What This App Actually Does
Weather – By Xiaomi is exactly what it says on the tin: a free weather app that shows current temperature, rain forecast, and Air Quality Index (AQI) in one screen. It offers a 5 day forecast with min/max temperatures, wind speed and direction, plus hourly updates, sunrise/sunset timings, UV index, and atmospheric pressure. You can add up to 10 cities to track weather back home, where family lives, or wherever you’re traveling next. It’s built for anyone who wants a quick, no-frills daily weather check, and given its install numbers, it’s clearly the default or near-default weather app for a huge number of Xiaomi phone owners.
Where It Genuinely Impresses
Plenty of long-term users say they’ve uninstalled every other weather app because this one nails the local temperature for their area, and the interface changing to reflect actual outdoor conditions gets specific praise. One reviewer called the animations and sound effects ‘relaxing’ and highlighted the homescreen icon that shows weather at a glance without opening the app. That combination of dynamic visuals and useful widgets seems to be the app’s real selling point, and it’s clearly resonating given the volume of five-star reviews citing accuracy as the reason they stuck with it.
The Location Bug That Won’t Die
The most repeated complaint by far, showing up across multiple high-visibility reviews, is that the app picks a default location that’s simply wrong and gives users no way to manually correct or delete it, even with GPS set to high accuracy. This isn’t a minor gripe: it undermines the entire point of a weather app if it’s reporting conditions for the wrong place. Several reviewers explicitly say adding manual location editing would instantly bump their rating up, which suggests this single fix could resolve a large chunk of user frustration if Xiaomi ever prioritizes it.
Accuracy Complaints and Missing Features
Beyond the location issue, some users report the app showing conditions that don’t match what they can literally see outside, like a ‘cloudy, rain later’ forecast during an active downpour. Others note the AQI readings feel inaccurate or fake, and one review pointed out the nighttime widget stubbornly displays a bright sun icon regardless of the actual time of day. There’s also a documented complaint from someone who previously had a 10-day forecast on a different phone and finds this app’s 5-day window a step down for planning purposes. On top of that, at least one reviewer couldn’t get the app to open at all, even after clearing cache and restarting their phone, which points to stability problems that aren’t universal but clearly aren’t isolated either.
Who Should Actually Download This
If you’re a Xiaomi phone owner looking for a quick, ad-supported (implied by the ‘why pay for weather’ comment) weather app with nice visuals and a genuinely useful widget, this is a reasonable default to keep rather than replace. The dynamic UI and hourly updates are legitimately well liked, and for many users the core temperature data is accurate enough for daily decisions like whether to grab an umbrella. However, if accurate AQI monitoring or a longer-range forecast is a priority for you, or if you’ve been burned before by apps that lock you into the wrong city, go in with tempered expectations. The location bug alone is enough to make me hesitate recommending this as anyone’s primary weather app until Xiaomi adds manual override, since a weather app that can’t be pointed at the correct city defeats its own purpose. For casual, glance-and-go weather checking on a Xiaomi device, it does the job; for anything more precise, you may want a backup app on standby.
