Poco Watch smartwatch arrives with a very familiar design
Xiaomi spin-off Poco has unveiled its first smartwatch that’s simply called Poco Watch and is squarely aimed at fitness enthusiasts.
The iOS and Android-friendly smartwatch shares more than a striking resemblance to the Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite and the Redmi Watch 2 Lite, which launched at the back end of 2021. Redmi remains a brand that sits under the Xiaomi umbrella.
Essential reading: Best budget smartwatches to buy
The Poco Watch comes in three different case colours and features a 39.1mm size case that measures in at 9.98mm thick and weighs in at 31g, making it lighter than Redmi’s square watch.
Front and centre is a 1.6-inch, 320 x 360 AMOLED screen and that case and screen is matched up with a TPU strap. As a package, it’s waterproof up to 50 metres depth, making it suitable for swimming and showering.
On the sports tracking front, you’ve got your pick of 100 fitness modes including HIIT, yoga, running, cycling and hiking. There’s automatic activity tracking support for some of those modes like running and walking, with built-in GPS and support for Galileo, Glonass and Beidou satellite systems to track outdoor workouts.
While the Poco Watch doesn’t offer any regulatory approved health monitoring features, it does include an optical heart rate monitor to track heart rate continuously and can also capture blood oxygen levels 24/7 as well.
You can also track stress, make use of guided breathing exercises and there’s women health tracking features available to tap into too.
On the smartwatch front, you’ll be able to view notifications, view weather forecasts, change watch faces and access music playback controls.
Battery life is touted to be up to 14 days based on typical usage, which requires disabling features like advanced sleep monitoring and sampling heart rate at longer 30-minute intervals to get it.
The Poco Watch goes on sale on 28 April, priced at €79, which works out to around $84/£66. It’s not clear whether it’s going to go on sale in the US, but we’ll keep you posted when we know more.
That’s a pretty good price though for a smartwatch with an AMOLED display, GPS and potentially two weeks of battery life. We’ve got the Poco Watch in for testing, so stay tuned to find out if this is great cheap smartwatch you should grab.
