Xiaomi Watch 5 Review: Week-long WearOS

Value When Reviewed

Unavailable within the USA

Greatest Costs At present: Xiaomi Watch 5

The Xiaomi Watch 5 is Xiaomi’s flagship smartwatch that swaps its personal in-house working system for Google’s Put on OS.

Providing an alternative choice to the Google Pixel Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch, amongst others, the Watch 5 offers you entry to the most recent options Put on has to supply, together with Google’s Gemini AI assistant. There’s additionally a raft of Xiaomi’s personal options to faucet into with an array of gesture controls.

Xiaomi additionally provides a few of the greatest battery life you’ll discover on a smartwatch operating Google’s OS, with as much as per week of longevity and the Watch 5 is cheaper than many rivals at £269.99.

Is it value your hard-earned cash, although? I’ve been utilizing it for the final couple of weeks as my major smartwatch to search out out.

Design & Construct

• Two color choices
• Chrome steel casing
• Waterproof as much as 50 metres depth 

The Xiaomi Watch 5 is accessible in a single 47mm case measurement, which is available in simply two color choices. That’s Juniper Inexperienced or Black (pictured).

This isn’t one to seize in case you like your smartwatch with a shiny splash of color. The Huawei Watch GT Runner 2 or Watch Match 5 Professional may swimsuit higher in that case.

Mike Sawh

At 12.3mm thick, it’s the identical thickness as Google’s Pixel Watch 4, however not as slim as an Apple Watch Sequence 11. You’ve bought a case constituted of stainless-steel and that’s matched up with a fairly standard-looking flurorubber strap.

I’d say it’s a fairly uniform smartwatch look that does really feel well-made, however doesn’t precisely stand out and excite.

Xiaomi contains two bodily buttons. There’s a crown-style one increased up the case you possibly can twist to scroll via screens. You can even double-press it to get to your most just lately used apps.

The button additional down provides a shortcut to the exercise monitoring menu.

Mike Sawh

Across the again is the place you’ll discover its optical sensor array and the place you’ll must drop the disc-shaped charging cradle onto when you have to energy it again up.

The 5ATM water resistance score means it’s appropriate for showering and swimming with it. Simply don’t take it diving because it’s not constructed to deal with going additional than 50 metres depth.

Display screen & Audio 

• 1.54.inch AMOLED show
• Double-sided sapphire glass
• Constructed-in microphone and speaker

Xiaomi vegetation a 1.54-inch, 480 x 480 decision AMOLED touchscreen into that 47mm case, which includes a sliver of black bezel so it doesn’t fairly attain the sting of the watch case. It’s a wonderfully good high quality display screen, the place color accuracy is robust if a bit oversaturated.

It’s properly attentive to swipes and faucets and provides good brightness. It hits a peak brightness of 1500 nits. That doesn’t make it the brightest smartwatch show accessible, however I discovered it did a superb job in tougher gentle situations.

Mike Sawh

What’s fascinating to see is that Xiaomi has determined to incorporate sapphire glass on each the entrance of the display screen and the again of the case. The glass is designed to supply sturdy scratch resistance and I’ve not seen any seem in my time utilizing it. 

On the audio entrance, one can find a microphone and speaker on board. It permits options like Bluetooth calls, use the voice recorder function to allow the Google Gemini assist.

I’d say the speaker high quality isn’t one of the best I’ve seen on a smartwatch. Particularly when it comes to the readability, the place there was some noticeable muffling on calls and when recording voice memos.

Software program & Options 

• Runs on Put on OS 6.0 
• NFC for Google Pay funds
• Vary of gesture controls supported

The Watch 5 runs on Google’s Put on OS and that is model 6.0 of Google’s working system. That provides you entry to the most recent Put on OS updates, which most notably embody higher integration of Google’s suite of apps and an AI-powered Gemini assistant.

Mike Sawh

The consumer interface, nonetheless, stays very a lot Xiaomi’s, from the widgets to the fast settings menu, however it’s not fairly a full Google takeover. The place issues really feel extra Google is if you swap the app display screen to show as a listing and also you uncover Google’s suite of apps.

That’s Google Calendar, Pockets, Maps and the Play Retailer. Whereas Xiaomi’s personal HyperOS working system has been likeable on the entire, it’s been missing within the areas that Google’s presence now addresses.

That features Gemini, which has ousted Google Assistant for an AI-powered assistant that’s simply much more helpful. The expertise of utilizing Gemini and quizzing it about issues is pretty much as good as its integration with different Put on OS watches from Samsung and Google.

Mike Sawh

There are some Xiaomi-centric options, just like the exercise monitoring display screen or utilizing it as a distant for Xiaomi TVs in case you occur to have a kind of too. Whereas there’s a superb mixture of watch faces accessible, I feel you’ll discover higher and extra trendy alternatives on rival Put on OS watches.

Xiaomi’s additionally gone large on gesture controls, which many manufacturers don’t supply. They work nicely typically, whereas the power to arrange customized gestures does make the extra management system one thing you’d truly need to make common use of.

There’s additionally an EMG sensor, which permits an array of gestures that work with options like alarms, calls or accessing Google Pockets.

By way of what’s powering the software program, there’s a co-processor setup caring for that. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 is matched up with a BES2800BP.

Like different smartwatches utilizing a co-processor system – such because the OnePlus Watch 3 – the smartwatch appears to be like to the completely different chips for various duties to create a extra environment friendly operating working system and be sure you get pleasure from one of the best battery life (extra on that beneath).

Health & Monitoring 

• Steady coronary heart charge and SpO2 monitoring
• Free offline maps
• Twin-frequency GPS 

Xiaomi has a fairly intensive array of well being and health options accessible. Whether or not that’s the 150 sports activities monitoring modes you possibly can choose from, the devoted operating programs designed for brand spanking new runners or the power to observe coronary heart charge and SpO2 ranges.

Like most smartwatches, there’s a lot to faucet into.

Mike Sawh

When you like spending most of your monitoring time outdoor, Xiaomi has included the power to view color, vector maps and use navigation options that may assist you get to the place you have to go or get you again dwelling. Getting maps onto the watch must be performed through a pc or pill, nonetheless.

Xiaomi additionally contains dual-band GPS, which is essentially the most superior GPS know-how presently cropping up on a spread of watches. I’ve used it for a spread of outside runs and information like distance monitoring and tempo had been just like devoted sports activities watches.

Mike Sawh

Away from health, you could have options like steady coronary heart charge and SpO2 monitoring, sleep and stress monitoring. The center charge information has been properly in keeping with different dependable units I wore alongside it.

Resting coronary heart charge information is analogous, with graphs exhibiting comparable locations the place that coronary heart charge spiked and dropped. Throughout train, the PPG sensor held up nicely towards a chest strap coronary heart charge monitor, as nicely.

For sleep monitoring, the Watch 5 will assess sleep high quality and assign you a sleep animal. It should additionally monitor sleep metric staples like sleep length, sleep phases, and hold tabs on coronary heart charge and blood oxygen ranges. I’ve been taking it to mattress with two different sleep trackers.

For information like sleep length and lightweight and deep sleep phases, the info matched up properly. Presentation of information for Xiaomi wearables hasn’t been a power through the years and that doesn’t change right here. The core monitoring, although, appears to be like good to make it sleep stats you’d need to take note of.

Battery Life & Charging

• As much as 6 days battery life
• As much as 4 days in always-on mode
• Energy-saving mode accessible

The Watch 5 packs a hefty 930mAh capability battery that Xiaomi says can last as long as 6 days in what it calls sensible mode. That’s mainly making use of its core smartwatch options. While you hold the show on always, that quantity drops to 4 days.

There’s additionally an influence saving mode, which turns off options like Wi-Fi and Google Gemini. Doing that will get you as much as 18 days of battery.

Mike Sawh

Everybody’s expertise will differ, however we do know that battery life on Put on OS smartwatches has been an issue with many solely lasting a day and subsequently needing to be charged each night time.

Issues have gotten higher and the Xiaomi Watch 5 is a testomony to that. I discovered I used to be getting 3-4 days in additional intensive use and will completely get near a full week with lighter use.

I undoubtedly discovered myself pondering much less in regards to the battery on the Watch 5 than I’ve when sporting most different Put on OS smartwatches.

Charging the watch is finished through a proprietary charging cradle. It’s fairly a big one that matches over the whole thing of the case again. I discovered it takes simply over an hour to get again as much as 100% from a totally flat watch.

Value & Availability

The Xiaomi Watch 5 formally went on sale in March 2026, priced at £269.99. That makes it Xiaomi’s most costly smartwatch, coming in at £120 greater than the Xiaomi Watch S5.

In Put on OS smartwatch phrases, that does make it a less expensive purchase than the most cost effective accessible Google Pixel Watch 4 mannequin. It’s additionally extra inexpensive than the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, too.

You should buy it from the official Xiaomi retailer in addition to the likes of Amazon.

Take a look at our checklist of one of the best smartwatches for our present prime 10 suggestions.

Do you have to purchase the Xiaomi Watch 5?

The Xiaomi Watch 5 provides a extra inexpensive path to the most recent that Google’s Put on OS software program than rivals from Samsung, OnePlus and Google itself.

The {hardware} is nice, the Xiaomi software program thrives are largely welcomed and the battery life performs nicely in Put on OS phrases.

Xiaomi additionally undercuts key rivals for the Watch 5’s worth, however there are downsides to contemplate. The design is obvious, it solely is available in two colors and at 47mm can be too giant for a lot of wrists. The software program additionally isn’t as user-friendly as rivals.

The primary purpose to purchase the Xiaomi Watch 5 is if you need comparable {hardware} to the massive names however at a cheaper price.