The price and positioning of the Apple Watch range make it desirable, and perhaps a little too expensive for many of us, but what it does do is make smartwatches more desirable overall. The result is a booming budget smartwatch market, with brands leveraging their expertise in smartphones and Bluetooth connectivity to offer powerful wearable technology at affordable prices. These include Xiaomi, which recently launched the Redmi Watch 3 Active, a health-focused smartwatch priced at Rs 100. 2,999.
My previous experience with cheap smartwatches wasn’t great when it came to fitness tracking. Affordable devices tend to be best for core features like notification mirroring and watch face customizability. It will be worth seeing if the Redmi Watch 3 Active lives up to its name and works well as a fitness and health tracker, in addition to meeting the bill of a budget smartwatch. Check out this review to see if the Redmi Watch 3 Active is worth your money.
Redmi Watch 3 Active features heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring, step tracking and more
Redmi Watch 3 Active design and specifications
The budget smartwatch segment is more about offering as many features as possible while keeping the price low. As a result, designs and forms tend to be a bit simple in this space, and the Redmi Watch 3 Active sticks to this simple, plain look. The lack of distinctive elements and logos means you can’t tell from the outside that this is a Redmi product. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is up to you, but I personally find this look a little too bland and generic.
That said, it’s functional, and some may even like the sleek look that blends with the 1.83-inch color screen. There are thicker bezels around the edges of the screen, but you won’t really notice them if you’re using the watch face with a black background, and the front looks pretty even unless you look closely. There’s just a single button on the right side of the watch, which controls power, opens the app drawer, and wakes the screen from standby.
Usefully, the screen can also be activated via a raise-to-wake gesture (twisting your wrist to face you, like you would normally look at a watch) or by double-tapping the screen. You can quickly turn it off by covering the screen with your palm, or let the screen timeout so that the Redmi Watch 3 Active goes into standby after a predetermined amount of time.
The bottom of the Redmi Watch 3 Active has the only logo on the device, above the optical sensors that enable heart rate and blood oxygen tracking. Below are the contacts where the magnetic charger locks, and the other end connects to a USB Type-A port, although the device doesn’t come with a power adapter. The removable and replaceable strap can also be detached from the smartwatch at the base.
The Redmi Watch 3 Active is available in Carbon Black and Platinum Gray color options. The review unit I was sent was the former, but the latter arguably looks better and has more character. The default strap is quite comfortable and fully waterproof, matching the 5ATM waterproof rating of the smartwatch itself. In terms of connectivity, the Redmi Watch 3 Active uses Bluetooth 5.3 and supports Bluetooth calling when paired with a smartphone. Of course, there’s a built-in speaker and microphone for this functionality as well.
There is only one button on the Redmi Watch 3 Active that controls power and other functions
Redmi Watch 3 Active software, interface and apps
Budget smartwatches don’t come with compatibility with both smartphone operating systems (sometimes even within the Android ecosystem), but the Redmi Watch 3 Active ticks the boxes in this regard. The device works with the Mi Fitness app, which is available for Android and iOS and supports smartwatches on both platforms.
For the purpose of this review, I installed the Mi Fitness app on a OnePlus 9 Pro (review) and paired it with a Redmi Watch 3 Active. The app uses Bluetooth to manage the connection between the smartwatch and smartphone, also creating a voice call link and syncing notifications between the two devices. Fitness and health data collected on the watch is sent to the app to provide better insights and analysis.
The app itself has a clean look, with widgets for activity, sleep, steps, heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and more. You can also start a workout from within the app, and outdoor workouts appear to have maps integrated into the tracking, but this relies on your phone’s location; the smartwatch itself doesn’t support location tracking. The device settings and basic tools can be adjusted easily, and overall it’s a simple but functional app that comes well-equipped with the device itself.
Like any good smartwatch, the Redmi Watch 3 Active has a variety of watch faces to choose from. In addition to the three default options, there’s a rather large list of downloadable options, sorted somewhat randomly. If you see something you like, you can download it to the smartwatch via the app, and in addition to the three default selections, up to two additional watch faces can be stored, which can be removed and replaced as needed. While a lot of them are too weird for me, there are some good options that I like.
Xiaomi Fitness app is available for iOS and Android and works with Redmi Watch 3 Active
Redmi Watch 3 active performance and battery life
Almost every smartwatch, regardless of price, offers basic fitness tracking functionality. However, while the Redmi Watch 3 Active hopes to market itself as a fitness-friendly option thanks to its “Active” moniker, its accuracy and usefulness on a budget device are a mixed bag.
However, the reality is largely consistent with the rest of the budget smartwatch market, with the Redmi Watch 3 Active not significantly exceeding its claims. While there are more than 100 tracking and sports modes with purportedly customized tracking performance, most of them are niche, and it’s difficult to tell whether the tracking data is accurate.
In my review, I stuck with tracking the basics—mostly steps, heart rate, and blood oxygen. In our 1,000-step test, the Redmi Watch Active measured about 1,060 steps, and I counted 1,000 steps manually, with an error rate of 6%. This is very similar to what other smartwatches in this price range offer, and a far cry from the more accurate step tracking data that higher-end devices can produce.
Heart rate tracking was similarly problematic, especially when I tried to take measurements while walking around; the numbers tended to be too low or jump wildly. Standing or sitting down with your arms steady is pretty much the only way to get a remotely accurate heart rate measurement, even with blood oxygen tracking, both of which were compared to the Apple Watch Series 7 to see how heart rate was measured. accuracy.
Redmi Watch 3 Active 5ATM waterproof
Sleep tracking is very basic and only seems reasonable in terms of actual sleep time, while the specifics of sleep tracking don’t really come across as detailed or accurate enough. Overall, health tracking for this might be able to give users a rough idea of what’s going on, but it’s too irregular to rely on anything significant. The overall performance of the Redmi Watch 3 Active is good, with the basic UI and apps running as expected for the most part. The Redmi Watch 3 Active’s screen, while not as clear and beautiful as some competitors in this segment (which use OLED displays), is bright and entirely satisfactory for this price.
I managed to use this smartwatch for about 7 days on a full charge, wearing it throughout the day, including while exercising and occasionally while sleeping. Battery life can be slightly improved if call continuity is turned off, and generally the Redmi Watch 3 Active won’t answer too many calls on its own.
If you plan to use this feature, you can easily turn it on through the Bluetooth settings. Helpfully, answering a call on a paired smartphone rather than the watch ensures the audio is transferred to the correct device even if the connection is active, and the Redmi Watch 3 Active only works if you actually answer the call on the smartwatch itself. Incoming calls will be activated. Call quality was decent when making short-distance calls in a quiet environment. For longer calls or in noisy environments, you may find it a bit too soft and difficult to use, and may need to switch to a smartphone or a suitable headset.
judgment
Although Redmi Watch 3 Active is positioned as a smartwatch focused on fitness, its actual fitness functions do not have many highlights. However, that doesn’t completely negate the fact that it’s a smartwatch. It’s a capable budget wearable that handles functions like notifications and calls well. Otherwise, it looks and feels good, has a decent screen and software, and runs reliably for about seven days on a charge.
So, there’s nothing to complain about here, but nothing that really sets the Redmi Watch 3 Active apart. Consider this if you want a new affordable smartwatch priced under Rs. 3,000, mainly because of the reliability and longevity you get from Xiaomi’s stable devices.
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