For those who want something more solid than the Mi Vand form factor, but at the same time do not overpay for a lot of functions that will not be used, the Redmi Watch 2 Lite is more than perfect. The novelty also has weighty arguments in the form of long-term autonomy, a bright transflective LCD display and comfortable ergonomics. However, there are questions about the gadget. What did the manufacturer save on to make the price of the gadget so tasty, what niche the watch will occupy, and whether it will be able to compete with competitors in the oversaturated market of wearable electronics.
Appearance and ergonomics
The square form factor of an electronic watch, in my opinion, is the best solution. More information is placed on such a screen, and it is much more familiar to control swipes and read information. The main feature of the novelty is a transflective (TFT) display with a diagonal of 1.55 inches with a good pixel density of 320 × 360. When direct rays hit it, the screen does not fade, but, on the contrary, reflects light, thereby the information is perfectly read. The price for brightness is not as saturated shades of colors as those of their counterparts on AMOLED matrices. However, no dullness was noticed behind the novelty, the colors are quite bright, and the viewing angles are very large, and only when looking at exactly 45 ° is there a slight distortion.
The disadvantage of the display is the high minimum brightness, which can cause discomfort during sleep.
The watch case is made of matte plastic, pleasant to the touch and resists soiling well, except that it collects a large amount of white dust particles. The weight of the device is only 35 grams and absolutely does not pull the wrist, it is comfortable on the hand, and due to the small thickness of the case, it does not get in the way under the sleeves of jackets or sweaters. Coupled with a fairly tough anti-allergenic silicone strap with a lot of holes for any wrist size, the Redmi Watch 2 Lite seemed to me one of the most comfortable fitness watches for long-term wear.
The strap has a special attachment to the case and requires considerable effort to dismantle. I think it will be very difficult to find an alternative option.
Of the physical controls, there is only one button on the right side, which is responsible for calling the main menu with a short press and the reboot menu with a long press. At the bottom there is a protruding platform with sensors for measuring heart rate and oxygen in the blood, just below – two magnetic mounts for the charging cradle.
Interface and functionality
The clock interface is usually divided into zones. The side scrolling is looped and moves the user through the quick access cards: heart rate, blood oxygen level measurement, weather, starting workouts, statistics of steps taken. You can supplement the list above with one more widget of the three available: sleep, stress or music control. Not rich, but nothing superfluous and everything is at hand. A swipe from top to bottom on the main screen opens a panel with notifications, from bottom to top – a status bar with all the necessary settings and essential functions: a flashlight, alarm clock, Do Not Disturb mode and settings.
A short press on the side button provides access to other settings and features of the clock that did not fit in the widgets. These include: breathing exercises, menstrual cycle calendar, timer, stopwatch, remote camera control and compass.
The arrangement of tiles in a grid of three in a row seems to me a very good solution – this way more icons fit on the screen, but without captions it is not always clear what some icons represent, for example, a smiley face without emotions (measuring the level of stress). The vertical arrangement of the icons corrects the situation, as there are inscriptions next to it, but it will not be possible to get to the very bottom of the menu so soon. By the way, the animation of scrolling and moving around the interface in the watch is very unhurried. I think this is due to the weak processor, which does not allow multitasking, and the TFT matrix with a low refresh rate.
Autonomy
The manufacturer said 10 days of work in normal mode. My use case showed a very different result. After the maximum accuracy of the sensors was set, automatic walking detection was activated, the minimum screen brightness was set (for our cloudy winter, the brightness at the very first division was quite enough) the watch showed a result of 5 days of battery life.
The watch is fully charged in 2 hours.
Branded application
Xiaomi is gradually popularizing its second wearable electronics app in the form of Xiaomi Wear. It more clearly and clearly displays the measurement graphs and, most importantly, you can synchronize data from Mi Fit, thereby not losing the full picture of your health.
The “Sleep” section at the very bottom displays a summary of the daytime or evening sleep obtained when using the Redmi Watch 2 Lite.
The application has three sections: the first one contains all the information on health, the second one starts one of four workouts (running on the street, walking, cycling and treadmill), the third one synchronizes data, updates the firmware and configures the watch interface, including a selection of all kinds of watch faces from the store.
Recall after two weeks of use
When the Redmi Watch 2 Lite was activated for the first time, an interesting surprise awaited me – the colors were inverted and looked like a negative. After installing Xiaomi Wear Lite, an update immediately arrived on the watch, fixing a bug. With varying success and intermittent failures, an hour later, the update was successfully installed. But within a week, the application sometimes refused to synchronize data from the watch and the situation was solved only by deleting it and installing it again. Perhaps this is a feature of my sample, but I hope Xiaomi is aware of a similar problem and will solve it in the next updates.
In all other respects, Redmi Watch 2 Lite I liked its not overloaded functionality, good autonomy, pleasant ergonomics and good display. Information from the screen is readable from any angle, the colors are saturated, the image clarity is high, and even the minimum brightness was enough for me in absolutely any situation. The sensors correctly measure the pulse and the amount of oxygen in the blood, timely determine the start of the workout and accurately build the route using the built-in GPS.
In my opinion, in order to achieve such a tasty price of 5,000 rubles, the manufacturer sacrificed the power of the filling, body materials and overlooked some of the flaws of the firmware at the very beginning of sales. But for me personally, the novelty lacked a constantly active screen and NFC for making contactless payments.
pros
- Pleasant ergonomics for long-term wear and low weight.
- Non-marking case material.
- Perceptible non-irritating vibration.
- Excellent display brightness, contrasting colors and picture clarity.
- Accurate sensors and built-in GPS.
- Quite good autonomy with maximum measurement accuracy.
Minuses
- Poor display responsiveness to touches and gestures.
- Damp firmware and data synchronization failures with the application.
- Lack of Alweys-On.
- No NFC.
Controversial points
- High minimum brightness.
- Not all settings are made on the watch.
- Activation of the screen only by gesture or by pressing a button.
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