Redmi Watch 5: A Comprehensive Review

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Redmi Watch 5 Review: A Budget Smartwatch That Surprises

The Redmi Watch 5, launched globally in January 2025 (after a November 2024 China-only release), offers a compelling blend of features and affordability. Priced at around €110, this smartwatch punches above its weight in many areas, making it a strong contender in the budget smartwatch market. Let’s delve into the details.

Design and Build Quality

The Redmi Watch 5 boasts a sleek design, featuring a lightweight aluminum alloy body and a comfortable TPU strap (Lavender Purple in the reviewed unit). Despite its budget-friendly price, it exudes a premium feel, easily surpassing expectations for a device in this price range.

Xiaomi also offers a range of additional quick-release straps for easy customization. These include a Cream White cowhide leather strap and a Rose Purple velcro textile strap. While both are attractive options, the durable velcro strap proves particularly versatile.

The design is clearly inspired by the Apple Watch, a stylistic choice that simultaneously elevates its perceived value but also lacks originality.

Display: Brightness and Vividness

The Redmi Watch 5 features a standout 2.07-inch AMOLED display, the largest screen ever incorporated into a Xiaomi wearable. The slim 2mm bezels contribute to an impressive 82% screen-to-body ratio, making the watch compact and comfortable to wear. The curved 2.5D glass further enhances the display’s appeal and ease of use.

Brightness is exceptional, reaching a peak of 1500 nits. This level of brightness is typically found in high-end smartphones, giving the Redmi Watch 5 a significant advantage over many competitors. The 60Hz refresh rate ensures smooth animations, but the display can intelligently reduce to 5Hz (using an LTPS panel) for specific watch faces, maximizing battery life.

Colors are vibrant and accurate, and the watch faces viewed on the Mi Fitness app are faithfully replicated on the watch itself. The Always-On Display (AOD) offers two modes: a simplified AOD, and a mode that directly accesses the main watch face. The raise-to-wake function is responsive and accurate.

Software and Hardware: Simple and User-Friendly

The Redmi Watch 5 uses the Mi Fitness app (available on both Android and iOS app stores), Xiaomi’s central hub for all its health and fitness trackers. This app manages notifications, calls, fitness data, and alarm settings.

The watch’s interface is intuitive, although the varied app icons might appear slightly chaotic at first. Accessing the app grid is easy via the rotating crown button; users can choose between icon-only display, icon-with-text, or a list view. The default icon-only view is arguably the most efficient.

Notification delivery is prompt, however, emoji support is limited. Only basic alphanumeric characters are reliably displayed in notifications, excluding most emojis.

Xiaomi has incorporated a new AFE (analog front-end) chip, promising improved accuracy in heart rate (5.2% improvement) and sleep tracking (10% improvement). While these improvements are noted, sleep tracking remains inconsistent, particularly for restless sleepers. The watch is sensitive to minor movements, potentially leading to inaccurate sleep data; in contrast to some competitors, like the Huawei Watch, which actively manage heart rate tracking during sleep.

Activity and Health Tracking: Strengths and Limitations

The Redmi Watch 5 includes blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) and stress monitoring. It is important to remember that these measurements are not intended for medical use. With over 150 sports modes, Xiaomi highlights the watch’s fitness tracking capabilities bolstered by built-in GNSS support.

The precise GNSS satellite system used remains undisclosed although it’s likely the Chinese Beidou system, which contributes to minor inaccuracies in location tracking, especially during runs. This is because the Beidou system is primarily optimized for use within China and has gaps in global coverage.

Beyond basic fitness tracking, the watch offers structured running courses and guided breathing exercises, making it suitable for both serious athletes and casual users. The Mi Fitness app provides clear and visually appealing data visualization for heart rate, sleep, and other metrics.

Battery Life and Charging: Outstanding Endurance

In a world increasingly standardized around USB-C charging, the Redmi Watch 5 utilizes a proprietary pogo pin charging system. This makes the charger less versatile as an independent device, and it will need replacement in case of damage.

Despite this drawback, the Redmi Watch 5 exhibits truly exceptional battery life. Xiaomi claims up to 24 days with limited usage, but in real-world tests with active usage (running, heart-rate monitoring, notifications, calls), the watch consistently lasted for 15 days. Even with the Always-On Display enabled, battery life remained impressively high at approximately 9 days.

The 550mAh battery charges fully in about an hour, meaning a minimal downtime for extended usage. The raise-to-wake function minimizes the need to constantly activate the AOD, extending the battery life further.

Verdict: A Great Value Proposition

At approximately €110, the Redmi Watch 5 represents outstanding value. It delivers an attractive design, a brilliant display, and exceptional battery life. While it may lack a sophisticated operating system and advanced app support compared to high-end smartwatches, it capably performs essential smartwatch tasks such as notifications and basic health monitoring.

Although functionally similar to the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Pro (particularly given the compatibility of straps between the two devices), the Redmi Watch 5 stands out in its sleek design and sophisticated display. For users prioritizing notification management, basic health metrics, and long battery life, the Redmi Watch 5 is a strong contender that outweighs minor shortcomings with its great value and outstanding user experience.