Xiaomi Redmi Watch 4 is a budget smartwatch with a premium look and feel

Price When Reviewed

Unavailable in the US

Redmi’s remit isn’t to make smartwatches that are going to knock the Apple Watch or the Samsung Galaxy Watch off their perch. Xiaomi’s smartwatch is made for people that don’t want to spend lots of money on a wearable, but still want a good-looking one along with a smooth software experience.

With the Watch 4, Xiaomi’s off-shoot is focusing on improving things on the design front, all while making it a smarter smartwatch than its predecessor.

While Redmi looks to redefine expectations of what a budget smartwatch should look like, it’s also about whether it’s done enough elsewhere to make it worth strapping on over other budget smartwatches.

Check out our chart of the best smartwatches to see top rivals.

The Redmi Watch 4 takes Redmi’s smartwatches in the right direction, especially in terms of making this budget option feel and look less budget on both the hardware and software front.

Design & Build

• Comes in grey or black case colours
• Comfortable, yet awkward strap
• 5ATM waterproofing

The Redmi Watch 4 is available in either obsidian black or silver grey case looks and that case is made from aluminium as opposed to the plastic build you’d previously associate with smartwatches in this price bracket.

That is matched up with a matching black or grey TPU strap, but thankfully you have brighter strap options here, and the way you remove straps from the case is really easy.

It meant I could swap in a more colourful blue one, which helps to lift the overall look of the Watch 4 but comes at an added expense. The strap clasp, however, is an unnecessarily fiddly one and I’m not sure why Redmi opted against a more traditional clasp setup. 

It’s a pretty streamlined look in general, with a single, rotating watch crown-style button

A 47.5mm case size means it does sit big on the wrist, though at just over 30g it’s not a heavy watch to wear at all. It measures 10.5mm thick, so it’s also not the slimmest smartwatch out there either, but it didn’t feel like a chunky beast to wear, even on my skinny wrists.

It’s a pretty streamlined look in general, with a single, rotating watch crown-style button which you can press to wake the screen up, get into the app screen and, go back to the main watch screen and twist to scroll through the UI.

Both the case and strap are fit for swims thanks to a 5ATM water resistance rating, which means it can be submerged in water up to 50 metres depth.

Screen & Audio 

• 1.97-inch AMOLED display
• Supports always-on mode
• Speaker included for Bluetooth calls

Packed into that 47.5mm case is a pretty sizeable, 1.97-inch AMOLED touchscreen that offers a 60Hz refresh rate and up to 600 nits maximum brightness. That does mean a step up in screen size from the Redmi Watch 3.

The screen quality isn’t the best I’ve seen around this price. It’s certainly bright and there’s no horrible big black bezel eating into the larger screen estate. Colours are just a touch washed out, especially when compared to AMOLED displays on some rivals.

The always-on display support gives you the option to schedule or use the smart mode

In the dedicated display settings on the watch, you can adjust the display brightness, and toggle the nicely responsive raise-to-wake gesture support. The always-on display support gives you the option to schedule or use the smart mode to either set when that always-on mode is in use, or let the watch decide for you when it’s enabled.

If you want to make calls with the Redmi Watch 4, that is an option. You just need to make sure you’ve got your phone nearby and it’s paired over Bluetooth.

There’s a nice-sized keypad to type out numbers and the call quality is loud and clear enough to make it a handy feature to have, though unsurprisingly you’ll find far more polished calling support on more premium smartwatches. 

Software & Features 

• HyperOS
• Emergency contact mode
• Compatible with Android phones and iOS

The Redmi Watch 4 runs on Xiaomi’s Hyper OS operating system like the Xiaomi Watch S3, which is compatible with both Android and iOS, and aims to offer a pretty consistent experience across both smartphone platforms.

I tested it mainly with an iPhone as well as mixing up some time paired to an Android phone and elements like pairing, syncing worked well generally.

The watch software runs relatively smoothly and is easy to get around too, with nice, big widgets and main app screen, while quick settings and notifications are just a swipe away from the main watch face screen.

Redmi doesn’t share processor or RAM information for the Watch 4, but I’d say swiping through screens while not spotlessly smooth, also isn’t terribly laggy either.

The Mi Fitness companion smartphone app certainly isn’t the prettiest wearable companion app around, though it does a good enough job of presenting your health and fitness stats along with giving you somewhere to do things like add and sync over new watch faces and adjust settings like notification support or how deciding how closely you want to monitor blood oxygen levels.

It also allows you to connect to third-party apps like Strava, Apple Health and now Suunto to share your health and fitness stats across other platforms. That’s a relief as it’s not always a given at this price.

Along with being somewhere you can view your phone notifications, you can also control music playing on your paired smartphone, use a find my phone mode to reunite you with your phone, check weather and calendar updates, create to-do lists and use the phone as a smartphone camera shutter.

Features you won’t find here include an app storefront, contactless payments or a music player. Though, given the price, that’s hardly surprising.

Redmi offers an emergency SOS mode feature to put the onboard microphone and speaker to added use, which is similar to modes that have cropped up on other smartwatches and sports watches.

It allows you to triple-press the crown to send an alert to emergency contacts if you get into trouble. Like similar modes on other watches, the lack of LTE connectivity means you need to have the watch paired to your phone to fire out those alerts.

Fitness & Tracking 

• OSupports over 150 sports modes
• Tracks heart rate and blood oxygen levels
• Includes built-in GPS

Redmi wants the Watch 4 to be a smartwatch that will fulfil your health and fitness tracking desires and it arguably offers more in this department than it does staple smartwatch features.

There’s support for over 150 different sports modes (the same as the Watch S3) and that covers running, cycling, swimming, hiking, skipping and also has profiles for everything from combat sports to sailing.

Like many smartwatches that offer an abundance of sports modes, it’s the core ones that are going to give you the richer metrics, while ones like Zumba are going to keep metrics down to heart rate and workout duration.

Redmi also includes some of the training insights you’d associate with proper sports watches

For runners, there’s built-in GPS, and preloaded running workouts if you don’t know what an interval workout should look like, while it usefully includes some warm-up exercises to follow before you get moving. That GPS performance performed okay, but I found that other smartwatches around this price can offer better outdoor tracking accuracy overall. This certainly isn’t going to give you sports watch-level performance. 

Redmi also includes some of the training insights you’d associate with proper sports watches such as the Garmin Forerunner 165. It can monitor training load, so that’s how much you’re exercising largely based on heart rate. There’s also Vitality Scores, which seems to function in a similar fashion to PAI Health scores, which you’ll find on Amazfit watches and will score you based on engaging in a certain amount of exercise each week.

Those insights are massively reliant on the optical heart rate sensor on the case back being able to monitor your heart accurately. That sensor can additionally also track blood oxygen levels.

My experience when continuously tracking heart rate or using it during exercise wasn’t great. Average and maximum heart rate readings were higher in general compared to a heart rate monitor chest strap as well as more reliable heart rate monitoring smartwatches and sports watches.

If you’re more interested in having a smartwatch that can double up as a Fitbit, to focus on monitoring daily step counts and dishing out sleep data, then this watch can do that as well. There’s a dedicated activity tracking widget with inactivity reminders to nudge you to keep moving. I found daily step counts generally in line with other fitness trackers I wore alongside the Watch 4.

When it’s time to track sleep, it will assess sleep quality, track duration and sleep stages, heart rate and even capture afternoon naps. It’ll also assign you a sleep animal, which you’ll get once you’ve logged seven straight nights of sleep. The data accuracy for elements like length of sleep and sleep stages felt reliable compared to other sleep trackers I tested it against, though heart rate tracking once again felt very inaccurate.

Battery Life & Charging

• 470mAh battery
• Optimistic battery promises
• No fast charging mode

The Redmi Watch 4 puts in a good battery performance, but how far it can go depends on what features are in play on a daily and nightly basis.

There’s a relatively sizeable 470mAh capacity battery beneath that aluminium case that will effortlessly make it through a day and can comfortably get through over a week between charges. Typical use battery life is touted at 20 days, and in order to get that you’re going to have to forgo having the display in always-on mode and disable the more advanced continuous health monitoring.

There is a long battery mode included too, which will push the battery to a month and doesn’t just restrict you to being able to check in on the time. It will still keep the accelerometer motion sensor in play so you can still track your daily steps.

When you do need to charge, it’s time to grab that proprietary charging cable to power it up. There’s no fast charging mode here, so it takes well over an hour to go from 0-100%.

The standby performance is strong here, so if it’s disconnected from your phone, it holds that charge well until you’re ready to strap it back on.

Price & Availability

The Redmi Watch 4 launched globally in January 2024, after initially launch in China in November 2023. In the UK, you can pick it up for £89.99 and that’s the same price for both the black and grey versions.

It’s available directly from the Mi store or from retailers like Amazon UK.

Currently, Redmi Watches aren’t on sale in the US, if you try to buy them directly from the US Mi.com website.

That sub-£100 price does put the Watch 4 up against smartwatches like the Amazfit Bip 5, the CMF Watch Pro and the Huawei Watch Fit Special Edition.

Check out our list of the best smartwatches to see alternatives.

Should you buy the Xiaomi Redmi Watch 4?

The Redmi Watch 4 takes Redmi’s smartwatches in the right direction, especially in terms of making this budget option feel and look less budget on both the hardware and software front.

Ultimately though, when you compare it to other smartwatches that sit in and around the Redmi Watch 4’s price, I’m not convinced you are getting the best smartwatch experience available, especially if you care more about those staple smartwatch features.

This still very much sits in the basic smartwatch category that offers some interesting extras on the fitness front, but similar watches from the likes of Huawei and Honor offer more bang for your buck.

Specs

• 1.97-inch, AMOLED always-on display
• 5ATM water resistance rating 
• Built-in speaker
• Built-in GPS
• 470mAh capacity battery
• Up to 20 days battery life
• Heart rate sensor
• Blood oxygen sensor
• Bluetooth calls
• Sleep tracking
• Stress monitoring