Drop The “Pro”: The Regular Xiaomi Watch 2 Will Be Launching Soon
In late September last year, Xiaomi announced the Xiaomi Watch 2 Pro, their first smartwatch to run on Wear OS. Before then, their devices ran on MIUI Watch OS. Thankfully, for people who want a modern Xiaomi smartwatch for less, the Xiaomi Watch 2 looks geared up for launch.
The Xiaomi Watch 2 has not been launched officially, but the folks at WinFuture spotted it on the websites of multiple retailers in Europe, starting at about $215. For a smartwatch running Wear OS and packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 just like the Pro model, that’s affordable.
The device is also going to come with a 1.43-inch circular AMOLED display with a resolution of 466 x 466 pixels, cased in an aluminum body. It should also get about three days of battery life on a full charge, 5 ATM water resistance, as well as heart rate and SpO2 sensors. As to when it’ll be launched officially, there’s no exact date, but perhaps MWC 2024 later this month might be the perfect avenue (Don’t worry, we’ll be on the ground covering the event in person).
For Any Smartwatch That Isn’t Made By Apple, Wear OS Is The Answer
The Xiaomi Watch 2 will come running on Google’s Wear OS platform for smartwatches, making it the second Xiaomi smartwatch with this honor. Before that, it was running on Xiaomi’s smartwatch OS, so moving to Wear OS is certainly the better choice, and the reason why isn’t complicated.
Smartwatches like the Watch 2 are marketed to Android users more than they are to iPhone users. Wear OS comes from the same company that developed Android, allowing for a very deep level of integration between the two platforms. In my opinion, proprietary operating systems lock out prospective users, and when a smartwatch company has the choice, they should go straight with Wear OS.
With Samsung having moved over from Tizen and adopted Wear OS entirely and the Nothing Watch 2 potentially launching with Wear OS, it is clear that Wear OS is the best option for all Android-oriented wearables.
With the likes of Fossil having given up making Wear OS-powered smartwatches, partly due to the close nature of Samsung and Google’s cooperation, our choices have dwindled. Another platform stalwart, Mobvoi, launched the TicWatch Pro 5 in 2023 but has been unusually quiet in releasing anything else. Hopefully, Xiaomi’s plunge into the Wear OS segment will give consumers more choice.
