Introduction
The easiest way to compete within the premium smartwatch market is to hitch Google’s Put on OS (or be an Apple Watch), or so Xiaomi thought because it was designing the Watch 2 Professional. The transfer opens up the Play Retailer and all of its apps, whereas the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 platform – a giant 4nm step up from the S1 Professional – takes issues up an extra notch. The chipset is a rarity amongst Put on OS watches exterior of the Mobvoi TicWatch Professional 5.
The transfer to a correct OS additionally implies that the Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional lasts about two days, whereas the watch it replaces had its battery life measured in weeks. That’s a giant draw back the added smarts have to justify. However let’s recalibrate for a second – the Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional will now compete with the strongest Put on OS watches – the Galaxy Watch6 and Watch5, the simply introduced Pixel Watch 2, and the Fossils and Skagens of the world.
To face out Xiaomi has packed dual-band GPS into the Watch 2 Professional, making it a a lot better tracker than its single-band friends. The opposite differentiator is the practically 500mAh battery, which Xiaomi touts will last as long as 65 hours.
Xiaomi’s watch has the instruments but it surely additionally has model and begins at simply €270. If that’s not sufficient so that you can think about the Watch 2 Professional critically, learn on to knwo extra about it.
Design and construct high quality
The Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional is a classic-looking timepiece. It is available in both Black with a black fluororubber strap or silver with a brown leather-based strap. Each fashions function chrome steel casing with a black high bezel and a “Parisian hobnail” textured aspect. The silver mannequin is definately extra attention-grabbing due to the contrasting black bezel.
There are three buttons on the fitting of the watch. The highest and backside are recessed, whereas the crown within the center stands outward. It’s a rotating crown with a really clean vary of movement. There’s a little bit knurled ring on the base of the crown to assist your finger discover buy. It’s a well-thought-out design with consideration to element.
The highest button at all times opens up the exercises display screen. The underside button brings up the final opened app with a press, launches Google Pay with a double press, and opens the shutdown menu with a protracted press. The crown opens and closes the app grid with a press and summons Google Assistant with a protracted press. You can too wake the Assistant with a voice command.
We have now the black mannequin and it’s a fingerprint magnet. The silver mannequin seems shinier however we guess it should cover smudges higher.
The show is a 1.43-inch 466x466px AMOLED with 600 nit max brightness. It’s a beautiful factor to have a look at with the everyday punchy colours and very good distinction of an OLED. The glass sits barely recessed under the case’s bezel, which suggests it’s tougher to scratch. And that is necessary, since in contrast to the S1 Professional the Watch 2 Professional misses on the sapphire crystal.
The watch face performs an enormous position within the design of the watch. There are 23 watch faces to select from and 1000’s of third-party choices within the Google Play retailer. Xiaomi’s customized faces are high-quality and customizable – you’re assured to seek out one thing you want.
The case comes with commonplace twin lug straps on both aspect with 22mm width. That is by far the preferred commonplace for this watch dimension and it means your entire commonplace straps will work plus you’ll have an enormous alternative of third-party choices at your disposal. Xiaomi provides extra straps in 3 supplies and 4 colours.
The fluororubber watch strap could be very mushy to the contact and has nice elasticity. It lacks some solidity and could possibly be heavier, although. The buckle feels of high quality.
The vibration motor of the Watch 2 Professional could be very sturdy. That’s each a constructive and a unfavourable – it’s a bit jarring at instances and we’d love a granular slider to manage the energy of the vibration. The rotating crown has a beautiful delicate haptic suggestions.
The underside of the watch holds all of the sensors – optical coronary heart price, pores and skin temperature and the brand new Bioelectrical impedance evaluation sensor – one thing solely Samsung has thus far supplied on a watch. The underside can be the place you’ll discover the 2 pins for the proprietary charger. We would want a common wi-fi charging puck, however even worse – the Watch 2 Professional’s charger requires the watch to face a sure approach, which isn’t handy for nightstand use.
Put on OS
The Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional ships with Put on OS 3.5, the penultimate model of the OS. At present, solely Samsung’s newest smartwatches run Put on OS 4, although with the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 platform, it’s secure to say the Watch 2 Professional will finally get the replace.
The transfer to Google’s wearable working system means the Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional has entry to the whole library of watch apps, together with YouTube, Spotify, Google Maps, Google Pay, and lots of others. That is probably the most succesful wearable OS exterior of Watch OS.
You additionally get Google Assistant with voice or button activation. That is the entire Assistant expertise – you possibly can ask the Assistant something, activate the flashlight, ring your telephone or what not.
The Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional is managed by gestures as is the norm with this stuff. You swipe on both aspect of the watch face for the completely different widgets you will have. A swipe from the underside opens up the toggles (although it will’ve felt extra pure as a swipe from the highest), whereas a swipe from the highest brings down the notifications. Press the crown to open the apps, that are specified by a honeycomb-style grid by default, however you may also go for the record view with the identify on the aspect of the icon.
Google Pay is a superb good thing about Put on OS. It’s easy to arrange – obtain the Google Pockets app and enroll your fee card. Take into account that your card issuer must assist Google Pay. From there you double press the underside button and pay. One downside of Google Pay is it requires your watch to have a passcode. Smartwatches don’t but have fancy face or fingerprint scanning and tapping on a tiny digital numeric pad whereas on the go is a tedious process.
You may management some points of the Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional in your telephone. Much like what Samsung does, Xiaomi requires you to get its personal customized app – Mi Health. It aggregates your entire well being information, and exercises, and has a bit devoted to the watch you’re utilizing.
You may change most issues out of your telephone, together with the watch face, accounts, and apps, and in addition change health and well being monitoring settings. The place the app underwhelms is the shortage of any type of backup and restore function. If you want to change telephones, you’d have to reset the watch and set it up anew.
Notification dealing with is great on the Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional. You may select which apps can ship notifications and you’ll reply with the same old set of choices – ship an emoji, like a message, ship a voice message, and even kind a response on a tiny QWERTY keyboard proper there in your wrist.
Health and well being monitoring
The Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional is an all-around glorious tracker for each health and well being. It helps over 150 sports activities modes with detailed evaluation and training suggestions. The twin-band GPS makes use of each the broader L1 and the quicker and extra correct L5 band to offer monitoring accuracy inside the meter.
In observe, it takes about half to a full minute for the GPS to lock on when you begin an outside run. You may nonetheless run throughout that point but it surely’s higher to attend to get probably the most correct studying.
We did some meticulous testing of the GPS – we ran to see how precisely it measured our velocity, then abruptly stopped to see how briskly it acknowledged we would stopped transferring. It was in a short time to register all modifications. Then we checked our actions on the map and located the Watch 2 Professional to be very correct.
The watch can be 5ATM waterproof so it’s positive for swimming.
You get a really detailed rundown of your exercise in Mi Health. The app offers you all the fundamental stuff like the space, the time, the tempo, your coronary heart price beats per minute and excessive and low, in addition to your total steps. You get elevation information, and a positive breakdown of your coronary heart rhythm throughout the run – mild, intensive, cardio, anaerobic, and your VO₂ max time.
Sleep monitoring can be very detailed. The watch displays your sleep cycles – Deep, Gentle, REM – and provides you a breakdown of your waking time. All of those are highlighted with extra info – whether or not your deep sleep is sufficient, whether or not your mild sleep or wakefulness is simply too excessive. The watch will complement the monitoring with respiratory information and blood oxygen throughout the night time.
The Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional is the primary watch to match Samsung’s Galaxy Watch sequence and provide a bioelectrical impedance sensor. It is advisable begin a studying, faucet each buttons along with your index and center finger and keep nonetheless. The watch then offers you a breakdown of your physique in percentages of fats, water, salts, and protein, and inform you your muscle mass and your fats mass in kilograms. You additionally get the general BMI quantity.
Measuring this reviewer’s BMI on the watch matched the quantity from his Withings Physique+ good scale, however then that is primarily based solely on enter weight and top. The fats mass studying was larger on the smartwatch than it’s on the dimensions, although these type of evaluation makes an attempt are inherently inaccurate. They’ll serve for monitoring your progress if you happen to handle to get readings on related hidration ranges.
There’s additionally in-depth menstrual cycle monitoring, all-day blood oxygen monitoring, and respiratory workout routines.
We might debate whether or not a smartwatch is correct sufficient at its dimension to compete with skilled health and well being monitoring instruments. However the concept is to pack as a lot useful information into as fairly and purposeful a bundle as doable.
Because of its dual-band GPS and its top-tier choice of sensors, the Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional is an ideal on a regular basis companion for the wellness-minded.
Battery life
The Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional has a 495mAh battery, which 70mAh greater than the Galaxy Watch6 Basic and really hardly ever crushed – final 12 months’s Watch5 Professional has a 590mAh, whereas the TicWatch 5 Professional has a 628mAh unit. Apparently, the TicWatch 5 Professional claims the identical 65 hours of runtime because the Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional.
We didn’t get the above two days promised however we did get two full days of strong use. Meaning carrying the Watch 2 Professional all day with the always-on show enabled, notifications on, a exercise within the night, a full night time’s sleep monitoring, after which a run within the morning. The watch went on the charger at midday with round 26% battery left.
That’s strong efficiency for a Put on OS smartwatch but it surely isn’t wherever close to what a proprietary OS smartwatch, just like the Huawei Watch GT 4 can do.
Conclusion
We just like the Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional. It’s a handsome smartwatch, if a bit boring within the Black we acquired. Get the silver mannequin for a bit extra model and possibly get a couple of straps and also you’re taking a look at a fairly timepiece.
Xiaomi’s transfer to Put on OS and the 4nm Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 means the Watch 2 Professional is responsive, good and fully-featured, and futureproof. It’s additionally aggressive towards high rivals from Mobvoi, Samsung, and Huawei (Apple Watch followers reside in their very own world and don’t take care of spherical watches).
However the Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional’s largest draw is its value. It begins at €270 for the Bluetooth mannequin and goes as much as €330 in order for you LTE. Examine that to the Galaxy Watch6 Basic’s €449 and €499 or the Mobvoi TicWatch Professional 5’s value of €360 and also you see simply how aggressive the Xiaomi smartwatch is. Now, Huawei throws a spanner within the works with the €270 Watch GT 4 but it surely lacks Put on OS.
The Xiaomi Watch 2 Professional makes super sense for the entire bundle, fashionable design, and really cheap asking value. There’s nothing it may’t do and it will get our suggestion.
