Hidden code could reveal the name of the next Google Wear OS manufacturer

Xiaomi's Mi Band is one of the most popular wearables in the world. With a relatively low price and a decent feature set (including a heart rate monitor), the recently released Mi Band 4 also features a full-color AMOLED display. It is also one of the few Xiaomi devices offered for sale in the U.S. In fact, you can pick it up from Walmart for $32.88. The device is produced by Huami, the company that also manufactures Amazfit smartwatches. According to 9to5Google, Xiaomi might be working on a new Google Wear OS smartwatch under the Mi name.

Strings of code discovered in the latest version of the Google Wear OS app (v2.28) seem to refer to a Xiaomi smartwatch that runs Wear OS. And information found in an unpublished Mi Wear app in the Wear OS APK (an APK is the file format used by Android to distribute and install apps) reveals that the timepiece could be called the Mi Watch.

For Google, this would be the first new manufacturer to use Wear OS in some time. And the use of Google's wearable operating system could indicate that a Xiaomi Mi Watch would be available in the U.S. Whether a Mi Watch will be manufactured by the company's wearables partner Huami isn't know.

Based on Xiaomi's penchant for producing "value for money" products, we'd imagine that a Xiaomi Mi Watch would undercut industry leaders Apple and Samsung in terms of pricing. At the same time, we'd expect such a device to offer many of the same health and activity tracking features found on the leading smartwatches.