Chinese tech giant Xiaomi has officially opened up shop in Australia, bringing dozens of products that look like they should cost a lot more than they do, and more than a few models that resemble gadgets offered by Apple or Samsung.

Fifteen years after it first launched, and soon ruffled feathers by challenging Apple in China, Xiaomi offers hundreds of different products in its home market. Here, it has brought a more curated selection of phones, gadgets, robots and smart home appliances, carrying both the Xiaomi and budget-focused Redmi branding. We’ve tested five of them to see how they stack up.

If all you want is something that looks like an Apple watch for less than $100, the Watch 5 Active has you covered.Credit:

Redmi Watch 5 Active – $80

The Redmi Watch 5 is an unabashed Apple Watch lookalike, with an aluminium case, rotating crown and AMOLED display. The Watch 5 Active, meanwhile, at less than half the price of Redmi Watch 5’s $190, just does the absolute basics.

The Active’s case looks and feels like plastic, which it is, but at least it’s very light. The included TPU band is perfectly fine, but uses standard lugs if you want to swap it out.

Connected to an Android or iPhone, the experience of using the watch is surprisingly smooth. It has everything you would expect – including media control, step counting, heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking and phone notifications – but also extras such as a blood oxygen test, speakers and microphones for taking calls, and a 5 ATM water resistance rating. It has activity tracking for quite a few different exercises, but weirdly no swimming.

The big square screen is bright and sharp, and you can set it to wake by lifting, tapping or both. There’s no crown so you’ll be swiping and touching a lot, but it feels like a WearOS watch. You’re limited to the apps it comes with, but it’s a decent selection, including a remote camera shutter and Amazon’s Alexa. The choice of watch faces is nice and varied too, with a good selection of classy, informational, whimsical and jokey options.

Overall, it does the job of a smartwatch perfectly well considering the sub-$100 price, and you can export fitness data to your phone’s native health app. Most impressive is the fact I easily got a week of........

© The Age