Industry News
Quick Verdict
Xiaomi has done the thing people have asked Apple to do for a decade, and it works, with conditions. On a Xiaomi phone running HyperOS 4, an app called Xiaomi Interconnectivity puts calls, text messages and app notifications from the phone onto an Apple Watch, sends Xiaomi's Super Island live activities across, lets the two devices find each other, and pulls step, heart rate, calorie, sleep and exercise duration data from the watch into Xiaomi's Mi Fitness app. Xiaomi announced it at its autumn launch conference alongside the Xiaomi 18 Pro series, reported on September 25 and 26, 2026.
The catch is the one that matters. You still need an iPhone. The Apple Watch has to be paired and activated with an iPhone before the Xiaomi phone can connect to it at all, which matches Apple's own documentation: "To use your Apple Watch, you need to pair it with your iPhone." This is a second screen for an Apple Watch you already set up, not a way to buy an Apple Watch and live on Android. And the health data it moves lands in Mi Fitness, not in Health Connect, which is where Android health apps actually look.
What Xiaomi Actually Announced
The feature is delivered through Xiaomi Interconnectivity, an app installed on the Apple Watch itself rather than a change to watchOS. Setup, as MundoXiaomi describes it, runs in one direction: pair and activate the Apple Watch with an iPhone first, install Xiaomi Interconnectivity on the watch, turn on Bluetooth on both devices, then scan a linking code with the Xiaomi phone's camera and grant the permissions it asks for.
Once linked, the watch becomes a notification and call surface for the Xiaomi phone. Gadgets and Wearables reports that calls, text messages and app notifications from the Xiaomi phone appear on the Apple Watch, Super Island live activities can be sent across, and both devices can locate each other. MundoXiaomi adds that you can answer a call by raising your wrist, and make the phone ring from the watch when it is nearby.
IntoMobile frames this as part of a broader Xiaomi strategy of making its devices work alongside Apple's ecosystem rather than trying to replace it, which is a fair reading of a feature that requires an iPhone to exist in the first place.
What You Need
The requirements are narrow on both sides.
| Requirement | What our sources say |
|---|---|
| Xiaomi phone software | HyperOS 4 or later (MundoXiaomi lists HyperOS 4.0.1 or later) |
| Apple Watch software | watchOS 11 or later |
| Apple Watch models | Series 6 and later, SE 2nd generation and later, all Ultra models |
| Initial setup | The watch must already be paired and activated with an iPhone |
| Announced | Xiaomi autumn launch conference, with the Xiaomi 18 Pro series, September 25 to 26, 2026 |
Two things this is not. It is not an Android feature: it needs a Xiaomi phone on HyperOS 4, so a Pixel or a Galaxy gets nothing from this. And it is not an Apple feature, so Apple has made no commitment to keep it working.
What Crosses Over, and What Does Not
The health direction is the part worth reading carefully, because it is narrower than "health data syncs" suggests. MundoXiaomi lists the metrics that travel from the watch to Xiaomi's health app as steps, heart rate, calories, sleep and exercise duration. Gadgets and Wearables describes the same direction as health and exercise information recorded by the Apple Watch appearing inside Mi Fitness.
That list leaves out most of what makes an Apple Watch interesting as a health device. None of our sources mention heart rate variability, blood oxygen, ECG, wrist temperature, AFib history or the cardio fitness estimate crossing over. We are not claiming those are blocked, only that nobody has said they work, and a metric nobody has confirmed is not a metric you should buy on.
Notifications also travel one way. Your Xiaomi phone's notifications appear on the watch. There is no suggestion that the watch acts as a controller for the phone the way it does for an iPhone.
The iPhone Requirement Is the Whole Story
People do not search for this because they own a Xiaomi phone and an Apple Watch. They search for it because they are choosing between platforms, or because someone in the household is on the wrong one.
On the Apple Support Communities, a parent asked whether a cellular Apple Watch could work for a child in a household where both parents use Android phones and have iPads instead. The answer from the community was direct: an Apple Watch cannot be activated and set up without an iPhone, and it is not possible from an Android phone, an iPad or a computer. On the Apple Developer Forums, another user asked simply whether they could sync an Apple Watch Series 9 with the Huawei Health app, and the working answer was that the data has to pass through the iPhone's Health app first, and only then can another app read it with permission.
Xiaomi's feature does not change either answer. Android Authority's standing guidance, that you will need an iPhone with the Watch app to activate an Apple Watch and there is no substitute for this on Android, still holds. What Xiaomi changed is what happens after activation, for one brand of phone.
Where the Health Data Actually Ends Up
This is the detail most coverage skips. On an iPhone, Apple Watch data goes into Apple Health, and any app you permit can read it from there. That is the route the Apple Developer Forums answer describes.
Under Xiaomi's arrangement, the subset of metrics listed above goes into Mi Fitness instead. Mi Fitness is Xiaomi's own app. Whether it then re-shares those particular records into Health Connect, the Android system health store that other Android health apps read, is not stated by any source we checked, and we are not going to guess. If you are considering this setup specifically to get Apple Watch data into an Android health app, treat that last hop as unverified until you have tested it on your own phone.
Meanwhile the fuller Apple Health record still exists, on the iPhone you had to use for setup and are presumably no longer carrying.
Who This Is Actually For
It is genuinely useful for a narrow group: someone who already owns an Apple Watch, already owns a recent Xiaomi phone, and wants the watch to keep showing calls and notifications after switching daily driver. Before this, that person had a watch that told the time.
It is not useful if you are buying a wearable for an Android phone. If that is the decision in front of you, the watches designed for the job, from Google, Samsung, Garmin and others, will give you a complete health record on the phone you actually use, without a dormant iPhone in a drawer as a dependency.
Where Vora Fits
Vora is our app, and this news does not change what it can read. On iPhone, Vora reads Apple Health, which is where Apple Watch data lives, so an Apple Watch paired with an iPhone reaches Vora normally. Vora also connects directly to Oura, Garmin, Fitbit and WHOOP (beta) on both phones, and to Samsung Health on Android.
On Android, Vora reads Health Connect. Xiaomi appears in Vora's connection records as a Health Connect source rather than a direct connection, which means Vora can read Xiaomi records that Mi Fitness writes to Health Connect. It does not mean Vora can see Apple Watch data that arrived in Mi Fitness through this new bridge. That hop is exactly the unverified one described above, so we would not tell you it works.
The practical version: if your Apple Watch is on an iPhone, Vora reads it through Apple Health today. If you are moving to a Xiaomi phone, check what actually lands in Health Connect before assuming anything downstream sees it. Vora's integrations page lists the current route for every source, and the features page covers what happens to the data once it arrives.
