Buying a smartwatch can change one’s perspective regarding traditional wristwatches. Some say that it doesn’t have the classic analog style and some say that it helps them a lot and gave up wearing regular wristwatches. One of the advantages of having a smartwatch is that it can assist you with your day-to-day tasks without the need to pull your smartphone. Aside from a clock, it also acts as a secondary screen for your device. Today we have Xiaomi’s latest smartwatch, which is the Xiaomi Watch S3. It is a smartwatch that Google Wear OS does not power but instead runs on its very own HyperOS. Let’s take a closer look at some of its features.
Table of Contents
Design and Build
The Xiaomi Watch S3 is more than just a watch, it is also a wearable that comes with premium aesthetics that are good for those who love to amp up their OOTD pictures.
The design of the Xiaomi Watch S3 still carries the same classic round dial. They also adopted a lightweight aluminum alloy body making it slimmer and lighter for more comfort. Its straps are made out of leather that is also replaceable for added customizability.
The Xiaomi Watch S3 weighs about 44 grams and it offers 5ATM water resistance. One of the best features of the Watch S3 is its customizability. It has different colors of straps that you can swap with and different types of rings. The hot-swappable bezel allows you to quickly replace it even with just one hand. You can easily do it as well with a simple twist and turn. As soon as you change your ring the watch face itself will change its looks to match the one that you attached. This is one of the best features for me as this allows me to personalize it even further to my liking.
The one that we are using right now is the dual-tone ceramic. Both the bezel and leather straps offer a black and green colorway that according to them compliments a more business-oriented atmosphere.
For the display, it boasts a 1.43″ AMOLED display with a resolution of 466×466. It has a 60Hz refresh rate, 326 ppi density, 600 nits of peak brightness, and offers 16.7 million colors.
The AMOLED panels offer an ample level of brightness for outdoor use without any problems. The display also gives out good colors and impressive details.
Functions and UI
The Xiaomi Watch S3 offers more than 150 sports mode features. An L1+L5 dual-band GNSS five-satellite positioning Independent motion tracking which offers precise GPS tracking and Bluetooth 5.2 for its connectivity.
The Watch S3 also has tons of different sensors like a heart rate sensor, blood oxygen sensor, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a geomagnetic sensor, an atmospheric sensor, an ambient light sensor, and a hall sensor.
To pair it to your device, you need to install the Mi Fitness app which can be downloaded on the Google Play Store or the App Store. Some features would only work on Xiaomi devices that run on their latest HyperOS and one of those features is the portrait watch face.
Using the Mi Fitness app, you can download different watch faces, but by default, you have 13 different types of faces pre-installed. On the app you can see how much storage your watch has, at the moment we have 2110MB of storage which we can use to add more watch faces as I mentioned earlier or we can add music to the watch itself. You can set up your alarm, reminders, weather updates, and add your favorite contacts.
As for gestures on the watch itself, pressing the display for a few seconds will allow you to change your watch face. Swiping up will show different options like, flashlight, raise to wake, settings, night mode, battery saver, find your phone, and water clearing. Swiping left or right you will find the alarms tab, events, music playback, google assistance, heart rate sensors, and other features. You also get two buttons on the right side, the one on top will open the app drawer and the one at the bottom will open the different workout modes.
All of those mentioned features are then backed by a 486mAh battery capacity. According to Xiaomi, the battery runs up to 15 days on a single charge which we think is good because who wants a watch that you have to charge from time to time? They also offer fast charging technology that gives the user up to two days of battery life in just a 5-minute charge.
Overall, for the price of Php 6,999, the Xiaomi Watch S3 is a smartwatch that offers a traditional look along with modern technology and a wide variety of customizability all at an affordable price. From a rubber strap for workouts and leather options for a more serious occasion, you can easily match your outfit with the best-looking straps and rings. Aside from its impressive aesthetics to match your outfit it is a solid companion for your health and fitness. Although the watch head is too big for my wrist all in all the Watch S3 is a good option for smart wearables.
