The Xiaomi Mi Band 3 will launch alongside the flagship Mi 8 smartphone at an event in Shenzhen, China on May 31, Xiaomi confirmed. The event is a celebration of the company’s 8th anniversary and will reportedly be the biggest launch event yet by the Chinese company.
Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun officially confirmed that the Mi Band 3 will launch at the event on his handle on Weibo. In fact, Lei Jun was recently spotted wearing the band at the launch event of the BlackShark gaming phone. The third-generation wearable has been in testing for the past two-three months.
The Mi Band 3 will reportedly sport a large 2.5D full-touch curved display. There won’t be a physical button this time. There will be options to check your steps, heart rate and the time. Users will have to slide the screen up or down to access the features, instead of pressing the button like on the Mi Band 2.
The Mi Band 3 will be launched two years after the Mi Band 2 and is expected to bring some significant upgrades. Apart from that, the May 31st event will see the launch of the 8th-anniversary Mi 8, the Mi Note 5, MIUI 10 and more.
The band will come at a time when the wearables market is seeing some growth. A report by Canalys states the wearables market had grown by 35 percent in the first quarter of 2018. Xiaomi in fact leads the wearables market jointly with Apple by shipping 3.7 million Mi Bands in the first quarter 2018. Both Xiaomi and Apple had 18 percent market share at the time.
The Mi Band 3 will arrive on May 31 in China and hopefully will be introduced soon in India.