Xiaomi has some of the best-selling wearables in the market providing impressive specs for the price. As usual, that’s something we expect from the new Redmi Watch 4.
Launched alongside the Redmi Note 13 series, this watch already looks very interesting just by looking at the features list. It has a premium design, features you don’t need a smartphone for, and much more — all for a price of under Php5,000.
So, in our Redmi Watch 4 review, we’ll see how good this device really is and if there are flaws that could be a major deal-breaker. Let’s start.
Redmi Watch 4 Specs
- Aluminum alloy frame
- 1.97-inch square LTPS AMOLED display
- 60Hz refresh rate, 600-nits peak brightness
- Ambient light sensor
- 5ATM water resistant
- Built-in mic and speakers
- Bluetooth calls
- Heart rate sensor, Blood oxygen sensor
- Accelerometer, Gyroscope
- electronic compass
- GPS, GALILEO, GLONASS, QZSS, BDS
- Dimensions 47.5 x 41.1 x 10.5mm
- Weight: 31.5g (body only)
- Colors: Obsidian Black, Silver Gray
- 470mAh battery
Design and Build Quality
The Redmi Watch 4 immediately impresses just by its looks. It boasts a large display and, more importantly, a digital dial — a premium feature and far from the traditional, boring button we see in most budget smartwatches.
Not only it’s visually appealing, the watch itself feels really nice to the skin when worn. It’s made out of a premium, lightweight, and sleek aluminum alloy frame that’s available in two colors: Silver Gray and Obsidian Black.
The rotating crown, one the the watch’s best assets, is quite premium too. It’s made from stainless steel with ridges for extra tactility.
Its rotation is very responsive to the interface. It also works as a button when pressed, eliminating the need for a separate physical key, resulting in a much cleaner look.
The Redmi Watch 4 also features a large 1.97-inch AMOLED display with 5Hz LTPS, which is more than enough room to easily read notifications, see workout stats, and more.
Plus, unlike competing smartwatches, it has a 60Hz refresh rate — which looks nothing compared to smartphones, but is already high for a wearable. It made the watch incredibly smooth and snappy.
Below the watch, you can see all the health sensors, magnetic pins for charging, and the loudspeakers and two microphones. It also has a quick-release buttons for the straps.
Speaking of the strap, the Obsidian Black color we have has a matching black TPU strap, which is not the most comfortable, but decent for the price.
The strap has an adjustable clasp and wearing it may take a few tries to get used to. There are flexible amount of holes to fit small to large hands. Sadly, the strap slot is proprietary, so you can’t use, say, that fancy leather band you already have from your classic watch.
It may have a large face, but the watch itself is relatively thin and light. It is 47.5mm tall, 41.1mm wide, and 10.5mm thick. To give you an idea, the Apple Watch Series 9, the thick 45mm version, has dimensions of slightly 45mm x 38mm x 10.7mm but is much heavier at 38.7g.
The watch is also 5ATM water-resistant, which means it should withstand up to 50 meters of water pressure. We don’t suggest swimming to the beach with it, but it should withstand swimming pools and other water-related activities. There’s even a built-in Pool Swimming workout mode.
Interface and mobile app
The Redmi Watch 4 works for both Android and iOS devices via the Mi Fitness app. The app lets you customize the watch, download additional watch faces, adjust watch settings, see more detailed activity and workout stats. You can even use the app itself to track select workouts even if you don’t have the watch like Outdoor Running, Treadmill, Walking, and Outdoor Cycling.
Like its predecessors, the Redmi Watch 4 has pretty simple software. It’s no Google Wear OS, so there’s no app store to install apps. But no worries, though, as the available features are more than enough.
The interface is very straightforward. Pressing and holding the watch face lets you shuffle to other watch faces available locally. You can download more via the mobile app as there are more than 200 styles available.
Swipping left or right from the watch faces lets you scroll through different widgets, which are customizable by the way. It lets you quickly see activity and fitness stats, weather, access a stopwatch or timer, and more.
Swiping down shows the notifications tab. Thanks to the large display, messages are easily readable. However, only one notification at a time is shown, but scrolling through the others is easy thanks to the digital crown.
Swiping up then shows the control center so you can easily toggle Do Not Disturb Mode, Ringer switch, enable battery saver, and more.
There are a bunch of features on this watch that you can access via their respective icons. There’s the Workout that lets you access more than 150 sports modes; History to see stats of your past workout sessions; Running for different types of running workouts (this one feels redundant as we already have the Workout app, but handy for pro runners); and Training State for athletes.
We also have the Stats app with Apple Watch like-rings for calories burned, steps counter, and total time you’ve moved. Plus, the Heart Rate app, Vitality progress, SpO2 sensor, Sleep Quality, Stress, Breathing Exercises, Weather, Calendar, Events, Tasks, Favorite Contacts, Phone, Music controls, Camera remote, Alarm, and Focus.
We also have an app for the Stopwatch, Timer, World Clock, Compass, Find phone, Flashlight, and Settings.
A lot of the built-in features did work well, but here are a couple of things worth noting. The notifications, at least with an Android phone, are really quick. The watch will also intelligently stop feeding notifications to the watch if you’re already in your phone.
I also like the cool animations you get when you reach your calories burned, steps, and moving goals. The weather feature is detailed and can accurately tell the forecast from where you are. I also love how useful the calendar is as it can show an entire month, thanks to the large display.
The Tasks feature is great if you’re running errands or in need of a shopping list. Albeit, you can only input tasks using the app.
Bluetooth voice calls are also good. Volume is decent so only you, and not everyone around you, can hear the call. The person we tested the call quality with said that the dual microphones picked up our voice clearly. You can also call using the built-in dialer. Unfortunately, you can only call existing contacts if you’ve put them on the Favorite Contacts list using the smartphone app.
The feature that lets you control the music on your phone is pretty useful. The buttons work fine, although tapping the volume adjustment is unresponsive most of the time, which is very annoying. But when it works, you can use the digital crown to adjust the volume.
With all these features built-in, there’s really no need for Wear OS on this one.
Health, fitness, sleep tracking
The Redmi Watch 4 has a very accurate activity tracker. Unlike old wearables, the steps counter doesn’t record steps if you’re just sitting or inside public transportation. Both the Calories Burned and Moving data also look fairly accurate.
The Sleep tracker also looks accurate estimating the time I went to and got up of bed. It shows how long you were in Deep, Light, and REM sleep. It also shows a detailed look at your heart rate when sleeping.
All-day Stress Monitoring is also available, which can remind you to relax in case your stress levels reach above 80. But unless you need to, don’t enable the all-day monitoring as it drains out the battery faster.
If you’re a cyclist or into outdoor activities, you’d appreciate the Redmi Watch 4’s long battery life, built-in GNSS, big screen, and comprehensive workout data.
The GNSS accurately mapped out our cycling routes; my real-time heart-rate data let’s me know if I needed to push more and increase my intensity or slow down; the auto-pause feature when you stop for a quick break worked accurately; and checking my workout history on the app shows detailed information like Light to VO2 Max BPMs, your speed (km/h), and training data.
There’s also a feature called PK Competition within the app, which lets you send invites to friends and challenge them in workouts and other fitness achievements.
If you have the old Zepp Life app, you can also sync it here. Strava and Google Fit integration is also available. As said earlier, syncing workouts to Strava works fine, other than the occasional hiccups like missed data.
Battery life and charging
According to Xiaomi, the Redmi Watch 4 can last for up to 20 days under “typical usage”, 10 days with Always-On Display (AOD) turned on, and up to 30 days under long battery mode.
We went all out during our tests. We enabled the AOD, wore it to bed for comprehensive sleep tracking, and recorded a couple of bike rides. Under heavy use, the Watch 4 lasted me 7 days with 5% still left.
On one of those days, I rode the bike for around 7 hours, and it took 16% of battery juice. That’s with GNSS on, of course.
In addition, when I reached 5%, I enabled the Battery Saver Mode, which disabled everything and will only show the time, date, day, battery left, and steps counter only when you tap the screen or press the button.
Under the said mode, the watch only ate around 1% of juice per day. That’s more than enough for you to get back home and charge the device.
What I noticed is that the Watch drains fast if you’re not wearing it. Possibly because the sensors are always on trying to detect if you’ve worn it back.
It came with a cheap magnetic charging cable, which is expected for the price. The magnets attach securely to the bottom of the watch, no issues there. It didn’t come with an adapter, so we tried charging with a reasonable 33W adapter we had lying around. A full charge took 1 hour and 45 minutes. See the charging test details below:
- 15 minutes: 0-21%
- 45 minutes: 40%
- 1 hour 30 minutes: 90%
- 1 hour 45 minutes: FULL
Conclusion
The Redmi Watch 4 is easily the best smartwatch you can get for the price. Like most Xiaomi products, it offers a lot of features for its price.
Redmi Watch 4 has a clean and comfortable design, a very large display, detailed workout tracking, built-in GNSS, long battery life, and even a digital crown.
We really had to nitpick to find a downside on this wearable. There’s the glitchy music control and Strava integration — albeit, those issues can be easily fixed by a software update. We’re also not a big fan of using a proprietary strap mechanism, but forgivable as it’s in-line with the sleek design.
Bottom line is, the Redmi Watch 4 is an incredible steal whether you like working out or just want a reliable but affordable smartwatch as a companion to your smartphone.
Redmi Watch 4 pricing and availability in the Philippines
The Redmi Watch 4 was launched in the Philippines in January 2024 with an SRP of Php4,899. You can get it at authorized Xiaomi stores nationwide, as well as online stores at Lazada, Shopee, and TikTok Shop.
Pros
- Sleek, premium, comfortable design
- Huge screen with AOD
- Intuitive digital crown
- Comprehensive workout tracking with GNSS
- Plenty of features (Bluetooth calls, Sleep tracking, Find my phone, etc.)
- Long battery life
Cons
- Proprietary strap
- Glitchy music control
- Strava integration could be polished