How to make Xiaomi smartwatches not disconnect from the phone: the complete guide

Are you tired of your Xiaomi smartwatch losing touch with your phone? Notifications stop coming, step data syncs with delay, you have to reconnect every hour. The problem is familiar to many owners of the Mi Band, Xiaomi Watch and other fitness trackers of the brand. But the good news is that 90% of the time it is solved without going to the service center.

In this article, we’ll look at all the possible causes of connection instability, from simple Bluetooth errors to hidden firmware bugs, and give you step-by-step instructions for different models (including the Mi Band 7/8, Watch 2 Pro, and Smart Band Pro), and how to prevent future communication breaks, with a special focus on the hidden features of the Mi Fitness/Zepp Life app that are not mentioned in the official manuals.

Why Xiaomi Watches Lose Connection with Phone: 5 Reasons

Before we get to solutions, it's important to understand what causes the connection to break, and here are the most common scenarios.

• 📱 Bluetooth issues on your phone: outdated version of the protocol, conflicting apps, or hardware limitations (especially on budget smartphones).
• 🔄 Automatic energy saving features: both the phone and the watch can force the connection to be turned off to save charge.
• 📲 Bugs in the Mi app Fitness/Zepp Life: Incorrect data synchronization or background failures.
• 📡 External interference: Other Bluetooth devices, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi routers, or even microwave ovens can interfere with the system.

Interestingly, the Xiaomi Watch S1 watch 2 Pros are more likely to suffer from connection problems due to more complex firmware, whereas Mi Band 6/7 They're usually lost due to energy savings, but the Smart Band Pro can shut down when you're in active use. GPS — It's a feature of their chipset.

Method 1: Optimize Bluetooth settings on your phone

Start with the obvious, checking Bluetooth on your smartphone, and even if you're sure it's set up correctly, some of the nuances can slip through the window.

The first thing to do is update the Bluetooth version. To work with the clock stable, you need at least Bluetooth 4.2, and preferably 5.0+. Check the current version from the Settings menu → About the phone → Device Information → Bluetooth version. If you have 4.0 or lower, the connection will be unstable by definition.

• 🔄 Turn off and turn on Bluetooth again (but it helps 30% of the time).
• 📱 Forget the device in Bluetooth settings and perform re-pairing.
• 🚫 Turn off power saving modes for Bluetooth in battery settings.
• 🔍 Check the list of connected devices – if there are too many (more than 5), remove unnecessary ones.

Xiaomi smartphones have a hidden feature that can interfere with stable operation, "Bluetooth Auto Connection."

1. Go to Settings → Connections and Sharing → Bluetooth.
2. Click on the three dots in the upper right corner and select Additional.
3. Turn off the option of Autoconnection to audio devices.

💡

If you have a phone on Android 12+, turn on the developer mode and activate the option to turn off Bluetooth restrictions in the background (located in Settings → System → For developers).

Method 2: Set up the Mi Fitness/Zepp Life app

The official watch management app, Mi Fitness (or Zepp Life for new models), is often a source of problems, especially when it works in a constrained environment.

The first thing to do is update the app to the latest version. Even if auto-update is enabled, check manually in Google Play or the App Store. Older versions may conflict with the latest firmware updates of the watch.

• 🔄 Restart the app: Close it in the latest task menu and reopen it.
• 📱 Clear the cache: Phone settings → Annexes → Mi Fitness → Memory. → Clear the cache.
• 🔋 Turn off battery optimization for the app (in the phone battery settings).
• 🔔 Enable auto-start and allow work in the background (in the app settings).

If the clock is still off, try resetting the sync settings:

1. Open Mi Fitness and go to the device profile.
2. Click on the three dots in the upper right corner and select Disable the device.
3. Confirm the shutdown and restart the phone.
4. Connect the watch again through the app.

The app cache cleared|Battery optimization disabled|Auto-start allowed|Notifications included|Updated watch firmware-->

Method 3: Update the firmware of the watch and phone

Outdated software is one of the main reasons for unstable connections. The manufacturer regularly releases patches that fix bugs with Bluetooth and synchronization.

To update the firmware of the watch:

1. Open Mi Fitness and go to the section of your device.
2. Scroll down and find the Firmware Update item.
3. If a new version is available, download and install it (make sure the clock charge is >50%).

For the phone:

• 📱 Go to Settings. → The phone. → Updating the system.
• 🔄 Click Check Updates and install available ones.

Note that after updating the firmware of the watch, you may need to re-pair the phone, and some users note that after the update, the Mi Band 8 begins to lose communication more often - in this case, resetting the clock settings to the factory will help.

Method 4: Reset the settings of the watch and phone

If all previous methods have failed, it is time to move to radical measures, resetting helps in cases where the problem lies in a conflict of configurations or corrupted data.

Reset Xiaomi watches to factory settings:

1. On the watch, go to Settings → System → Reset settings (for Mi Band you need to tap the screen several times to open the menu).
2. Confirm the reset (usually hold the button for 5-10 seconds).
3. After restarting the clock, re-pair through Mi Fitness.

Reset network settings on the phone:

• 📱 Go to Settings. → System system → Resetting settings → Resetting network settings.
• 🔄 Confirm the reset (this will remove all stored Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices).
• 🔋 After restarting the phone, reconnect the clock.

⚠️ Warning: Resetting your phone's network settings will delete all stored Wi-Fi passwords and associated Bluetooth devices.

Method 5: Optimizing energy consumption

One of the most common reasons for the clock to shut down is aggressive energy saving on both the phone and the tracker itself, and manufacturers try to maximize battery life, but sometimes it is detrimental to stability.

On the phone:

• 🔋 Open the Settings. → Battery → Power saving mode and turn it off.
• 📱 In Battery Optimization, find Mi Fitness and select Without Limits.
• 🔄 For Xiaomi smartphones: turn off Deep energy saving in battery settings.

On the watch (for models with advanced settings, for example, the Watch 2 Pro):

1. Go to Settings → Display and brightness → Power saving mode.
2. Turn off the option of Automatic Bluetooth Shutdown.
3. Set the synchronization interval for every 30 minutes (by default it can stand for 1 hour).

⚠️ Warning: On Mi Band 8 and older, there is a hidden Smart Energy Saving feature that can break a connection when activity is low. To turn it off, go to Device Settings in the Zepp Life app. → Additionally. → Optimize the battery and deactivate this option.

💡

Even if you have turned off the power saving on your phone, some manufacturers (such as Samsung or Huawei) can block the background work of Mi Fitness through their branded optimizers.

Method 6: Checking for interference and conflict

Sometimes the problem is not the settings, but external factors. Bluetooth operates at 2.4 GHz, which is also used by many other devices.

Sources of interference that may break the connection:

• 📡 Wi-Fi routers at 2.4 GHz (especially if several networks are nearby).
• 🎧 Other Bluetooth devices: headphones, speakers, keyboards.
• 🔌 Microwave ovens and wireless phones DECT.
• 🚗 Car alarms with Bluetooth module.

How to minimize interference:

1. Switch to 5GHz (if your phone and watch support it).
2. Turn off unnecessary Bluetooth devices within a 5-meter radius.
3. If the problem occurs at home, try moving to another room.
4. For the Xiaomi Watch 2 Pro, you can manually select the connection channel in Bluetooth settings (Preferred channel option).

Some users have noticed that the Mi Band 7 is more likely to lose communication next to Xiaomi smart bulbs on the Zigbee protocol. If you have such devices, try temporarily disabling them for check.

Method 7: Alternative Connection Methods

If the standard Bluetooth connection is still unstable, alternative synchronization methods can be tried.

1.Use of the Notify & Fitness app (for Mi Band):

This third-party app often runs more stable than the official Mi Fitness, and it supports:

• 🔔 Advanced Notifications (including messengers).
• 📊 More frequent data synchronization.
• 🔄 Automatic reconnection when communication is broken.

You can download it from Google Play (for Android) or AltStore (for iOS).

2. Connect via Xiaomi Wear (for Wear OS watches):

Models like the Xiaomi Watch S1 Pro run on Wear OS and can sync through the Xiaomi Wear app instead of Zepp Life, sometimes solving connection problems.

Manual forced connection:

If the clock is off and doesn’t want to be connected back:

1. Open Mi Fitness and tap the icon of the watch in the top menu.
2. Select Connect the device (even if it is already on the list).
3. On the watch, confirm the pairing.

💡

For the Mi Band 8, there is an undocumented forced synchronization feature: quickly shake the bracelet 3 times in a row - this initiates an immediate connection to the phone (if Bluetooth is on).

FAQ: Frequent questions about connecting Xiaomi watches