Xiaomi spin-off Poco has unveiled its first smartwatch – the Poco Watch – which 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 (also a Xiaomi sub brand), which launched at the back end of 2021. However, the Poco Watch is better specced in a few key departments.
Essential reading: Best budget smartwatches to buy
The Poco Watch comes in three different colours and features a 39.1mm size case, which is 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, 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 a competitive price for a smartwatch with an AMOLED display, GPS and potentially two weeks of battery life.
And it's only a tad more than the Redmi Watch 2 Lite for a better screen (AMOLED vs TFT) and longer battery life (14 days vs 10 days).
We've got the Poco Watch in for testing, so stay tuned to find out if this is great cheap smartwatch you should grab.
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.
How we test
By Michael Sawh
Michael Sawh has been covering the wearable tech industry since the very first Fitbit landed back in 2011. Previously the resident wearable tech expert at Trusted Reviews, he also marshaled the features section of T3.com.
He also regularly contributed to T3 magazine when they needed someone to talk about fitness trackers, running watches, headphones, tablets, and phones.
Michael writes for GQ, Wired, Coach Mag, Metro, MSN, BBC Focus, Stuff, TechRadar and has made several appearances on the BBC Travel Show to talk all things tech.
Michael is a lover of all things sports and fitness-tech related, clocking up over 15 marathons and has put in serious hours in the pool all in the name of testing every fitness wearable going. Expect to see him with a minimum of two wearables at any given time.