Xiaomi Redmi Watch 3 - Black (UK Version + 2 Years Warranty)

For the price it's a decent smart'ish' watch.Has a big bright amoled screen with quite a decent resolution. Better than most watches at higher price points.It's super smooth and fast, and it does all the basic things you'd expect competently.Impressive battery , at time of writing it's 50% after 5 and a half days of actively wearing it, so should last at least 10 which is a huge step up from my Garmin which lasts 3 days or my partners I watch which last one dayGripes.though the watch looks nice , the materials are cheap in comparison to an apple, Garmin etcThe heart rate monitor isn't a constant read exactly, it's more once every minute.maybe to save batteryThe app it's kinda lame and lacking, as is the watch faces. Can't use Google on this so you're stuck with a selection of so so faces the redmi app gives you .Overall the best you'll get at this price point

Compared to my old Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2, the build quality of the Redmi Watch 3 Active seems on par with it and the build of the Samsung was pretty much excellent.Saying that I've only had an afternoon with the Redmi but the watch seems to be a solid performer, I charged it to 100% and it's down to 98% since taking it off charge around 3:30pm and it's now 9:50pm at the time of writing this sentence.During that time I've fiddled with it constantly, settings, watchfaces, blood oxygen, stress and heart rate readings, it's been receiving notifications from my phone constantly, I've made a couple of phone calls directly from the watch and I've recorded a short bike ride directly from the watch as well - the battery seems to hold out well but only time will tell.-----BATTERY UPDATE--------Since my very first charge, I've worn the watch constantly, I've taken a few calls using the watch exclusively, constant daily notifications, I've worn the watch to bed every night with the advanced sleep and breathing tracking on plus the blood oxygen tracker set to all day tracking. I've been on a walk and several bike commutes - all recorded by the watch. All in all the watch lasted 6 days on my initial charge - nothing was optimised, I had no need for the battery saver option - I've owned quite a few smart-watches over the years and in terms of battery life the Redmi Watch 3 outlasted my old Pebble Time and came behind my MK1 Pebble. Both Pebble watches were very primitive in comparison to the Redmi Watch 3 so in my opinion the battery life is far better than I expected.-----------------The screen is just as vibrant as my old Samsung, it seems more responsive as well, the menus were a little daunting to begin with but once I got used to them they seem well thought out, menu items seem snappy and easy to select, this is a surprising improvement over my old Samsung watch.One of the things that I love about the Redmi Watch is that it basically has almost all the features of the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 but somehow they've managed to strip out all the features that I've had almost no use for - things like on board music file playback, useless Internet browsing capabilities, wifi, on board app store, useless watch apps that I could easily find far better phone versions for on the Play Store and Bixby - the ever pointless Samsung voice assistant.There's defininately people that need these features on their watches but I'm not in that group, on the flipside they've almost perfected the essentials - stuff like remote phone music control, water ejection mode, notifications are better than my old Samsung Watch as well, they can't be easily swiped away by mistake and swiping them away from the watch won't automatically swipe them away from the phone's notification area, this has happened to me far too often in the past.There's a very useful "5 minute mode" toggle on the quick settings mode that will switch on the display for 5 minutes then immediately return the screen timeout to normal, also it's way easier to auto schedule things like raise to wake, do not disturb, cinema mode and sleep mode - on my Samsung they were either non existent or buried deep in submenus.I'm not really the sporty type but I've managed to connect my Google Fit and Strava profiles, I went for a cycle ride, recorded it on the watch and it automatically synced with both fitness apps, the GPS system seemed to work a lot better than my old Samsung Watch.I could buy three of these Redmi watches and still have change for the price I paid for my old Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 and in many ways the Redmi is a far better watch, I took a gamble on the Redmi simply because the Samsung needs a new battery and a new screen - the cost and the time to replace both would be expensive and inconvenient for me to say the least.I never really expected this Redmi watch to be this good - I was very much pleasantly surprised - a really great buy!

This is my fifth smart watch and so far, it’s my favourite.I deducted a star and toyed with deducting two stars because Alexa is almost unusable (on IOS), but I really like the watch so was generous.Likes:General: It looks really nice, is a good enough size for my less than perfect eyes and the display is super responsive.Always on display (AOD): Despite the warnings of reduced battery life, having the ‘always on display’ on doesn’t seem to drag the battery down too quickly and certainly less than my last watch. The AOD display is bright enough to be seen at all angles and easily indoors (bit harder to see outdoors, but still possible) and whilst the choice of AOD displays is not huge or glamorous, they completely do the job. See photo.AOD Schedule: This totally darkens the screen at the scheduled time (for me that’s whilst in bed).Great display: The AMOLED display is very clear and bright and miles better than my GTS3.Watch Faces: There’s a good choice of watch faces, including animated one’s which are quite impressive. They’re not as comprehensive as the Amazfit watch faces for example, but at least they’re all free.Double click to wake screen: At last, a watch that you can wake by double clicking the watch face! Despite what all manufacturers of smart watches tell you, sometimes the screen doesn’t wake when you want it to, so having the ability to wake it by touching the screen seems the most natural thing in the world, but this is the first time I’ve found it (maybe my Apple Watch had it but I can’t remember).Battery Life: Very pleased with the battery life. Even with the always on display activated and me hammering all the apps, making a long phone call etc. the battery percentage didn’t drop all that much. With normal use I get approx. 3 to 4 days per charge and with AOD off, it would probably manage 8 days or more.Phone call quality: Firstly, I’m super impressed with the integration of the phone function with my iPhone 13. The call quality both for me and the person on the other end of the call is very good. Secondly, the Bluetooth range is excellent and you don’t have to be right next to the phone. I tested the watch up to 5+ metres away from phone with no breakup of the audio. As you’d expect an active call does use some of the battery power, but I’m sure that’s the same with all watches.App Notification: The watch clearly displays the first 100 characters of texts, messages, WhatsApp, emails etc. It also has a ‘catch all’ option that sends any notification to the watch, for example the Tractive Dog tracker and X-Sense smoke alarm notifications. It doesn’t display emojis which is a shame, but it does show a small icon representing the app that sent it, which is a nice touch. Shame they can’t add some of the basic emojis, like smile, laugh and thumbs up.Sleep data: Every watch seems to give different results and you have to take them with a pinch of salt. However, at least this one correctly records the going to sleep and awakening times. The stats look believable, if a little OTT on the deep sleep.Workouts: I’ve mainly tracked Walks so far, but the data recorded has been pretty impressive. Despite what I’d heard and seen on YouTube reviews, I found the GPS to be accurate and easily accurate enough for its intended purpose.‘Mi Fitness’ App: Very easy to use. I find it considerably easier than the Z*pp app. A lot of people seem to slag this app off, but I find it the best app so far (used four previous apps)Gripes:Alexa: This was simple to set up and at first, I thought it worked very well. However, on IOS (can’t say about Android) it runs for an hour or two and then simply stops responding to commands. In the Mi Fitness app the Alexa status changes from Connected to Connecting and you can see that the app is trying to connect but failing. I’ve reported it the fault about 5 times and tried everything I can think of (factory resetting the watch etc.) but with no success. Restarting the Mi Fitness app immediately fixes the problem for the next hour or so. Alexa is one of the 3 main reasons I bought this watch, the other two being the AMOLED display and the ‘Always On Display’. Despite Alexa not working and despite it being a main driver for making the purchase, I’ll probably keep this watch and just hope they fix Alexa in the future (that’s how much I like this watch).Widgets: Would be nice if you could add any of the apps to the Widgets. For example, I’d like to add a shortcut to the Phone function (‘Favorite Contacts’ as it’s called).Summary.Despite Alexa being flaky on IOS, I really like this watch and as another reviewer said, ‘overall the best you'll get at this price point’. I’d add that it’s as good, and possibly better in some respects (easier to use, more responsive, better display and has ability to take/make calls) than my previous Ama*fit GTS3’.

I was looking for a smartwatch with a big screen and possibility to talk through it and last long. This smartwatch is exactly that. Looking around, Apple, Samsung and co. they are all great but then they all last half day. Ina moment where we are looking to avoid to charge our phones as less as possible, I did not want something that it did not allowed me to use it for half of the day and I had to charge it every day. This smartwatch last for more then a week and Dias everything I need. Good resolution, personalised faces (slideshow as well), steps, activity and so more, almost everything that a higher price range smartwatches do.