The OnePlus Watch looks and feels like a premium smartwatch without the price tag to match. For $159 (£149, roughly AU$270) the OnePlus Watch …
The OnePlus Watch looks and feels like a premium smartwatch without the price tag to match. For $159 (£149, roughly AU$270) the OnePlus Watch offers basic smartwatch features like getting notifications from your phone, plus advanced health features like blood oxygen monitoring, high and low heart rate alerts and a big battery that can last for a week or more. On paper, it sounds almost too good to be true, in practice, it is. In my week of testing I experienced serious connectivity issues and found some of the health metrics to be inaccurate. In its current state it’s hard to recommend the OnePlus Watch, but I expect it to evolve and improve in the coming months as the company addresses some of these issues in the public version of the app. For the purpose of this review I was given an early version of the OnePlus Health app, which I loaded onto my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. The OnePlus Watch is only compatible with Android devices at launch, but the company says it will be rolling out iOS compatibility in the future. It’s rare for a product to look better in person than in photos, but the OnePlus Watch is the exception. I was immediately taken by its strikingly large 46mm circular screen, enclosed in a sleek stainless steel frame and slim silhouette which rested comfortably on my wrist. I like the simple design: no dials or rotating bezels, just the touch screen and two small buttons on the side. The silicone watch bands can easily swap out with a quick release button latch. My one complaint with the design is that the watch only comes in one size which overwhelmed my wrist and would suit larger wrists better. Fortunately, it didn’t get in my way too much during sleep. The OnePlus Watch is Wi-Fi only, meaning it’s a perfectly acceptable phone companion (when it actually connects), but is far from a phone replacement. It mirrors notifications, makes and answers phone calls, and can serve as a remote for your phone camera or OnePlus TV. It can store music, but you have to load it manually using the mobile app. It has no Spotify support, or any third party apps for that matter. It also lacks NFC for mobile payments. My biggest issue with the watch was that the connection with the phone was inconsistent. It would randomly disconnect from the phone and I’d have to unlock my phone, open the app and sometimes even re-pair the watch for it to sync.
