MIUI for smart watches could be what Wear OS needs

In recent days we have known many details about the Xiaomi Mi Watch, a watch that will be presented on November 5 and that would be the first watch designed by the popular Chinese brand.

Xiaomi has achieved great popularity with its Mi Band, and its support for the Amazmi brand of Huami has been crucial for this to be considered by many as the Xiaomi watches. But the Chinese manufacturer needed to launch its watch; for more than, surely, it is manufactured by Huami.

In recent days we speculate a lot about what this watch could mean. At that time we did not have too much information, but Xiaomi has finally revealed the most important aspect of its device: MIUI for smartwatches.

The Xiaomi Mi Watch could be the Android watch that we have been waiting for years

We had the first news of the Xiaomi Mi Watch a few weeks ago when the reference of this watch appeared in the Wear OS application. This first was an indication that Xiaomi was working on a clock compatible with the Google ecosystem, but we didn't know much more.

In recent days it is the brand itself that is giving more and more details about its new watch. We have known that it will have several belts, as well as Snapdragon processor, NFC for payments, GPS and eSIM for LTE connectivity.

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Wear OS: rise and fall of the platform

But there is a crucial detail in the experience of this watch, and it is the software you will have. As we had anticipated, this watch was going to integrate Wear OS, a smartwatch platform that has been drifting for years.

At first, this system was known as Android Wear, and it was accompanied by several Android technology partners. But over time, everyone has been leaving the platform. Today, Wear OS had become a smartwatch platform for traditional watch manufacturers and the occasional small company, such as Mobvoi.

The system for Google watches started with a great advantage: the complete experience is controlled by Google, a decision that a priori seems ideal to ensure a complete experience in watches; Ensuring a constant cycle of updates (my Huawei Watch from 2015 continues to receive news and improvements).

But that control also implies an absence of freedom in the ecosystem, being impossible to perfect any aspect that Google has not polished enough. And, although constant, Google has been very little proactive in the evolution of Wear.

This could change soon with the purchase of Fitbit by Google. This news, confirmed last Friday, points to an improvement of Wear OS, also to the development of a Made by Google watch. Xiaomi would arrive at a propitious moment to stand out.

Xiaomi has introduced MIUI for smartwatches, a personalization layer based on what they already use in their mobile phones. And this is exciting because it sets a new precedent in Wear OS: it could be the first watch to have absolute freedom of customization.

And we say that it could because there is also the possibility that this personalization layer only works on the Chinese version of the watch and that it ends up coming to the west with a Wear OS without modifications.

Xiaomi and Google are very important partners, and a few months ago the great G allowed Xiaomi to create its personalization layer called Patchwall, which works on Android TV, another Google system that also does not allow customization.

A hardware platform that raises doubts

Not everything is good news for the Xiaomi Mi Watch. The company has confirmed that its watch will use a Snapdragon Wear 3100 processor, a processor that, although it is from 2018, much of its technology and manufacturing process is inherited from the Snapdragon 400, the mid-range chip of 2013 (with better sensors, though ).

It shouldn't be a problem in terms of performance for the type of applications a watch uses, but it should affect battery consumption. MIUI is an expert layer in controlling energy consumption, so we hope that in this sense the watch is the same size.

For the rest, we can only wait until November 5 to know all the details; In addition to knowing whether or not to arrive in Spain to try it and, of course, buy it.

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