Budget smartwatch punches above its weight

The Redmi Watch 2 Lite is an inexpensive smartwatch that is promising to punch above its funds price ticket. The Xiaomi-owned firm launched the primary era Redmi Watch within the first half of 2021 and its father or mother firm dished out a really similar-looking Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite, which we reviewed earlier this 12 months, simply months later.

The Watch 2 provides a sq. smartwatch look that works with iPhones and Android telephones, providing options like a colour show, steady coronary heart fee and SpO2 monitoring, built-in GPS, 24/7 health monitoring and over every week of battery life.

It’s priced at a really inexpensive £59.99 within the UK, however there is no particulars of US pricing and availability simply but. That works out to round $80 and places it within the value vary of smartwatches just like the TicWatch GTH and the Amazfit Bip U Pro, winner of Best Affordable Smartwatch award on the 2021 Wareable Tech Awards.

The extra inexpensive finish of the smartwatch market is extra aggressive than it has ever been with Amazfit, Xiaomi, Realme, Mobvoi and even Huawei searching for to supply the most suitable choice underneath £100/$100.

We’ve been placing the Redmi Watch 2 Lite by way of its paces to see if this can be a low-cost smartwatch price contemplating. Here’s our full verdict.

Redmi Watch 2 Lite: Design and display screen

We’ve alluded to it already, however the Redmi Watch 2 Lite seems to be so much just like the Xiaomi Watch Lite, with the same sized sq. watch case, and a touchscreen that at the beginning look, feels equivalent.

Once you spend a bit extra time with it although, you may really admire that there are some variations right here between the Xiaomi and the Redmi smartwatches that really for us make the Watch 2 Lite extra pleasing on the attention and to dwell with.

You get a 41mm matte end plastic case which you could decide up in black, ivory or blue. That’s partnered with a TPU strap, which has a pleasant easy end, and has been snug to put on day and evening and through train.

It’s a watch that carries a 5ATM waterproof score, which does imply you may swim and bathe with it, although apparently not in sizzling showers in line with Xiaomi.

There’s only a solitary bodily button the aspect of the case to show get up and switch off the touchscreen show, however it’s not a crisp AMOLED one you will discover on premium smartwatches. It’s a 1.5-inch, 320×360 TFT show, which is definitely larger and provides the next decision in comparison with the Xiaomi Watch Lite.

You’re actually not getting these deep blacks and wealthy colours you will discover on an AMOLED, however colors actually aren’t horribly washed out, the black bezel across the display screen is properly hidden and it is really a surprisingly good show to look at.

When you are tapping and swiping on that display screen, responsiveness is ok, however there’s some lagginess when scrolling by way of screens and your notification feed. It’s not the worst we have seen at this value, however it’s actually not a buttery easy expertise.

It’s a neat and tidy smartwatch in look. Crucially does not really feel low-cost, the display screen within reason good high quality, and it’s one you must have the ability to put on 24/7 indoors and outside no drawback.

Redmi Watch 2 Lite: Smartwatch options

Unlike some funds smartwatches, the Watch 2 Lite does work with iOS and Android units and our expertise was spent largely with the latter.

You’ll have to obtain the Xiaomi Wear app or the Wear Lite app for iOS customers, which does nonetheless really feel a bit amateurish in locations by way of the presentation, however is straightforward to look at your health and well being stats, observe out of doors exercises, and tinker with watch settings.

Once you are arrange, which is one thing that was good and painless to do, it is price heading into this app, significantly if you wish to make sure that options like notifications and incoming name alerts are enabled in addition to among the extra superior well being monitoring options.

It’s additionally right here the place you may pick new watch faces. There are simply 4 preloaded onto the watch, however there’s a big assortment that is obtainable to obtain through the app.

It’s a powerful assortment of watch faces too, however we predict the digital-style watch faces really feel like the very best match right here.

On the watch, you may swipe down from the principle watch display screen to view new notifications and you’ll clearly see the place notifications have come from.

You cannot act on them, however we would positively say notifications are properly optimised to the display screen and are dealt with a lot better than different funds smartwatches.

Hit that bodily button and also you’re booted into the principle app display screen the place you may see further options like climate updates, music playback controls, timers, a distant smartphone digital camera shutter management and the flexibility to set controls.

We discovered music playback controls and the climate updates probably the most helpful of the smartwatch options exterior of notifications. While you are not getting the richest smartwatch expertise right here, what you do get works very properly.

The gesture-based UI on the proprietary software program is straightforward to familiarize yourself with, so dwelling with it is not a taxing time. You do should dwell with these laggy, barely gradual moments scrolling by way of screens, however it’s an inexpensive smartwatch that performs solidly on this division.

Redmi Watch 2 Lite: Sports and health monitoring

In that small sq. physique, Redmi packs in honest quantity and proves you do not have to spend huge to get some huge well being, health and sports activities monitoring options.

We’ll begin with the very fact you are getting an optical coronary heart fee sensor to constantly measure coronary heart fee day and evening, measure throughout train and it powers stress monitoring right here too. There’s now the addition of steady blood oxygen monitoring and it’ll observe steps and sleep routinely too. You’re additionally getting guided respiration workout routines and feminine well being monitoring right here too.

For train monitoring, there’s entry to over 100 exercise modes and that features core sports activities like operating, biking and pool swimming together with indoor actions like rowing, HIIT and skipping. For out of doors monitoring, Redmi is together with help for GPS, Glonass, Galileo and BDS satellite tv for pc programs to enhance accuracy monitoring for out of doors runs and rides. We must also add that whereas knowledge primarily lies within the Xiaomi Wear app, it’s appropriate with Strava too, which is good to see.

So how properly does the Watch 2 Lite carry out? Well, we would say really not that dangerous general, however if you would like supreme accuracy on all fronts, unsurprisingly, you are not going to get that right here.

For exercise monitoring, there’s loads of watch faces to point out off day by day progress for step counts and calorie burn with a devoted watch widget that appears like Apple’s Rings sliced in half to look at steps and day by day exercise stats. We discovered day by day step counts on the whole have been inside 500 steps of the monitoring on the Fitbit Charge 5 and also you do get common inactivity alerts in the course of the day to maintain you transferring.

Sleep monitoring in contrast: Redmi Watch 2 Lite (left) and Fitbit Charge 5 (proper)

Switching to sleep and together with a devoted app to view most up-to-date sleep stats, the companion app will present you sleep levels and period together with common coronary heart fee and blood oxygen. To get probably the most superior sleep monitoring expertise, which incorporates monitoring REM sleep, that must be enabled within the app first.

We discovered sleep monitoring knowledge a little bit of a mixture bag. It tended to file over an hour of extra sleep time in comparison with the Fitbit Charge 5 and the Whoop 4.0, although knowledge like sleeping coronary heart fee and blood oxygen measurements felt largely dependable.

The knowledge does not look the prettiest within the app, however the knowledge is correct sufficient, regardless of there being few actual helpful actionable insights/

Sleeping coronary heart fee in contrast: Redmi Watch 2 Lite (left) and Fitbit Charge 5 (proper)

While sleeping coronary heart fee impressed, coronary heart fee monitoring in the course of the day appeared a bit extra unreliable, tagging us on the whole with a resting coronary heart fee 10bpm over our regular. You”re additionally getting stress knowledge, which is powered by coronary heart fee variability measurements, which urged there weren’t very many worrying elements of our day, however does not provide any actually helpful insights round why it is monitoring your stress.

Flipping issues over to sports activities monitoring and we have run outside, taken it into the pool and used it for indoor rowing periods and located the Watch 2 carried out surprisingly properly.

GPS monitoring in contrast: Redmi Watch 2 Lite (left) and Garmin Enduro (proper)

As a operating watch, you may arrange alerts based mostly on time and distance and set objectives based mostly on time, calorie and distance. After a 3-second countdown you may scroll by way of to see data like tempo, common tempo, coronary heart fee, stride, cadence and knowledge out of your earlier kilometre.

On runs, regardless of that multi-system satellite tv for pc help, was nonetheless somewhat off on the space monitoring, however it wasn’t horrible, although positively clocked us going at a slower tempo in comparison with a Garmin Enduro. Total calorie burn totals have been comparable in our comparability exams although. Digging into coronary heart fee, and for regular runs, it held up fairly properly towards a Garmin HRM-Pro chest strap monitor. Pick up the depth, and like a number of optical sensors, it does wrestle to maintain up with a chest strap monitor. Plus, you do not have the flexibility to pair it up with an exterior sensor to treatment that.

HR monitoring in contrast: Redmi Watch 2 Lite (left) and Garmin HRM-Pro chest strap monitor (proper)

In the pool, it recorded comparable distance monitoring totals in comparison with the correct swim monitoring on the Finis Smart Swim goggles, however once more clocked us hitting a slower common tempo. It precisely recognised swim stroke sort and variety of lengths and you will get further stats for stroke fee and SWOLF within the companion app.

Pool swim monitoring in contrast: Redmi Watch 2 Lite (left) and Finis Smart Goggles (proper)

The expertise of utilizing it within the pool is sweet as properly. When you begin monitoring a session, the display screen will probably be locked and nonetheless regulate variety of lengths and tempo. Unlike a number of smartwatches too, if you happen to unintentionally file a session, it will not needlessly reserve it.

Tracking for indoor exercises labored properly too on the entire, letting you see further metrics for actions like rowing and skipping. You may even pause for rests and arrange intervals together with viewing stroke and bounce counts.

We’d really say that the sports activities monitoring and health monitoring on the Watch 2 Lite beats some pricier watches in lots of respects for the reliability of core knowledge. It’s actually not with out its faults, like monitoring coronary heart fee at excessive depth and it is a disgrace there is not some extra actionable insights round your knowledge.

Given what you are paying right here, the Redmi Watch 2 Lite really does a stable job.

Redmi Watch 2 Lite: Battery life

The Redmi Watch 2 Lite packs a 262mAh capability battery, which Redmi states is able to getting you as much as 10 days battery life in typical utilization mode and defines typical utilization as sampling coronary heart fee knowledge in 30-minute intervals, disabling superior sleep monitoring, all-day stress monitoring and simply 35 minutes of GPS use in every week.

In extra heavy use, the Watch 2 Lite will go for as much as 5 days. Our testing time positively veered extra on the heavy aspect and we would say these battery claims are correct.

With notifications enabled, steady coronary heart fee monitoring, blood oxygen monitoring and utilizing the GPS to trace half-hour to an hour size exercises, we noticed drop-off of round 20% a day. Using the GPS to trace over an hour of operating noticed battery drop by slightly below 10%, which is not too dangerous a exhibiting for a funds smartwatch.

It’s a smartwatch that may actually get you every week’s price of time in between costs, which is the minimal we have come to anticipate at this value level. If you are not fussed about having steady well being monitoring options enabled or the richest sleep monitoring, this watch reveals it has some stable stamina.