According to a recent report, Xiaomi could be set to release a Wear OS 3 watch with full Play Store access in 2023. After a promising but ultimately frustrating year for Wear OS fans, the news gives him new hope for an even better Android watch in 2023.
9to5Google (opens in new tab) According to sources, the watch will use the Xiaomi Watch brand and the Mi Fitness (Xiaomi Wear) Android app to sync data with the phone and is expected to arrive sometime this year, but there is no exact timetable yet. .
Xiaomi currently has two different lineups of wearables, developing its own Xiaomi Watch series with MIUI OS and outsourcing the sportier band to Huami, a public company financed by Xiaomi.
The Xiaomi Smart Band 7 Pro is one of our favorite fitness trackers, but we’ve spent very little time on Xiaomi’s lifestyle watches so far, and Wear OS 3 makes the brand more appealing to Android fans. it can be something significant.
This watch will never make it to the shores of America. Only Huami wearables tend to show up outside Europe and Asia, and even good phones like the Xiaomi 13 Pro never make it to the US. But we’re still super excited about what this news means for his Wear OS ecosystem and fitness smartwatches in general.
Wear OS needs fresh air
Since its launch in 2021, the operating system Wear OS 3 has been the Google/Samsung show and other brands are struggling to keep up.
It took Montblanc and Fossil over a year to adopt the update. This lost access to Google Assistant, which is currently only optimized for Exynos chips. Mobvoi, on the other hand, missed the 2022 deadline to update older TicWatches to release his TicWatch Pro 5, and his other longtime Wear OS brands like Suunto have yet to adopt it.
With a handful of heavyweights in the US Android market, consumers will have to choose between the Galaxy Watch 5, Pixel Watch and various Fossil watches until Motorola decides to rejoin the Wear OS ecosystem. need to do it. Thankfully, you have two great options, but the right “ecosystem” isn’t enough to compete with Apple’s dominance in the market.
In Europe and Asia, consumers have a wealth of Android options. But with Xiaomi, OPPO, OnePlus, Honor, and other Chinese brands sticking to their own operating systems for their wearables, many Android users see Wear OS 3 as a niche not worth their time. be considered a service.
The Xiaomi Wear OS watch could be a sign of what’s to come with Google’s success in getting Android partners involved with the promise of a synced phone and watch experience and a customizable UI to match. . That way, consumers will have more (and better) Wear OS watches to choose from, and brands will repeatedly compete harder.
Xiaomi’s focus on fitness only helps Wear OS
Recognizing that Xiaomi watches and Huami-made Xiaomi trackers are not the same, both sides of the brand focus on fitness, either through the Mi Fitness or Zepp Health apps.
It’s one of the rare brands to offer dual-frequency GPS, the next step in more accurate location tracking. It’s a shame that Xiaomi dropped Firstbeat analytics (the team behind Garmin watches’ robust workout data) after the older Mi Watch. Nonetheless, there are hundreds of sport modes (many with their own real-time stats) that make a point of including the necessary sensors for more accurate tracking.
Best of all, its watches and trackers always tend to put battery life above all else, often lasting a week or more with heavy use. probably It won’t last on the battery-hungry Wear OS 3, but you can expect something like the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro to last for days, hopefully in a more compact form factor.
This hypothetical Xiaomi Wear OS watch won’t be available in all regions, but could push Samsung, which has been partnering with Samsung Health since the launch of the Active 2 in 2019, to work more collaboratively. there is. It’s also an alternative for Wear OS users to his paid Fitbit subscription on the Pixel Watch and Fossil’s simple Wellness app.
As for Xiaomi itself, one of our main complaints with a device like the Xiaomi Mi Band 7 was how smart it was. Lack of support for actionable notifications, assistants, or third-party apps. A partnership with Wear OS brings interactivity and more software variety to a series known for its stylish design and robust hardware. Ideally, it would be built into a watch that would enhance the fitness of Google and Samsung and make his Wear OS users in the US jealous.
