Xiaomi’s Watch S3 Review: Affordably Affable

At a look

Skilled’s Score

Professionals

• Detachable bezels elevate look
• Easy-running software program
• Good battery life
• 5ATM waterproof

Cons

• Blended health monitoring efficiency
• Some options are Android-only

Our Verdict

The Xiaomi Watch S3 is a fairly solid-performing smartwatch with a nifty interchangeable bezel design that handles a mixture of core smartwatch smarts and well being and health monitoring properly sufficient to make it price strapping on.

Value When Reviewed

Unavailable within the US

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 Good Band 8 Professional, the S3 is a completely spherical smartwatch that allows you to whip the bezels on and off for various appears and consists of options you sometimes don’t anticipate finding on a watch at this value – simply £129.99 within the UK – like a dual-band GNSS mode to present outside train monitoring accuracy a lift.

It’s a smartwatch not striving to instantly compete with smartwatch huge hitters from Apple, Google and Samsung, however that doesn’t imply it desires to shortchange you on efficiency both. The Xiaomi Watch S3 definitely guarantees lots 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 somewhat 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 normal fare flurorubber strap that’s been comfy to put on and straightforward to get on and off.

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

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

The case physique is made out of an aluminium alloy with a stainless-steel bezel giving the watch a pleasant weight and that bezel does have a particular trick, which units the S3 other than rivals. You may shortly 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 instead, which definitely provides the S3 a extra eye-catching look. A pleasant added contact if you add in a brand new bezel ring is that it suggests a watch face to go with it.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Outdoors of that detachable bezel Xiaomi retains issues easy elsewhere. There are two bodily buttons that sit fairly flush with the correct 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 ranking 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
• Contains microphone and speaker

It’s all the time pleasing to discover a good high quality color display on an inexpensive 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 good always-on show mode to provide the finest degree of battery life by protecting the display on if you want it most.

There’s additionally a properly responsive raise-to-wake gesture assist if you happen to worth having extra battery life as an alternative.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

The show is vibrant and shiny 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, after all. You may carry up a keypad that fills the display and name high quality is nice sufficient to make it usable as a wrist-based cellphone, although it does wrestle in noisier environments.

Software program & Options 

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

In contrast to 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 good 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 full of info like coronary heart price, music controls and alarms. There’s no dangerous lag and the software program runs good and clean general.

There’s a clearly Apple-inspired, however definitely extra fundamental, 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 test 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. Notification assist works properly and is optimised to the S3’s display and whilst you can merely dismiss notifications, they’re good and straightforward to look and take in on the transfer.

Xiaomi presents a good array of core smartwatch options right here. You’ve acquired Amazon Alexa to tick the good assistant field, the onboard music participant is an Android-only function, 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 all the way down to the very well-functioning HyperOS, which reveals Xiaomi is listening and refining its working system.

The contactless fee assist that can solely work with Mastercard pay terminals which might 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 price monitor

The Watch S3 has the sensors and the modes to be a smartwatch that may do the whole lot from observe your coronary heart, sleep, runs, pool swims, assist you calm down with respiration workouts and even inform if you happen to’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 price sensor that guarantees a coronary heart price accuracy of 97.95%.

There’s an automated exercise recognition mode for actions like operating, strolling and indoor rowing and Xiaomi even manages to seek out room for a devoted ski mode. There’s built-in GPS to trace outside exercises and a dual-band GNSS mode to spice up outside 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.

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

When constantly monitoring coronary heart price, day by day resting coronary heart price averages had been properly according to Garmin’s very dependable monitoring and whereas most readings through the day didn’t totally match up, additionally they weren’t wildly out both.

If you take the watch to mattress you’re going to seize sleep length, sleep phases together with REM, common coronary heart price 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, the most effective sleep trackers I’ve examined. The presentation of the info within the Mi Health app is fairly fundamental, however that’s not essentially a nasty factor right here and makes it simpler to glean on probably the most helpful stats.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

When it comes to sports activities monitoring, you have got 150 sports activities modes to choose from and that features pool swimming, outside biking, mountaineering and, after all, operating. Runners may also profit from accessing operating programs to get new runners accustomed to several types 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 outside monitoring accuracy when utilizing the watch close to tall buildings, deeply forested areas and adversarial climate. This can be a key purpose 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 operating 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 out of doors runs, it underreported distance on all of our runs and the typical tempo timing wasn’t fairly proper both. Coronary heart price monitoring accuracy wasn’t nice in any respect, with common and max readings properly off from the gold normal monitoring on a coronary heart price monitor chest strap. Right here’s hoping these points will be improved with software program updates however don’t rely 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 in opposition to two different swim trackers for metrics like distance coated and common tempo, although stroke counts appeared somewhat off.

Whereas that knowledge primarily lives inside the Mi Health app, Xiaomi does let you ship that knowledge to Strava and now Suunto, and it did that with no downside and in a speedy vogue to the previous.

For those who’re planning to work out solo otherwise you like the concept of elevating the alarm if you happen to get into bother, 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 kind 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 if 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 evaluation and even Xiaomi’s personal Watch 2.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

For those who’re planning to maintain the display set to always-on then that quantity drops to five days and if you happen to’re utilizing options like probably the most superior well being monitoring assist, that can contribute to a extra noticeable drop in battery.

I’ve discovered that day by 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 price monitoring and utilizing GPS. Switching the display to always-on averages out to round 2-3 days. 

Whereas not hitting these promised numbers, having a smartwatch that may final properly over per week continues to be a superb displaying. You even have the added bonus of a really swift fast cost mode that can high you up with two days of watch day off a 5-minute cost.

Value & Availability

The Xiaomi Watch S3 was introduced in February 2024, alongside the Xiaomi Good 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 at present 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 below 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 evaluation once they go on sale.

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

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Must you purchase the Xiaomi Watch S3?

The Xiaomi Watch S3 is a pleasing smartwatch to stay with and decide up if you happen to’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.

If you look in and across the value of the Xiaomi Watch S3, it’s up in opposition to 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 appears as 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 gained’t discover dual-band GPS assist on these different watches, which might swing it for runners although I discovered discrepancies within the different monitoring knowledge.

The Xiaomi Watch S3 is without doubt one of the strongest choices at that extra inexpensive finish of the market, whether or not you’re an iPhone or an Android person, particularly if you happen to worth a handsome, spherical design with scope to tinker with that look.

Specs

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