Affordable versatility with a twist (off bezel)
The Xiaomi Watch S4 offer excellent value for money with a undimmed AMOLED display and good fittingness tracking . The changeable bezel summate novelty , but while the canonical offer is good , there ’s no app store and some features are a little circumscribed .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The Xiaomi Watch S4 swings in to update the Watch S3 from 2024 . Regular as clockwork , the Watch S4 returns with some of the feature of its forbear while making a few update , too .
At its core , the Watch S4 is a like proposition to what came before . Focusing on value for money , this is n’t a picket that competes with the likes of theOnePlus Watch 3and the catholicity ofWear OS . alternatively , it looks to offer a somewhat all-encompassing set of smartwatch feature without overcomplicating thing .
Priced at £ 129.99 , it ’s typical of the low-priced end of the smartwatch scale . For some , it will do everything you want it to . The question is , how well does it do it ?
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Design and Screen
The Xiaomi Watch S4 looks like the previous iteration , but there ’s now a rotating crown , which bring a touch of class to this affordable model . The high spot feature of the Watch S4 is the obliterable bezel , meaning you’re able to twist it off and alter the look , perhaps to move from a sporty aesthetical to something more formal .
That ’s easy enough to do . The watch fare in three colours – Ag , Black ( on review here ) , and Rainbow , which has a somewhat more bounty strap with colour highlight and a bezel that ’s a little more interesting – but it does be £ 10 more .
The Watch S4 has an Al admixture frame , which is round , 12 mm thick , and measure out 47.3 mm across ; it weighs 44.5 g. It ’s a somewhat generic look and there ’s short embellishing the figure , leave it to that rotating cap and changeable bezel to supply interest .
The strap is a fluororubber intimacy , reasonably easy to switch thanks to the fountain pins on the rear . It ’s a slight oddity in that you tuck the loose end of the strap back inside it once heave , so I ’m forever put it on and possess to loosen it to accommodate the shoulder strap in . It ’s tidy and bring through flapping around but it ’s a scrap of a faff .
Xiaomi wants you to change up the strap and sellsbezel and strap kits , some of which have undivided watch grimace , piss them feel a little more especial . They are price between £ 24.99 and £ 34.99 – and that include various leather strap , ceramic and atomic number 6 bezel , so it ’s a trashy way of life to kick upstairs the facial expression of your watch .
There ’s a 1.43 - inch display on the Xiaomi Watch S4 and Xiaomi is lancinating to point out that it ’s really vivid . That ’s perhaps a strange flex , as out of the loge , the Watch S4 is keen to dim the display as quickly as potential , always - on is off by nonremittal , as is raise to wake . It takes a bit of poke around to get it showing you information easily and it even turns off when exert , so you ’ll have to turn that on too .
It ’s also a fair - caliber AMOLED showing with a 466 x 466 pixel resolution ( 326ppi ) and a peak smartness of 2200 nits . That ’s as bright as the OnePlus Watch 3 , and I found it perfectly bright enough in direct sunlight . It ’s a 60Hz exhibit .
There ’s gracious vibrancy to the colours as you ’d expect from an AMOLED show and I find the graphics to be sharp enough to see what was going on without any problem .
Performance and Software
Xiaomi does n’t declare what powers the Watch S4 , but unlike a smartphone , that ’s not hugely of import .
What ’s more important is that this vigil skip around its user interface without lag or delay , although I did find the ikon to the far left of the cover sometimes a little loth to answer compare to those in the centre of the showing . This is likely because of some hint confusion between those apps and the swipe gesture to navigate back , which you ’d touch off from the same place .
This vigil head for the hills Hyper atomic number 76 2 , which is the same name as the software that runs on Xiaomi ’s latest phones , like theXiaomi 15 , but whereas the earphone edition is an Android skin , it ’s not clean-cut if that ’s the case on the Watch S4 . It ’s a proprietary operating system from Xiaomi on the watch , and you ca n’t use it like a Wear OS ticker .
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That means you need to use the Mi Fitness app on your phone to link up and control it , with everything routing through that . It also mean there ’s no approach to AI assistant and the app natural selection is limited to what ’s on the picket .
Those apps breed the main watch functions give you lots of face , mobile payments , music bread and butter , alarm , tasks , weather condition , contacts , as well as exercise trailing , sleep trailing , voice recorder , calendar , remote camera induction and a collection of other health functions .
That all sound great , but there ’s a lot to intermit down here : many of these functions need priming by Mi Fitness on your phone first . For instance , contacts do n’t automatically sync , you need to manually add them . Music does n’t sync to any help , it want to employ downloaded tracks from your sound . There ’s no Spotify play list synchronise here .
The wandering payments list two support banks : Curve and ZEN.com . You ca n’t just add your card and get spending , so there are some hoops to jump through to get it working .
But I did find that the distant gun trigger for the camera work well enough with the Samsung speech sound I tested the watch with , as well as a Xiaomi phone . The calling also crop , but it ’s a act of a novelty lineament . The speaker unit are astonishingly good , however , should you ever need to use that procedure .
There is a preference for Xiaomi phones too . I found that the calendar syncing only work when touch base to a Xiaomi earpiece , while you could also verify saucy base devices from the Watch when you ’re connected to a Xiaomi phone . I did n’t test this last function , however , because I did n’t have any compatible bright home devices .
You ’ll also discover that do not commove on your earpiece syncs to the watch to silence notifications , and frailty versa , so turn on DND on your watch will also call on it on for your phone .
Health and Sleep Tracking
Many people turn to wear for the health monitoring function they offer , compound with exercise trailing . These two elements of a smartwatch go helping hand - in - deal , with things like daily activity monitoring and steps falling more on the wellness side than the exercise .
This is core to the Xiaomi S4 ’s offering , with the eye charge per unit sensor on the back doing its part to monitor you 24/7 . Tapping on the checkup will run a 60 - minute health check that look at your core rate , your O saturation , stress and sleep stats . I found it say that everything was “ ideal ” . frankly , it ’s intemperate to decide if it ’s a useful feature or not .
Twisting the new crown will flick through cards on the screen express some of your vitals , including your heart pace , action stats , and sleep with the weather thrown in for sound measure .
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Sleep tracking has ensure a huge thunder in recent years , with many people able to get at wearables to give some guidance as to just how in effect or bad their sleep was . Yes , if you sleep badly , you in all probability sleep with all about it as you drop behind yourself out of layer , but with the Watch S4 , you ’ll get a small feedback to guide you . It said I go to layer too late , which is fair .
Xiaomi then tracks your sleep stages through lightsome , deep , and paradoxical sleep , assigning you a sleep score and telling you what sleep animal you are . If that sound intimate , that ’s because Fitbit and Samsung also do that . But Fitbit also evidence you your awake time , which Xiaomi seems a little less potential to report .
That top to dissimilar sleep time being tape by theFitbit Charge 6I wore at the same sentence : that would tell me I was awake for 1 hr of the dark , whereas Xiaomi seemed to credit me with a lot more cryptic sleep . Both accord on the REM times . Which is more accurate ? That ’s a hard call , but I ground alert time to be much rarer from the Xiaomi watch .
There ’s also accentuate trailing and an app to guide you through relaxing external respiration . The breathing guidance is accompanied by haptics and sound from the Watch S4 which , quite frankly , was anything but relaxing . Again , there ’s nothing really unparalleled about this offering , it ’s now vulgar on many wearable gimmick , but nail the wellbeing feature article readiness .
Exercise Tracking
utilisation tracking was credibly on your mind when you first started cerebrate about the Xiaomi Watch S4 , as this is now an obligatory feature film of any mo of wearable tech . This watch is certainly tawdry than thebest Garmin watches , and with 150 activities to track , you might bump it will do the business for you .
Those activities include everything from the regular running , walking , cycling and swim , to the bizarre , such as dart and esports – as well as everything else you could imagine . Importantly , if you ’re ski and want to register something as skiing , you could , and that ’s the percentage point .
What ’s more , if you are skiing and it find a fall , if you do n’t reply within 60 seconds , it will call your emergency contact , which is a clean little safety feature of speech .
There ’s no single-valued function on the Watch S4 itself , but I found the GPS route it recorded in the app to be accurate compare to myGarmin Fenix 6 Proand when liken to the Global Positioning System on my Hammerhead Karoo 2 bike computer . That means aloofness , speed and pace more often than not seem to be exact .
Heart pace can be a bit variable : I institute the averages were broadly speaking in the right position , but often I ’d glint and see that it was tail at somewhere over 160bpm , which feel about 20bpm higher than it should be .
What this all amounts to is a lookout that ’s precise enough ( but with some foibles ) , while also throw in some sophisticated features like erect bountifulness and ground contact time , which are more advanced metrics for runners .
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You also get a readout of the grooming consequence , so you’re able to get a mensuration of the intensity and whether you postulate to back off a minute . It ’s a reasonably comprehensive offering , which is keen on a twist that ’s such good value for money .
have things further , there ’s the option to sync with Strava , Health Connect and Suunto . That gives more selection for pile up and canvas your data across gadget , so it does n’t end up siloed in Mi Fitness for the rest of clock time – and that ’s very welcome .
There ’s also an auto function for activities , which I found would from time to time pop up to tell me that I was going for a walk . This is squeamish and convenient for casual utilization .
I discover the Xiaomi see S4 to be fairly complemental : it enunciate I sleep better than most mass my age and that I was an “ athlete ” found on my running ability . I doubt both of those statements , but if a £ 129 scout is go to resort to flattery , then I ’ll merrily accept it .
Battery Life
get ’s confront it : smartwatches got a risky reputation whenApple Watchnormalised send every night . Meanwhile , the likes of Garmin offer two weeks on a unmarried charge , arrange a different expectation . It ’s fitting then that Xiaomi continues to offer up to 15 Clarence Shepard Day Jr. of life from a single care on the Watch S4 .
But that comes with a caution : use the always - on display or cover your exercise , and that figure will quickly start to drop . Even so , I ’ve base it lasted for a week even with a distich of runs tracked and changing the preferences so the display is n’t constantly off .
There ’s a charger in the box with contact pins , so it ’s not a stock wireless charging choice . The advantage of this bespoke charger is that you may get a couple of days of use from it after only five moment on the courser – however , do n’t expect that to be two mean solar day where you ’re lumber exercise sessions !
finally , the barrage fire life on the Watch S4 was n’t a concern . It ’s a square offering from a smartwatch , meaning you may wear it 24/7 without vex that it ’s going to die after two mean solar day .
Should you buy it?
The Xiaomi Watch S4 covers all the smartwatch basics , from utilization to sleep trailing to notifications .
If you want to add apps to give you access to pop services , you wo n’t notice that here . Unlike Wear bone or even Garmin , there ’s no app store for the Xiaomi Watch S4 .
Final Thoughts
The Xiaomi Watch S4 follow on from the Watch S3 , keeping the broad oblation of smartwatch features in a watch with decent barrage life and the unique feature of being able to switch over out the bezel for a Modern facial expression .
What Xiaomi offers generally works well , especially if you have a Xiaomi phone too . But the look is a little safe and there are limitations on how much you could do with this machine .
If you ’re happy with extensive usage trailing and wellness monitoring then it might suit you just fine , but if you require apps , a personal helper or access to other avail , you ’ll be good off looking at our list of thebest smartwatchesfor alternatives .
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How we test
We thoroughly test every smartwatch we review . We use diligence standard testing to equate features properly and we use the sentry as our main gimmick over the review period . We ’ll always tell you what we regain and we never , ever , accept money to review a product .
FAQs
The Xiaomi Watch S4 runs on HyperOS 2 , Xiaomi ’s own software . It ’s not an Android gadget and does n’t hunt down Wear OS .
The Xiaomi Watch S4 has a 5ATM evaluation , which means it will plow submersion up to 50 m. It can be used in water and also has a function to clear body of water out of the speaker system when you ’re back on land .
Full Specs
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