At its recent launch event at MWC 2024 in Barcelona, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra smartphone stole most of the limelight, but the company also unleashed not just one but three new wearable devices - the Smart Band 8 Pro fitness tracker, the Watch S3 smartwatch, and the Watch 2 smartwatch. Let’s take a look at their specs and features. Xiaomi Smart Band 8 Pro (EUR 69/~Rs 6195) The Smart Band 8 Pro is Xiaomi’s latest fitness tracker, offering robust health tracking in a compact form factor at an affordable EUR 69 price point. The main appeal of the Smart Band 8 Pro lies in its high-resolution 1.74” AMOLED display with Gorilla Glass Victus protection – very impressive for a fitness band. This enables crisp visuals for the band’s health metrics, exercise data, notifications, and more while ensuring durability. Enhanced running features also help justify the “Pro” moniker, including pace reminders to help runners maintain their target speed across 10 different on-wrist running courses. The band can even analyse running form and technique. Beyond running, over 150 total sports modes provide detailed performance analytics. Advanced health tracking capabilities round out the offering, like blood oxygen monitoring, stress tracking, and menstrual cycle tracking for women. While the Smart Band 7 Pro already offered excellent battery life up to 12 days, the new model stretches this even further to 14 days to accommodate all-day health monitoring. Xiaomi Watch S3 (EUR 149/~Rs 13,380) If the Smart Band 8 Pro appeals to performance athletes, the new Watch S3 targets more casual health and smartwatch users with its elegant design aesthetic. The centerpiece of the Watch S3 is its highly customisable circular 1.43” AMOLED display. Users can easily swap out watch bezels to match different outfits and snap these fashion accessories into place for a unique dial on the home screen. The watch also supports custom photo watch faces, allowing owners to embed a portrait photo of themselves or loved ones for a personal touch. Despite the focus on style, the Watch S3 still includes over 150 sports modes with accompanying metrics. It also provides comprehensive health tracking like blood oxygen, sleep, heart rate, stress, and more. Standout features include a new Sleep Animal assessment that assigns users a sleep-representative animal based on sleep patterns. Xiaomi Watch 2 (EUR 199/~Rs 17,900) The Xiaomi Watch 2 is the company’s first smartwatch running Wear OS, Google’s smartwatch platform. It certainly packs the hardware to take advantage of Wear OS’ features and apps, highlighted by the latest Snapdragon W5+ wearables chip. There’s also a generous 2GB RAM and 32GB internal storage. The Watch 2 correspondingly includes over 160 sports modes for detailed performance tracking. This covers exciting new winter sports analytics like mapping ski tracks and analysing ski jump air time and angle of descent. Advanced health tracking functionality like blood oxygen monitoring and Sleep Animals round out the offerings. While the Watch 2 costs a somewhat premium EUR 199, its high-end construction, cutting-edge performance hardware, and lengthy battery life of up to 65 hours help justify the pricing. The device brings Xiaomi’s smartwatches truly into premium territory to compete head-on with the Apple Watch for the first time.
