Xiaomi has been quite busy lately. This China-based company has introduced their Mi Max phablet quite recently, and alongside it, they’ve also announced the all-new variant of their Android-based operating system, MIUI 8. That’s not all though, the Mi Band 2 fitness tracker was also announced not long ago, and Xiaomi also introduced their very first drone, the Mi Drone. As you can see, Xiaomi tends to release all sorts of devices, we’re not looking at smartphones alone, and it seems like they’re getting ready to introduce their first smartwatch as well, read on.
Back in April, the company’s VP said that the Xiaomi smartwatch will land in the second half of this year. He’s not the only one who confirmed this though, Huami’s CEO said the same thing in early April. In case you haven’t heard of Huami, that is a China-based company which usually manufactures wearables for Xiaomi, they were responsible for both the Mi Band and Mi Band 1S, and quite possibly the Mi Band 2 as well, though we still didn’t get that confirmation. Anyhow, a new report surfaced in China, and the source is a well-known China-based analyst, Pan Jiutang. He said that the company’s first smartwatch will arrive soon, which means that we might not have to wait for Q3 or Q4 in order to see it. He also added that the watch’s power consumption will be comparable to Garmin’s wearables, which is interesting. Pan Jiutang also mentioned the pricing, the 999 Yuan ($152) and 1,599 Yuan ($243) price options were mentioned, though he did not elaborate on that. So, is it possible that Xiaomi intends to release two variants of their new smartwatch which will cost 999 Yuan and 1,599 Yuan? Well, everything is possible, but we’ll have to wait and see what’s what.
Many of us were hoping for an Android Wear-powered Xiaomi watch, but based on Pan Jiutang’s latest info, that might not happen. This is not an official report though, so take it with a grain of salt, as usual. Either way, quite a few people are looking forward to this wearable, mainly because the Mi Band products were quite solid, and because this smartwatch will quite probably be very affordable.