Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite

Better known by Indonesian consumers as a smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi has also spawned various other electronic products to meet consumer needs, or referred to as ecosystem products.

One of the newest products launched in Indonesia is Mi Watch Lite. This smartwatch, which is offered at an affordable price, features various smart features that are claimed to be useful for users, as well as a long-lasting battery.

In addition, Xiaomi also favors the design carried by the Mi Watch Lite, which is also as elegant as the design of a high-priced smartwatch. So, how is the user experience it offers? Check out our review below.
Regarding the design, the Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite comes with a square-shaped screen design, supporting the user’s display when wearing it. The dimensions of this smartwatch are also relatively small, so it looks pleasing to the eye when used by users with small wrists.

In addition, the weight of this device is also relatively light, weighing 35 grams, supporting comfort when used, because it gives the impression that we are not using it. Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite also comes with a soft rubber strap, which supports comfort when used for a long time.

Because the Mi Watch Lite strap material does not cause itching, especially when used to accompany activities that cause us to sweat. However, Xiaomi also allows you to replace this Mi Watch Lite strap with another option it provides, although it is sold separately.

In addition to the square-shaped touch screen, the Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite body comes with relatively thick bezels, especially at the top and bottom, causing the TFT-paneled watch screen to appear smaller.

However, the screen of this Xiaomi smartwatch comes with a size of 1.4 inches and a resolution of 300 x 300 pixels, so that the content on the screen appears smoother and quite clear. The screen of the Mi Watch Lite is only capable of displaying content on the screen for a short time, although this can be extended through the settings menu.

Unfortunately, the Mi Watch Lite screen is not supported by a protective layer, so you need to be extra careful when using it, or apply a scratch-resistant coating which can be purchased separately.

In this body with more rounded corners, the Mi Watch Lite only has one button to access the menu. And on the back of the screen, you’ll find the heart rate sensor and the pin connecting the charger to charge the battery.
Meanwhile, supporting the sporty impression of this watch strap, Xiaomi has also equipped the Mi Watch Lite with a 5 ATM certified water resistance feature, allowing it to be taken with it into water up to a depth of 50 meters.

Unfortunately, Xiaomi doesn’t provide Mi Watch Lite with an Always-On Display feature, so you need to move your wrist or tap the screen every time you want to see the time on the screen of this smartwatch.

The Mi Watch Lite screen is also less responsive, as we found the watch screen a bit slow in responding to finger touches, as well as animations that didn’t look smooth. We also found lags between touches and actions performed by the watch, including when scrolling the screen or pressing the menu button.

However, this does not interfere with the comfort when we use this smartwatch. The Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite also features an integrated GPS and an optical heart rate monitoring sensor.
For information, the GPS feature used by Mi Watch Lite is GPS+Glonass, an unconnected GPS. The presence of this GPS makes it easier for runners to track their sports activities, especially with relatively good accuracy, although not luxurious.

Apart from these features, the Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite is also equipped with a number of other sports modes, including indoor running, treadmill, trail running, indoor and outdoor cycling, open water swimming, pool swimming, cricket, hiking and freestyle sports.

Xiaomi has also equipped the Mi Watch Lite with a sleep tracking feature, capable of tracking total sleep time, depth, lightness and REM sleep. In addition, this feature also provides a value based on the results of sleep detection from 0-100.

To use Mi Watch Lite, you need to install the Xiaomi Wear companion app on your iPhone or Android smartphone. This application functions as a dashboard, displays the data obtained by the clock, as well as to organize and add content to the watch.
This app comes with a simple and fairly self-explanatory user interface, and it lets you download more Watchfaces or faces for your watch screen, although at the moment, the watchface options in this app are not very many.

On certain watchfaces, you can set the display configuration to show different information including displaying heart rate, battery percentage and step count. However, Mi Watch Lite does not support the installation of third-party apps so the watch’s functionality is limited to the built-in features of the device.

The Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite also has the ability to display notifications from the connected smartphone, and you can touch the notification to see what the notification contains in more detail, even if it’s not actionable.

Unfortunately, the notifications between the Mi Watch Lite and the smartphone don’t sync well, because the notifications still appear on one device when the other device has been removed. Hence, you need to clear notifications that are no longer needed on both devices.
The Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite also doesn’t allow you to answer calls from the device, although it does provide a button to reject incoming calls. You can also control the playback of music played from apps like Spotify on a connected smartphone from this watch.

When it comes to battery, Xiaomi claims the Mi Watch Lite can last up to nine days on a single charge, which was also evident during our tests. The battery of this device also only takes about an hour and a half to charge from 10 percent to 100 percent.

Conclusion

Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite is able to provide a good user experience, thanks to the support of various useful features as well as a comfortable design and light weight when used for a long time.

However, in our opinion, the battery life of the Mi Watch Lite is relatively short, considering that consumers today have high mobility and are often far from an electric socket. In addition, performance that feels a little slow and without the support of the Always On Display feature is also something we love about this smartwatch.

However, we can understand all these advantages and disadvantages because this device is marketed for Rp. 899,000.