Over All Score: 7.1 / 10
Appearance: 9/10
User-friendliness: 5.6 / 10
Capabilities: 6.9 / 10
Value for money: 7/10
Where various manufacturers have had a smartwatch in their range for some time, this is now also the case with OnePlus. We have been able to test the smartwatch in recent weeks. Is the OnePlus Watch really that smart? You can read all about it in our review.
OnePlus Watch review
OnePlus has also plunged into the smartwatch market this time. After years of success with smartphones, it is now time for the OnePlus Watch. With a round clock case, a friendly price and extensive options, this should also be a success. In the past weeks, we have extensively tested the OnePlus Watch and we share our findings in the OnePlus Watch review.
Sales package
The OnePlus Watch comes in an elongated box. In it we find a charging station on a cable, some paperwork and the watch itself. No further fuss. You have to arrange the adapter for charging the smartwatch yourself, but you will undoubtedly get it from your smartphone.
Design
The OnePlus watch is characterized by a circular 46-millimeter screen. It looks premium and on the side, we find two keys. On the back, we see the connectors for the charging station and the sensor can also be found for measuring the heart rate.
You can change the straps by pressing the catch to the side, a great system. A less good system, or rather a worthless system, is the strap of the watch itself. With the Oppo Watch, I already found it a challenge to get it on without much effort, but with the OnePlus Watch, they make a game of it. What’s wrong with the old trusted watch strap? Often I also had that when it was fully attached, it was just a bit too loose. What a clumsy system.
Interface and apps
OnePlus is known for its smartphones with the slick interface; OxygenOS. OnePlus uses the Real-time OS, RTOS for short, with the smartwatch. Unfortunately not Wear OS from Google. At first glance, the interface looks perfectly workable. And it is. The watch performs tasks quickly and the watch is certainly not slow.
OnePlus gives you a total of ten watch faces or dials. I personally think that is on the very thin side. The dials that are there look fine, but I don’t find them really different in style. Hopefully, OnePlus will add some more watch faces in the future.
Press the top button to access the menu. Here you can access the different options that the device has to offer. Think of options such as the alarm clock, music player, training, heart rate, phone book, finding your phone or various other options. Incidentally, you can store music files locally on the watch thanks to the 4GB storage space. Another function is to operate the television, but this only works with the OnePlus TV, which is not sold here.
We can also call the watch. Dialing a number can be based on favorite contacts assigned via the OnePlus Health app. You can also manually enter a number or consult recent calls. Making a phone call via the watch is possible as long as there is not too much background noise, otherwise, the person on the other end of the line will be less heard.
Strangely enough, we miss an option for an agenda, missed opportunity. In addition, the range of applications is very meager and cannot be expanded by yourself. Because there is no app store or third-party support in this OS. How sloppy this is. In the settings, we also miss an option to always leave the screen of the watch on.
Notifications
I also cannot ignore the reports. They frustrate me enormously. Notifications do not disappear if you have already read them on the smartphone, before swiping away you first have to tap the notification again, notifications are all indicated with the same icon and you cannot expand notifications. Furthermore, a notification appears twice regularly and you cannot send your own responses, only choose from a few preset answers. This is nothing short of worthless. Where the OxygenOS interface on the smartphone is great, this is cringe-worthy.
I also notice that the vibration motor, which notifies you of new notifications, is not very strong. As a result, notifications come in regularly without me feeling the watch vibrating. If desired, you can also choose to hear a sound signal in addition to vibrating. I also think it is a shortcoming that the OnePlus Watch cannot handle the display of emojis.
Health
Via the OnePlus Health app, you can set which apps you want to receive notifications from. It is also the place to go for an overview of your activities and health status. The application looks neat. The home screen gives you an instant overview of the number of calories you have burned today, along with activities, number of steps, your heart rate, sleep data and more details.
You can also see the history of various workouts that you have tracked with the OnePlus Watch. Stupidly enough, we see in the majority of the activities that the tracking of the location has stopped before I stopped it. The map is therefore not fully drawn. We are positive about the Google Fit integration of the OnePlus Health app; that is an advantage because the route is well drawn here. In addition, activities from multiple devices can be synchronized in one account in this way. Seems to be a software thing.
Battery life
The OnePlus Watch has a 402 mAh battery. You can change this with the charging station that comes with the watch. Here you still have to provide your own adapter, but you can use it from your smartphone. With 20 minutes of charging you can go a week ahead again, according to the manufacturer. Based on the factory measurements, of course.
How about stamina? For the possibilities that the smartwatch has to offer, you can do with a battery charge for a long time. According to the manufacturer, the watch should last for two weeks on one battery charge, with active heart rate measurement, sleep detection, several phone calls and 1.5 hours of exercise. That seems a bit too optimistic. We note a battery life of 8 to 9 days, without sleep detection. We included a few phone calls, continuous heart rate measurement and an hour or three activity tracking.
Technical specifications OnePlus Watch
- Display: 1.39 inch AMOLED screen / resolution 454 x 454 pixels
- Dimensions: 46.4 x 46.4 x 10.9 millimeters
- Weight: 45 grams, without strap
- 402 mAh battery
- 5 ATM / IP68 certification
- 4GB storage space
- Bluetooth 5.0 / No WiFi
Rating
I had high hopes for OnePlus’ presence in the smartwatch segment. The brand has been doing well for a long time with its smartphones, equipped with the excellent OxygenOS software. That had to be fine with the Watch, right? I am positive about the design of the watch, where the screen looks sharp. Too bad about the tape, this remains a clumsy thing. Despite the fact that the battery life does not match that of the OnePlus promise, it still lasts a long time with intensive use.
However, strangely enough, OnePlus misses the point with the software. This one feels far from finished. Double notifications, non-expandable notifications, double notifications, swiping away notifications with difficulty and so on. It is an annoyance for me in practice.
For $150 you also pay a lot of money for a watch with these options, because due to the lack of third-party apps and the like, the freedom with the OnePlus Watch is on the limited side. That’s why we don’t see the OnePlus Watch as a smartwatch, but a refined fitness tracker. And it is precisely those devices that you already have for a few tens, as Xiaomi with the Mi Band 5 and Huawei with the Band 6 proved. Definitely work to be done for OnePlus.
