The Xiaomi Watch S1 Active is Your Bang-For-Buck Fitness Smartwatch

I’ve been testing the Xiaomi Watch S1 Active for a month now, and I can definitely recommend it for people who are looking for a great bang-for-the-buck fitness smartwatch.

It’s got internal GPS, can record 117 sport modes, has all-day heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring, steps and sleep tracking, and more. Let me talk to you more about it in my vlog below. Or scroll down for a quick summary and technical specifications.

Xiaomi Watch S1 Active Technical Specifications

• Design & Dimensions: 1.43” AMOLED screen (watch dimensions: 46.5 x 47.3 x 11mm); 36.3g
• 200 Watch faces
• Strap options: Moon White, Space Black, Ocean Blue, Yellow, Green, Orange
• Frame colors: Moon White, Space Black, Ocean Blue
• Battery life: 12 days
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth® 5.2 BLE
• GPS: Dual-band 4-system
• Fitness Tracking: 117 Sports modes
• All-day heart rate and SpO2 monitoring
• Water Resistance: 5ATM

Fitness Tracking

I only do six sports or exercise activities, and during the testing period I did a lot of running outdoors. The Xiaomi Watch S1 Active helped me track pace, distance, and heart rate in real time. (Just a note: you need to wear the watch snugly to get more accurate wrist heart rate readings.) The GPS measurement was within about 200 meters of the measurement I got from other devices.

For indoor cycling, this watch measures calorie burn, heart rate, and duration. (Like the Mi Watch I reviewed last year, it can’t pair to external sensors. It won’t be able to pick up speed and cadence from ANT+/Bluetooth sensors you might already own.)

I was really impressed by the pool swimming mode because it was able to track my rest intervals in between my swim intervals, and I didn’t have to hit any keys on the watch to do that. I could focus more on the swimming and forget about hitting lap buttons. (It will track your distance as long as you do front crawl, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly; kick and drill sets will go untracked.) The screen during pool swimming mode displays previous lap time, number of lengths completed, total elapsed time, and time of day. When you’re done swimming, the watch automatically clears water from any crevices by emitting a sound to help shake water out.

I was really excited to see that the Xiaomi Watch S1 Active has a triathlon mode, which you can also customize to create other multisport activities. It also tracks transition time, which is great.

The Xiaomi Watch S1 Active syncs with Strava through the Mi Fitness app. It’s able to sync most activities except swimming, so hopefully Xiaomi includes swim workout sync to Strava someday.

Smartwatch Functions

The Xiaomi Watch S1 Active connects with your smartphone using Bluetooth. Aside from syncing past recorded workouts to your phone, if you’re doing workouts while the watch and phone are connected, the Mi Fitness app automatically starts logging the workout.

Camera control: there are a few smartwatches out there that allow you to control the camera on your smartphone, and this is very useful for taking selfies. Even if the camera control is still a feature in beta for the Xiaomi Watch, it’s fully functional.

Notifications: To get notifications on your Xiaomi Watch from an Android phone, you need to enable the function within the Mi Fitness app; you also can customize which app notifications get pushed to your watch. Get an audio and vibration notification from the watch when a notification comes in, and flick your wrist or swipe down from the top of the screen to view it. I love this feature because it saves me the effort of picking up my phone to look at what kind of notification rolled in, especially if I’m trying to work undistracted.

Music control: I love listening to music when I’m working or working out. It’s a hassle to keep picking up my phone to flick between tracks on a playlist, so this watch definitely helps!

I’ve had a great time using the Xiaomi Watch S1 Active and won’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone who asks. All these features at a price your wallet will love? You can’t beat that.

The Xiaomi Watch S1 Active currently retails at PhP 8,999. Shop it on Lazada at the official Xiaomi Philippines store.