The new “Mi Watch Forbidden City” is not a Mi Watch at all

OK, so this ended up being way more confusing than I had anticipated. Seeing all the coverage on this “Xiaomi Mi Watch Forbidden City Edition” initially made me think that this was indeed a Xiaomi Mi Watch, or at least some form of Xiaomi Watch. But, after doing a little digging, and a lot of translating, this doesn’t seem to be the case at all.

My best guess is that it should be a lot closer to a “TicWatch Forbidden City edition” smartwatch instead.

For me, this trail of confusion started with this report from Gizmochina that dubbed this particular smartwatch the “Mi Watch Forbidden City”. And, after double checking several other reports around this device, I too was convinced that this was indeed some form of Mi Watch. Yes, it was round instead of square like the actual Xiaomi Watch, but then again it wouldn’t be the first time the company completely flips their design language within a product series.

However, after checking with those on the SoyaCincau team who could read Chinese, I was informed that this was not a Mi Watch at all. In hindsight, this should have been obvious because of the distinct lack of Mi branding anywhere on the watch, but I digress.

With that in mind, we did a little more digging and found out that this is actually a smartwatch from the company Mobvoi who makes the TicWatch–a device you’ve probably seen being pushed to you as a targeted ad on your social media platform.

On top of that, the Chinese name for the product (念念光阴-知足AI智能手表) roughly translates to Yearning For The Good Old Days Contented AI Smartwatch, which sounds ridiculous, but is the best I can do.. In fact, it’s not even based on the actual Forbidden City, but rather on the variety TV series There’s something new in the Palace Museum (上新了·故宫), and even has a poster featuring Allen Deng (邓伦) in it.

So, basically what I’m saying is that it is a special edition TicWatch that’s based on a Chinese variety TV series, and not a Mi Watch.

The watch itself, however, looks really good if ya ask me. It has a 1.3″ round OLED display up front, with a 316L stainless steel case. It comes in two colours, Rose Gold and Jet Black, that’s paired with a dark green and navy Italian leather watch strap respectively.

This watch runs on Google’s WearOS, which is always welcomed. The site says that the watch has “swim grade” water resistance, but in the spec sheet it’s stated that the watch has an IP rating of IP68. Besides that, you’re also getting built in GPS, as well as 24hr heart rate monitoring.

The campaign for the watch is running right now on Xiaomi’s crowdfunding website, and it has raised over CNY160,000 (126% funded) with 126 backers and 22 days to go. This watch has a retail price of CNY1,699 (~RM1,002), but if you back it during the campaign, you can pick one up for CNY1,299 (~RM766) instead. Additionally, backers can also stand a chance to win a Xiaomi smart TV, a TicPods 2 Pro and a silicone strap for the watch as well.

You can head on over to the crowdfunding page for more details.