Xiaomi Redmi Watch 2 Lite Review: Feature-Packed And Affordable

Last Updated on April 19, 2022 by Rupesh Patil

Xiaomi has been the king of the affordable fitness tracker market over the past few years, but it hasn’t been able to make inroads into the smartwatch category. After launching the sub-₹5,000 Redmi Band Pro a few months ago, Xiaomi launched the Redmi Watch 2 Lite. It has a big, smartwatch-like display, heart rate and SpO2 monitoring, sleep tracking, GPS, and it comes with a promise of 10-day battery life. Too good for a price tag of ₹4,999, right?

I used the smartwatch for over two weeks since its launch in India to see if it really performs up to its potential, and here’s my Redmi Watch 2 Lite review.

Design

The Redmi Watch 2 Lite has a pretty nice and comfortable design. It has a rectangular screen with decently thin bezels (for the price). There’s no branding on the bezel, which gives the watch a clean look. It’s built really well, similar to most Xiaomi products.

Even though the case is made using plastic, it doesn’t feel cheap. The case is dense, unlike most other cheap smartwatches, and features soft-touch plastic. I could wear it comfortably all day long and even during the night. It didn’t bother me at all in terms of comfort.

Thanks to its water-resistant design, you can wear it in the rain, shower, pool, or on the beach. It is water-resistant up to 5ATM, which means you can even wear it to track your swimming performance. I have no complaints about its design or build quality, but it doesn’t support standard watch straps, and you’ll have to buy them only from Xiaomi.

Display

The 1.5-inch LCD display on the Redmi Watch 2 Lite is among its biggest advantages. The display quality is really nice. Everything on the screen looks nice and sharp, thanks to its 320×360 pixels resolution. The colours look good and the viewing angles are wide. Even under direct sunlight, content on the Redmi Watch 2 Lite’s screen is visible. The watch lacks an ambient light sensor, which means you have to adjust the screen brightness manually.

One area where I was not impressed by the watch’s display is the wake-up time. It takes 1-2 seconds to wake up once the hand is raised. The Redmi Watch 2 Lite lacks the tap-to-wake feature. The problem occurs even when the side button is used to activate the screen. So it’s not an issue with the sensor, but either the watch’s software or processor is slow to react. Since most users would check the watch dozens of times over the whole day, the issue can irritate them.

The Redmi Band Pro has a narrower display but it uses an OLED panel and even features an ambient light sensor. As a result, the screen looks much better than the Redmi Watch 2 Lite and users don’t have to fiddle with brightness settings manually.

Performance

The Redmi Watch 2 Lite’s fitness tracking accuracy is pretty decent. Compared to the data from a dedicated oximeter, Xiaomi’s smartwatch showed similar heart rate figures, but its SpO2 figures were always 3-4% off from actual readings. Since Xiaomi says that the data from the watch shouldn’t be used for medical diagnosis, I will let this shortcoming slide off.

Step tracking accuracy is really good. I tested the watch’s accuracy by counting my own steps and the watch always reciprocated with accuracy. While the Redmi Watch 2 Lite can monitor heart rate around the clock, SpO2 can only be tracked while sleeping or when you open the app manually. The watch notifies that turning the feature on will reduce the battery life.

The watch failed to turn off the walking mode once even 20 minutes after my walk was completed. To its credit, the watch’s GPS works well and it can track runs, walks, or cycling trips accurately. Once the watch syncs with the smartphone app, it shows the data points on the map.

The watch has more than 100 workout modes, and most people can find the workouts of their choice. I did not test the Redmi Watch 2 Lite’s swim tracking accuracy. Health and workout tracking data can be synced with Apple Health and Strava. There’s no support for Google Fit, which is puzzling.

Software

The Redmi Watch 2 Lite runs Xiaomi’s own software. Apart from time and health/workout metrics, it can also show call notifications. An incoming call can’t be dismissed with a responding text message. The watch can’t display emojis properly and lacks support for some Indian languages like Gujarati and Tamil.

The software UI is pretty well arranged and looks nice. It is much better than the UI design that’s found on smartwatches from second and third-tier brands like Boat, Fastrack, Fire Boltt, Gionee, Noise, pTron, TAGG, and Titan. It’s in the same league as Amazfit, which makes amazing smartwatches in the sub-₹15,000 price segment. The UI could stutter sometimes, but most of the time it works smoothly.

The app drawer, which can be accessed by pressing the side button, shows all the apps in a grid format by default. You can change the layout to list mode from the app. Swiping down on the home screen reveals notifications and swiping up reveals quick setting toggles. Swiping left or right cycles between widgets.

The app drawer shows apps like Activity, Alarm, Blood Oxygen, Breathing, Compass, Find Phone, Heart Rate, Music Control, Stopwatch, Timer, Weather, and Workouts. If there was any doubt, third-party apps can’t be installed on the Redmi Watch 2 Lite.

You can choose from over 120 watch faces via the Mi Fitness app, and most of them look good, thanks to the watch’s squarish display and good screen quality. You can set which app notifications are relayed on the watch.

The Redmi Watch 2 Lite has a few bugs that need to be fixed as soon as possible. For instance, the watch sometimes keeps vibrating continuously for a minute or so and then reboots. Despite the good UI design and smoothness, such bugs can bring down the whole experience.

Battery Life

Xiaomi promises 10-day battery life on a single charge. The watch is powered by a 262mAh battery, in my testing, the Redmi Watch 2 Lite lasted 3-4 days. And that’s with continuous heart rate, SpO2, and sleep tracking activated. I also turned on notifications for most apps installed on the paired smartphone.

You might get even longer battery life if you have a slightly less taxing usage. You can also limit notifications to a few critical apps to improve battery life even further. Most people can get up to 5-6 days of battery life on a single charge.

Conclusion

The Redmi Watch 2 Lite does most things right. It has a comfortable design, excellent screen, decent workout and sleep tracking accuracy, and a well-designed UI. However, the software bugs and average battery life numb the experience a bit. Hopefully, Xiaomi will fix those bugs soon with a software update.

If you are okay with a smart band-like device, I would recommend the Redmi Smart Band Pro over the Watch 2 Lite. It has a better screen and doesn’t have as many bugs as the Redmi Watch 2 Lite. But if you are someone who prefers to have a smartwatch design with a square display or a watch with standalone GPS, the Redmi Watch 2 Lite is a good choice at its price.