December’s been a busy week for Chinese tech brand Xiaomi. Not content with stealing the spotlight for Christmas day with the launch of the 17 Ultra, the company also introduced its latest wearable smartwatch, the Xiaomi Watch 5. Priced at around £210 (when converted), Xiaomi has managed to keep the watch’s aesthetics in line with its predecessors, while adding a few things in the mix.
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Perhaps one big feature to keep an eye on with the Xiaomi Watch 5 is its built-in support for eSim functionality, which gets you LTE connectivity on the go. It comes baked into Xiaomi’s own HyperOS platform for wearables, which gives you access to exclusive apps and software services; as the device is currently exclusive for buyers in China, it’s expected that Xiaomi might sell the device for global markets with WearOS features as well.
Another major highlight of the watch is its battery life—inside you’ll find a 930mAh cell which according to Xiaomi can last for up to six days of regular use, rivalling smartwatches like the OnePlus Watch 3, for example. The watch can last for a maximum of up to 18 days when in power-saving mode. Like other Wear OS watches, the device comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 SoC, although Xiaomi has paired it with a Hengxuan 2800 low-power chipset, similar to what OnePlus is doing with its own watches.
On the outside, the watch features a round design with a 1.54-inch AMOLED display, which gets pretty bright with a maximum of 1500 nits and is reasonably sharp with a 480×480 pixel resolution. For durability, Xiaomi says that the watch comes with a Sapphire Crystal glass layer on the screen, while the entire watch itself is rated for 5ATM water resistance. For fitness, the watch comes with support for sleep tracking, step counts, heart rate monitoring, and over 150 different sports modes.
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There’s no word yet on when Xiaomi will launch the Watch 5 for global markets, but given that it usually takes a couple of months for the company to bring over its products from the far east to more buyers worldwide, we could probably expect to see the Xiaomi Watch 5 in early 2026.
