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Ever since gaining popularity in the 2010s, smartwatches have become the craze considering that most of them are smartphones on your wrist. Some models allow you to view messages/notifications, answer calls, take photographs, and even track your fitness and health progress.
With the number of options in the market, it’s hard to pinpoint which smartwatch will be suitable for you. So, we’re here to help you narrow down your options by introducing you to the Redmi Watch 3, an inexpensive smartwatch that gives you many great features!
Redmi Watch 3 Specifications
- Display: 1.75-inch AMOLED, 390×450
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.2
- Dimensions and Weight: 42.58 x 36.56 x 9.99mm, 37g
- Sensors: Heart rate sensor (with blood oxygen sensor), accelerometer, gyroscope, geomagnetic sensor
- Battery: 289 mAh
- Colours: Black, Ivory
Design and Display
First of all, the strap feels comfortable enough to be worn for long periods, even when sleeping. However, for your first time, you might find putting on the strap a bit confusing since it isn’t like the typical watch strap clasp. Instead, it’s more like a button-based strap which you slide through when putting it on and fasten the button. But after regular use, I did get used to it. The straps are also interchangeable, so if you prefer a more conventional strap or straps of other material, you can always get straps suitable for the watch from Redmi stores, or even from online platforms like Shopee or Lazada.
Now on to the watch itself. We got our hands on the Black variant, where at first glance, the Redmi Watch 3 has this premium and stylish look which caught my attention even before I turned on the screen. The bezels are metallic and go well with the black coloured strap. In terms of the overall design, I felt that the watch’s style is pretty versatile, so if you’re particular about your things complimenting your outfits, the Redmi Watch 3 can be accessorized easily with probably anything.
The Redmi Watch 3 has a large 1.75-inch, AMOLED display with a 70% screen-to-body ratio. You can easily see and access the apps on your watch screen. I found the display on the Redmi Watch 3 to be bright enough to view even under bright sunlight, thanks to the 600-nit brightness. Even then, the lowest brightness level isn’t too intense and I found the watch comfortable to look at during the night.
There’s one button on the side of the watch which can turn on the screen, access apps, and go back to the home screen as well. You’re also able to customize the widget page, and the app layout through the Mi Fitness app which you can download on Google Play Store and Apple Store. The Mi Fitness app also allows you to remove any apps on the watch that you don’t use if you feel that it’s too cramped up.
Software
Speaking of the Mi Fitness app, I found it was easy enough to use, especially for first-time smartwatch users. The app is split into four sections, Health which has all the standard information you’d expect like step count, calorie burn, workout information, heart rate, SpO2, and others. The others are Workout, Device and Profile.
Under Device, is where you’re able to customize your smartwatch to your liking. This means you not only can rearrange widget and app positions, but you can also change the watch face. Redmi Watch 3 allows you to have over 200 watch faces which you can change anytime you want. If that’s not enough, you can always get watch faces online that you can choose from, from the Mi Fitness app so you’ll never get bored of looking at your Redmi Watch 3.
It also allows you to personalize the watch face, so you can include your own photos or any images you’d like. The Customize function also has a slideshow feature which allows you to rotate between 8 photos of your liking. While this is great, you cannot change the font colour for the time, date or step counter, which means the images you choose need to be dark in order to see the time. Kind of a bummer, but considering the price range this is something that’s worth overlooking, especially since there are so many captivating watch faces available in the app itself.
Features
120+ Sports Modes
A stylish look is not the only thing this smartwatch has to offer. The Redmi Watch 3 also comes with many interesting features such as supporting over 120 sports modes, which include your usual running, jogging, cycling, hiking, and many others. There’s also a weightlifting mode which is what I used at the gym to test this feature.
Using the watch while working out was helpful for me as I found that not only does it track my heart rate, calories burnt and how many steps, but I was also able to control my songs from the watch itself. This meant that I didn’t need to take out my phone from my pocket while exercising, which is always a plus for me. I was also surprised to learn that the watch was still able to detect and read my phone when I kept the phone in the gym’s locker.
There’s also a running coach, which comes in different levels, including beginner, fat burning, endurance and interval. Then, there’s a treadmill mode for when you want to run indoors. Overall, while the running coach is its own mode, every other sport mode basically just reads your heart rate and tracks how long you’ve been doing that workout. Pretty standard features that any smartwatch has.
But the more surprising thing about this smartwatch was that, it has a 5 ATM water resistance, which means you can take it swimming. In fact, there’s a swim mode in the sports tracker. You can access it on the watch by going to the sport app, tapping more and then water sports.
Health Monitoring
As mentioned above, the Redmi Watch 3 is capable of monitoring your heart rate. I had it on auto, but you can set it to read your heart rate every 1 minute, 10 minutes, or 30 minutes. Bear in mind that the shorter time you go, the faster the battery gets depleted (more on the battery later).
Apart from heart rate, the watch reads your calories burnt, blood oxygen, stress levels, and even blood pressure. There’s also a stress measuring feature, however, I am not too sure how accurate it is, since regardless of when or where I took it my results were mild. Another health feature I thought was neat was the breathing exercise which I used post-workouts to keep a steady heart rate.
Sleep
The sleep tracker is pretty accurate, it clocked in the time I went to sleep and the time I woke up precisely, and even could read my REM sleep and Deep Sleep status. Another feature I found out about the Redmi Watch 3 is that you can choose to switch off the REM sleep detection. However, I could not find any benefit to turning this off, as even the battery life stayed pretty much the same either way.
Calls and Notifications
Redmi Watch 3 is capable of Bluetooth calls and reading notifications. Firstly, taking calls using the watch is quite straightforward. The volume the watch gives you when you’re calling someone is loud and clear enough. I really appreciated the fact that I could still hear the person talking when in a crowded area. It should be noted that you can’t call people using the watch, only answer calls.
However, the microphone for the watch is not the best. While the person on the other line can hear me, there are times when my voice was hard to hear on the other end. Just a heads up, you do need to keep your watch close to your mouth when talking for a clear conversation.
For notifications, the Redmi Watch 3 allows you to choose which apps you’d like to receive notifications and messages from, which is a feature I appreciated in this smartwatch. The message layout on the watch face is neat, readable and easy to navigate. While you can read the message you cannot reply to them on the watch. But, there is the option on the watch to open the message on your phone, a feature that did not work for me.
Redmi Watch 3 also comes with Alexa voice assistant, but since it’s not available in Malaysia, I was not able to test this feature.
Other Features
Redmi Watch 3 also comes with the typical features you’d expect in a smartwatch, including controlling your phone’s camera where you can take photos through the watch and there’s even an option to set a timer should you need it. This feature is really useful for group photos and even for those Instagram-worthy selfies.
You’re also able to control your music using the watch, where you can pause, play, go to the next song, and even control the volume. To control the volume you will need to tap the speaker images on the bottom left and right to increase and decrease the volume.
Battery
The battery life on the Redmi Watch 3 is seriously impressive for its price. At a full charge, it lasted 10 days, and even then it was still at 15%, so it could probably last an extra day or two. This was at daily usage and with heart rate monitoring on, and even sleeping while wearing the watch. The watch also notifies you when the battery is at 15%, and it recommends you charge the watch. Redmi claims that the battery can last up to 12 days, so you should be able to achieve this. The battery with the Always-On-Display was just as impressive and gave me 5 days of battery.
In terms of charging the Redmi Watch 3, it’s a magnetic charging cable that you need to attach to the watch. The cable length is something I also appreciated since it was not too short or too long.
Conclusion
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