kinds of coaching runs; whether or not that’s following a run/stroll session or taking in your first interval run.

You additionally get that aforementioned dual-band GNSS mode, which goals to enhance out of doors monitoring accuracy when utilizing the watch close to tall buildings, deeply forested areas and antagonistic climate. It is a key cause for some to purchase it over rivals.

I’ve run (indoors and outdoor), used it for indoor rowing with and with out the automated exercise recognition mode and used it for pool swims. For treadmill runs, the monitoring accuracy got here up fairly brief on distance monitoring subsequent to a devoted working watch. That created an issue calibrating because the distinction between the recorded distance and precise distance was so huge it didn’t give me a large enough vary to calibrate it.

For outdoor runs, it underreported distance on all of our runs and the typical tempo timing wasn’t fairly proper both. Coronary heart charge monitoring accuracy wasn’t nice in any respect, with common and max readings properly off from the gold customary monitoring on a coronary heart charge monitor chest strap. Right here’s hoping these points may be improved with software program updates however don’t depend on it.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

I additionally had issues syncing a few of these runs to the Mi Health app as properly. For pool swims, it put in a superb efficiency towards two different swim trackers for metrics like distance coated and common tempo, although stroke counts appeared a bit off.

Whereas that information primarily lives within the Mi Health app, Xiaomi does assist you to ship that information to Strava and now Suunto, and it did that with no drawback and in a speedy trend to the previous.

In case you’re planning to work out solo otherwise you like the concept of elevating the alarm should you get into hassle, Xiaomi does embrace some emergency help options letting you faucet the underside bodily button thrice to name an emergency contact. There’s additionally a fall detection mode right here too, although with none form of standalone LTE connectivity, you will want to be paired to your cellphone through Bluetooth to make these options helpful to have at your disposal.

Battery Life & Charging

• As much as 15 days battery life
• As much as 5 days in always-on mode
• Helps fast cost mode

Xiaomi suggests you will get simply over two weeks of time in between needing to drop the S3 on its charging cradle, although I’d say that quantity represents whenever you’re not placing all of its options to common use.

The exact quoted numbers are 15 days when paired to an Android cellphone and 14.5 days when utilizing it with an iPhone. That’s much more than WearOS rivals just like the Google Pixel Watch 2 evaluate and even Xiaomi’s personal Watch 2.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

In case you’re planning to maintain the display screen set to always-on then that quantity drops to five days and should you’re utilizing options like probably the most superior well being monitoring help, that can contribute to a extra noticeable drop in battery.

I’ve discovered that each day battery drop-off was on common 10% and that was with the raise-to-wake in use and utilizing options like music controls, notifications, steady coronary heart charge monitoring and utilizing GPS. Switching the display screen to always-on averages out to round 2-3 days. 

Whereas not hitting these promised numbers, having a smartwatch that may final properly over every week remains to be a superb displaying. You even have the added bonus of a really swift fast cost mode that can prime you up with two days of watch time without work a 5-minute cost.

Value & Availability

The Xiaomi Watch S3 was introduced in February 2024, alongside the Xiaomi Sensible Band 8 Professional and the Xiaomi Watch 2 and is available for purchase from the Mi retailer and retailers together with Amazon. It’s priced at £129.99, and that’s the identical value for each black and silver variations.

If you wish to decide it up within the US, Xiaomi doesn’t presently ship the Watch S3 from its personal web site, so you might have to do some looking round to pay money for one Stateside.

That value places it firmly within the low-cost however not fairly price range smartwatch class so sits alongside watches just like the Amazfit Bip 5, Honor Watch 4, Huawei Watch Match 2 and the Redmi Watch 4, which is constructed beneath Xiaomi’s inexpensive sub-brand and does share some software program similarities to the Watch S3.

Oddly, the additional bezels are nowhere to be seen on the Mi retailer so we’ll replace this evaluate once they go on sale.

Take a look at our record of the most effective smartwatches for the highest choices.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Do you have to purchase the Xiaomi Watch S3?

The Xiaomi Watch S3 is a pleasing smartwatch to reside with and decide up should you’re on a good price range but additionally don’t need to make main compromises on options and efficiency.

No, it doesn’t have Put on OS options just like the pricier Xiaomi Watch 2, however the expertise on the entire is superb and core smartwatch options carry out properly too.

While you look in and across the value of the Xiaomi Watch S3, it’s up towards watches just like the Amazfit Bip 5, Honor Watch 4 and the Redmi Watch 4. The Bip 5, together with the Honor and Redmi watches have blockier seems compared and it’s the place the interchangeable bezels on the Xiaomi smartwatch actually provides it one thing completely different.

Function units are largely comparable throughout the board, although you received’t discover dual-band GPS help on these different watches, which may swing it for runners although I discovered discrepancies within the different monitoring information.

The Xiaomi Watch S3 is likely one of the strongest choices at that extra inexpensive finish of the market, whether or not you’re an iPhone or an Android consumer, particularly should you worth a handsome, spherical design with scope to tinker with that look.

Specs

• 1.43-inch, AMOLED always-on show
• 5 ATM water resistance score 
• Constructed-in speaker
• Twin-band GNSS
• 486mAh capability battery
• As much as 15 days battery life
• Coronary heart charge sensor
• Blood oxygen sensor
• Bluetooth calls
• Sleep monitoring
• Stress monitoring
• 44g (with out strap)