I suppose it is just the way of the world but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I have had my Xiaomi S2 watch for under 2 years and we are reaching the point of its life where I can't help but feel as though this sort of failure is planned as far as the production of these things are concerned.
Maybe I was expecting too much for $100 but I like things that last and the failure of my Garmin watch after a similar amount of time is the reason why I decided to walk away from Garmin forever after that. A lot of that had to do with the fact that Garmin was kind of a jerk about my request informing me that it is "not possible" to replace the battery. It's possible. They just don't want to do it because there is more money for them if they just sell you a new watch.
I was pretty happy initially with my S2 purchase because like when anything is new, it seemed amazing. Sure there was a bunch of functions on it that I ended up just getting rid of because I don't need a phone or a tablet on my arm, I just wanted fitness tracking. My eyes aren't good enough to read an email on my wrist anyway.
I first noticed that this watch was rather lacking when I entered a half marathon hoping to record my glorious calorie burning only to have the damn thing run out of battery long before the race was complete. That was a sign of more bad things to come unfortunately, because these days things have gotten much worse with it.
This started happening not that long ago and I figured oh, no problem, new chargers are inexpensive so I ordered another one. Xiaomi must not like that there are generic versions of their chargers so I was able to get it for just a few bucks. All seemed well with the world as this message went away for a while but just a few weeks later it is back. I used to really enjoy how this watch would fully charge in just 10 minutes or so but nowadays I can put that thing on the charger in the evening before I go to bed and when I wake up it still isn't full. This is a full 8 hours of charging or so and is not ok.
I'm pretty convinced at this point that the watch is never going to see 100%. The battery is the size of a small coin and there is no good reason why it wouldn't be fully charged after an entire night on the thing.
Looking online at the FAQ's as far as these watches are concerned seems like a bunch of wishful thinking or misdirection designed at pointing the finger at you, the consumer, rather than admitting that these batteries start to fail after a certain amount of time. I would be ok with them failing, but having them fail and not having an easy way to replace them is something I am not ok with.
Xiaomi's official stance on all of this seems to be one of "if you mess around with it, you void the warranty" and this includes putting a new battery in it.
I can imagine that this is a complicated process because the watch is very waterproof, but instead of using that as an excuse lets look at what is likely really the issue: Xiaomi and all the other watch manufacturers, want you to buy a NEW watch, not repair the one that you have.
Unfortunately this is just the way that the electronics world seems to work.
In my normal exercise regimen I can get through my day and even exercise with it on for normal stuff, but if I wanted to do something that was going to take all day and actively record my caloric burn, it is going to run out of juice.
Also, yesterday it just abandoned my bike ride without asking me. There is no record of the ride happening even though it was notifying me every kilometer as it has in the past.
I would get angry at Xiaomi but it does seem like this is industry-wide. These smart-watches are built to fail after a certain amount of time and they make repairing them so complicated that most people (including probably me) are going to elect to just buy a new one rather than go through the complicated process of repairing it.
The same has been true of all the bluetooth headphones I buy so I shouldn't be at all amazed and shocked that this is happening with my other electronics as well.
I recall seeing something in the EU about a "right to repair" legislation and I would really like to see that happen here in USA as well. If they don't want to provide the ability to service something then they shouldn't be able to prevent you from doing it on your own, warranty or not.
