It’s no secret that battery life has always been the Achilles’ heel of Wear OS smartwatches, so when Xiaomi announced its Watch 5 with a massive 930mAh silicon-carbon (Si-C) battery, we were immediately intrigued. With a battery life of up to 6 days of regular use, which extends to 18 days in power saving mode, Watch 5 offers the longest battery life of any Android smartwatch on the wrist.
In addition to the lofty battery claims, Xiaomi has also equipped the Watch 5 with a large 1.54″ AMOLED touchscreen protected by sapphire glass and a high-quality stainless steel casing. This is also the first smartwatch we’ve tested with a muscle-reading EMG sensor, which opens up a variety of gesture-based controls.
Xiaomi Watch 5 Specifications:
- Dimensions: 47×47×12.3mm
- Build: Sapphire crystal glass, stainless steel structure (316L)
- Weight (without strap): 56 grams
- Straps: 22mm detachable straps, adjustable length 135-205mm
- Display: 1.54″ AMOLED touchscreen, 480 x 480 px resolution, 60 Hz refresh rate, 1,500 nit maximum brightness, always-on display (AOD), sapphire glass, Mohs level 9
- Chipsets: Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 (4nm), BES2800 coprocessor (6nm).
- Memory: 32GB internal; 2 GB of RAM
- Operating Systems: Google Wear 6 operating system, Xiaomi Vela operating system
- Characteristics: 5 ATM rating (50m depth), Real-time heart rate monitor, 24/7 blood oxygen level monitoring, Sleep monitoring, Stress monitoring, Sports monitoring, Pedometer, Meditation, Notifications, Inactivity alert, Phone search, Weather forecast, Music and camera control, Alarm clock, Stopwatch, Linear vibration motor
- Sports Modes: Outdoor Running, Indoor Running, Outdoor Walking, Cycling, Hiking, Pool Swimming, Skipping Rope, Freestyle (150+ in Mi Fitness App)
- Sensors: Optical heart rate sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, ambient light sensor, electronic compass sensor, barometer sensor, IMU sensor, EMG sensor
- Connectivity: Compatible with Android 6.0+, Bluetooth 5.4, Wi-Fi 2.4GHz, NFC, dual-band L1+L5 GNSS, microphone and speakers
- Drums: 930mAh Si-C
- Colors: Black, Juniper Green
We’ve put the Watch 5 to the test and are finally ready to share our findings.
Summary:
Project
Xiaomi Watch 5 leans on the traditional watch aesthetic with a fairly sober design. But one thing was immediately apparent as soon as I strapped it on my wrist: it’s a substantial unit. My everyday Huawei Watch Fit 3 immediately felt like a toy compared to the Watch 5.
At 56 grams (without strap), Xiaomi’s flagship watch is even heavier than the Huawei Watch GT 6 Pro, which was my last encounter with a larger-sized wrist wearable. Once you get used to its size, the Watch 5 doesn’t disappoint as the substantial weight and size combine with the reassuring feel of a premium, well-built device.
The polished stainless steel casing also adds a premium feel and is nicely complemented by the rotating crown pusher, which features a textured surface and tactile clicks. The programmable hotkey below also makes a firm click, which launches the workout app by default.
The 1.54″ AMOLED touchscreen of the Watch 5 offers great viewing angles with crisp, vibrant output and sufficiently thin bezels. It is protected by a layer of sapphire glass, which is also used on the back side, where we have the sensors. It also offers thousands of dial options with different designs and many free options, most of which also offer AOD functionality.
The unboxing experience is rather uneventful with the box contents boiling down to a two-pin magnetic charging puck, terminating in a USB-A connection. We think it’s time for Xiaomi to address this last part by offering a modular drive like on the OnePlus Watch 3 or implementing a USB-C connector at the end.
The Watch 5 comes with a standard 22mm silicone strap, which you can easily replace with any other design. Our review unit sports the juniper green hue and has a nice textured pattern.
Software and features
Like recent flagship smartwatches from Oppo and OnePlus, the Xiaomi Watch 5 takes a dual chipset, dual OS approach to extend its lifespan. You get the yesteryear flagship Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 chip, which, even though it’s several years old at this point, is still a powerful and capable SoC for a wrist-worn wearable. Xiaomi has combined it with the proven BES2800 coprocessor, which takes over when dealing with less intensive tasks.
It’s important to note that the Watch 5 also uses a secondary real-time operating system (RTOS) that integrates Google’s Wear OS 6. Enabling Power Saving Mode turns off Wear OS and all its third-party apps and leaves you with Xiaomi’s barebones Vela OS.
The latter still provides the basic smartwatch experience, including status tracking and a smaller list of proprietary apps, significantly extending battery life. By the way, switching back to Smart mode forces the watch to restart, so you’ll be left with a few minutes of inactivity when you switch between them.
Wear OS is still arguably the most feature-rich wrist wearable operating system around. You’ll feel right at home using an Android phone, with all your favorite apps just a download away from the Play Store. There’s the age-old limitation of not having iOS support on board, but it’s the same thing on the other side, with Apple Watches not wanting to play nice with Android phones.
Outside of ecosystem talk, Wear OS 6 features Google’s Material 3 Expressive design with system-wide color themes, improved touch optimization, new tile designs, and native integration with Google Gemini. The setup process on the Watch 5 involves downloading Xiaomi’s Mi Fitness app onto your Android phone and pairing the Watch 5 together with your Google account, while also agreeing to a long list of permissions before you can get started.
From that point on, you’re pretty much free to use the Watch 5 as you see fit.
Want to watch NBA highlights on your wrist? Move forward.
Read the latest tech news and compare specs on GSMArena? No problem.
Do you play minigames? You are free to do all this and more. To use the cliché, “the possibilities are endless,” and Wear OS certainly seems like a fun experience if you’ve used less powerful smartwatches.
For the most part, Wear OS is great, although it has some slowdowns if you open more intensive apps. We noticed similar cases when loading YouTube videos via the Samsung Internet browser or navigating more complex web pages with a lot of multimedia content. It goes without saying that this type of use also affects battery life.
Xiaomi Watch 5 is also the first smartwatch on the market with an electromyography (EMG) sensor. It can detect muscle activity within the hand and capture nerve signals from the fingers to control certain aspects of the user interface by pinching the index finger and thumb.
You can ignore notifications, answer calls, turn off alarms or take photos on your connected smartphone, all without physically touching the watch or Digital Crown. We should note that your hand should be parallel to your chest while performing these gestures, and as you can expect, there are more than a few times where the watch didn’t register the input.
In addition to pinch gestures, the Watch 5 also supports finger snaps, wrist flicks, and rotations, and you’re free to assign any of these gestures as shortcuts to launch any app on the watch, including third-party ones. This is quite useful in cases where you have dirty hands, although we are sure that some users will simply see this feature as a gimmick and will never activate it.
The Xiaomi Watch 5 is also capable of making and receiving calls from your paired phone via Bluetooth, but Xiaomi doesn’t offer a cellular connectivity option outside of China, so you’ll have to keep your phone nearby. Call quality is pretty good for a watch, with people on the other end reporting clear reception of my voice.
Thanks to built-in NFC, the Watch 5 is also great for contact payments and can also store compatible transport cards via Google Wallet. We’re happy to report that we encountered no connectivity issues between the watch and paired Android phone during the review period.
Health and activity monitoring
Health monitoring
Like any modern smartwatch, the Xiaomi Watch 5 comes with a full suite of health tracking features. Heart rate, blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), sleep and stress monitoring are all present, and Xiaomi also offers a comprehensive one-touch health check.
This 60-second assessment takes into account your heart rate, blood oxygen, stress levels, sleep duration, sleep heart rate, and sleep SpO2 for a quick and easy assessment of your overall well-being. Cross-comparing health data readings with competing smartwatches shows consistent results. It should be noted that these are nothing more than general health insights and not medical-level assessments.
In terms of sleep tracking, the Watch 5 performed better than previous smartwatches with more accurate bedtime and wake-up times. The Watch 5 also detected cases of waking up at night, which was a problem on previous Xiaomi Watch models. You also have access to the usual sleep breakdown of REM, deep and light sleep phases.
Xiaomi also offers a sleep improvement plan developed in collaboration with the World Sleep Society, the Asian Society of Sleep Medicine and the Chinese Sleep Research Society. It will help you improve your sleep in 21 days by pushing you to set specific goals for going to sleep and waking up and offering tips on how to get better rest.
Activity monitoring
The Watch 5 has no shortage of sports tracking data. Xiaomi boasts new professional algorithms for running, cycling and hiking. Runners will find general metrics such as pace, heart rate, elevation and details on running dynamics. The workouts are also supplemented by values for training intensity, VO2 maximum and suggested recovery time. Unfortunately, there is no heart rate variability (HRV) option.
In our tests, the Watch 5 provides accurate data on workout intensity, heart rate, and calories burned during casual gym sessions, treadmill runs, and bike rides. Serious athletes will still want dedicated equipment like a heart rate monitor and a Garmin watch. The Watch 5’s dual-band GPS receiver tends to struggle with accuracy in crowded urban spaces, but does a better job of plotting routes in open areas.
You’re also free to load offline maps, which is great for hiking, and thanks to Wear OS, your favorites like AllTrails and Strava are just a click away right on the watch.
Battery life
The only feature that stands out to you about the Xiaomi Watch 5 is its massive 930 mAh battery. This is a Xiaomi Surge battery with stacked cell technology, which allows Xiaomi to fill irregular shapes (like round smartwatches) while also incorporating 10% silicon-carbon content.
And the results are quite impressive.
With the Watch 5 set to Smart mode and with Wear OS 6 with auto brightness, constant Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, notifications, all-day health monitoring (including sleep), we got 5 whole days of use before finally giving up on day 6 around 11am.
That means constant tinkering, three 60-minute gym workouts, and pushing the clock to the limit throughout the day. And if you don’t need third-party apps and just want notifications along with health and activity tracking, you can realistically extend the total run time to over two weeks with the power saving mode.
Verdict
The Xiaomi Watch 5 isn’t trying to be the flashiest smartwatch on the market and instead focuses on getting the fundamentals right while offering class-leading battery life.
You get a premium build, crisp display, smooth performance, and a complete Wear OS 6 experience. But what really sets it apart is the battery life, which has always been a downside of Wear OS watches. The Watch 5’s massive 930mAh Si-C battery is capable of lasting a full 5-day work week between charges, which is a significant improvement over the competition.
It’s not perfect. Our international version does not offer cellular connectivity nor does it carry ECG or HRV monitoring. The charger seems outdated, and there’s no wireless charging option you’d expect from a flagship smartwatch. And perhaps the biggest drawback is the size, which is definitely not for everyone’s wrist.
But these are relatively minor inconveniences in the grand scheme of things. Priced at €276/£238 currently on Amazon, the Xiaomi Watch 5 is an easy recommendation if you’re looking for a new Wear OS 6 smartwatch with great battery life.
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