The most interesting Apple Watch news of the month does not come from Apple. It comes from a Chinese phone maker that decided to solve a problem Apple has spent years declining to solve.
Xiaomi's HyperOS 4 phones can now talk directly to an Apple Watch. The feature launched alongside the Xiaomi 18 Pro series, and it was announced by Lu Weibing, President of Xiaomi Group and head of its Mobile Division.
What Actually Works
This is more than a notification forwarding trick, which is what most cross-platform attempts have amounted to. Once connected, the watch can handle:
- Calls from the Xiaomi phone
- Text messages and app notifications
- Super Island live activities, Xiaomi's equivalent of the Dynamic Island feed, pushed to the watch
- Two-way device finding, so the phone can make the watch ring and the watch can make the phone ring
Health and exercise data travels the other direction, from the Apple Watch into Xiaomi's Mi Fitness app. That last feature came from a single source in the launch coverage, so treat the depth of health syncing as unconfirmed for now.
The pairing process runs through Xiaomi Connect, an app installed on the Apple Watch. You install it, the watch displays a QR code, you scan it with the Xiaomi phone, and then you grant permissions on both devices.
The Compatibility List Is Broader Than You Would Expect
Xiaomi's requirements are unusually generous for this kind of feature.
The phone needs HyperOS 4 or later. The watch is the interesting part: Xiaomi says the feature works with Apple Watch Series 6 and newer, Apple Watch SE 2 and newer, and every Apple Watch Ultra model running watchOS 11 or later.
A Series 6 is a 2020 watch. Xiaomi is supporting hardware Apple itself has moved on from.
The Catch Apple Kept
There is one limitation Xiaomi cannot engineer around, and it is the same wall everyone hits.
The Apple Watch must still be paired with an iPhone and activated before it can connect to the Xiaomi phone. Xiaomi states this explicitly. You cannot buy an Apple Watch and set it up on an Android phone out of the box. An iPhone has to be part of the process, even if a Xiaomi phone handles the daily interaction afterward.
What Xiaomi has built, then, is not a way to use an Apple Watch with Android. It is a way to keep using an Apple Watch after you have left the iPhone, provided you or someone you know has an iPhone for initial setup.
Apple Already Tried This
The reason this is newsworthy rather than routine is that Apple has been here before and walked away.
In its response to the US Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit in March 2024, Apple revealed that it had spent roughly three years attempting to make the Apple Watch compatible with Android, and had concluded that it could not be done within technical limitations.
The DOJ filing is worth quoting, because it captures why Apple had no urgency. Apple argued that because the watch is iPhone-only, steering a customer toward an Apple Watch "becomes more costly for that user to purchase a different kind of smartphone because doing so requires the user to abandon their costly Apple Watch and purchase a new, Android-compatible smartwatch."
That is a company describing its own product as a switching cost. Xiaomi's feature is a direct attack on it.
The Third-Party Route Already Existed
Xiaomi is not the only party trying to bridge this gap. A third-party app called Merge Watch does something similar in a more limited way.
It relays Android notifications to the watch, supports message replies, provides music controls, and moves Apple Watch health data into Google Fit. It costs $6 per month.
It is also fragile in ways that matter. Reported testing found notification delivery could lag or arrive in batches, especially when Android battery management put the companion app to sleep, and one test required reopening the watch app before delivery resumed. Still, it must be activated with an iPhone first, exactly like Xiaomi's approach.
The reviews of that workaround landed on an honest conclusion: it makes the Apple Watch usable on Android, but permanently one software update away from needing another fix.
Why Apple Looks Worse Than It Did
The contrast with Xiaomi is sharper because of what Apple did to its own support list this year.
watchOS 27 dropped the Series 6, 7 and 8, the SE 2 and the first-generation Ultra. Apple never labelled those watches end-of-life, so security updates may continue, but they are done receiving major platform features.
Now compare that with Xiaomi's compatibility list, which covers Series 6 and newer. An Apple Watch that Apple no longer gives new features to is still supported well enough for Xiaomi to drive calls, notifications and live activities on it.
Apple is leaving capability on the table that a competitor is picking up. That is the part worth watching, and it lands on top of a watchOS 27 that already cut older watches loose.
What Apple Would Have to Give Up
There is no mystery about why Apple has not done this. Apple Watch compatibility is one of the strongest retention mechanisms in consumer hardware. A person who buys a Series 12 has effectively committed to a phone platform for the life of the watch, which is five years or more.
Xiaomi's move removes part of that friction for anyone considering the switch, and it costs Apple nothing to be stubborn about until regulators intervene or the switching math changes.
Both of those are now live possibilities. The DOJ case made Apple's iPhone-only compatibility an explicit part of a monopoly argument, and Xiaomi has just demonstrated that the technical limitation Apple cited looks considerably softer from outside Cupertino.
Bottom Line
Xiaomi's HyperOS 4 phones can now connect directly to an Apple Watch, announced alongside the Xiaomi 18 Pro and covering the Series 6 and newer, the SE 2 and newer, and all Ultra models on watchOS 11 or later. Calls, texts, app notifications, Super Island live activities and two-way device finding all work, with health data syncing into Mi Fitness.
You still need an iPhone to set the watch up first, so this is not the Android pairing Apple has refused to build. It is the next best thing, built by a competitor, and it lands while Apple's own antitrust filing describes the watch's iPhone-only design as a deliberate switching cost.
Apple spent three years on this and gave up. Xiaomi shipped it.
Sources: Xiaomi's official compatibility documentation and launch coverage for HyperOS 4 Apple Watch connectivity alongside the Xiaomi 18 Pro series, including the Xiaomi Connect pairing process, the supported hardware list, and the requirement to pair and activate the watch using an iPhone first, as relayed by Lu Weibing's launch announcement; Apple's published response to the US Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit of March 2024, including its statement that it spent roughly three years attempting Apple Watch compatibility with Android and its argument that iPhone-only compatibility raises the cost of switching away from iPhone; published reporting on Apple Watch and Android cross-platform workaround apps, including Merge Watch's subscription pricing, its notification, message, media control and Google Fit health data features, its requirement for initial iPhone activation, and reported reliability issues around notification delays and Android background app management; Apple's watchOS 27 compatibility list and coverage of the models dropped for the 2026 release cycle; and independent reporting on using an Apple Watch with an Android phone, including the iPhone setup requirement and the feature limitations of the workaround approaches.