OnePlus Watch Review: Great Hardware, But Still Needs Work

Who Is The OnePlus Watch For?

• The OnePlus Watch is a well-built and attractive smartwatch offering with its large 46mm circular face
• The OnePlus Watch is about half the cost of the latest Apple Watch
• The OnePlus Watch is made with those who exercise in mind

Smartwatches come in all shapes and sizes these days, and they can do so much more than simply tell time. Phone company OnePlus has been killing it lately with their line of smartphones, and has decided to make the jump into the world of watches as well with the OnePlus Watch. This smartwatch has a massive screen and some useful features, but can it stack up to the competition?

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A Big, Beautiful Face

The OnePlus Watch hardware is pretty spectacular. The watch face is circular and large, but never feels bulky. The screen is clear, bright and responsive, and the whole watch face is wrapped in a nice, reflective metal. It's really a very attractive watch.

The screen on the OnePlus Watch is 46mm in diameter and is slightly curved. The screen also runs almost all the way to the edge of the watch itself. The screen has a great feel to it, and once I put it on I couldn't stop swiping through the menus, looking through all the settings and playing around with the features.

There are only two buttons on the side of the OnePlus Watch. The top button serves as the select button and launches the app menu. The top button also wakes the watch up if the screen is off. The bottom button serves as a quick-launch button, and any app built into the OnePlus Watch can be set to open when this button is pressed. I personally use the second button to launch the weather app, as it makes checking the temperature a quick process.

The OnePlus Watch band is a silicone-like band that is soft and easy enough to put on. The watch band is a little uncomfortable as it is thicker than most other watch bands I have used. That said, I did get used to it fairly quickly. Thankfully, the watch band can be easily popped off and replaced if wanted.

The build quality on the OnePlus Watch is nice, and the smartwatch is also pretty damage resistant. I've bonked it into a few doors and walls and have dropped it once or twice since wearing it, and there haven't been any scratches so far.

Easy Customization

It's easy to personalize the OnePlus Watch, especially when it comes to swapping in new watch faces. There are a decent number of watch face options built into the OnePlus Health app, which serves as a hub for controlling the OnePlus Watch. These faces range from emulating high-end fashion watches to more functional faces with shortcuts to apps built in. There are also fitness-focused watch faces that give clear readouts for calories burned or steps taken. The watch itself can save up to 14 faces, and swapping between them on the watch takes seconds.

It's also possible to make the face of the OnePlus Watch a photograph or a series of photos. By using the "Photos" watch face, up to 10 images can be loaded in. That said, the Photos watch face has only displayed the first image I added, seemingly ignoring the others. It did eventually change to the second photo in the group, but I have no idea how it happened.

Lacking Features

While the hardware for the OnePlus Watch is phenomenal, the software definitely needs work. There are some missing features with the watch that are truly head-scratching. For example, there's no way to set the watch to be in a 12 hour format. It can only be in a 24 hour, or military time, format, with the exception of certain watch faces. Changing the time format is something I'd expect out of a cheap digital watch, and is something that should absolutely be in a nice smartwatch.

The OnePlus Watch also released with no support for Fahrenheit. All temperatures were in Celsius. Thankfully for this American, that has been updated already.

While glaring omissions like those two have been fixed, or will be via future updates, there are still plenty of other features that just aren't there. There are no apps that run on the OnePlus Watch outside of what is already available. This means you can't use the OnePlus Watch with any app like Google Maps or Spotify. It's possible that support for other apps could be added later, but no plans have been announced so far.

Health Focused

So if there isn't app support, what does the OnePlus Watch actually do? Like many other smartwatches available, the OnePlus Watch is largely focused on health and fitness monitoring. This includes a blood pressure reader, stress level monitor, exercise monitoring apps, a sleep tracker and more.

While it's nice to see their inclusion, these apps are all hit or miss at best and are more often than not just complete misses. Every time I have tried using one of the apps that requires me to remain still while the OnePlus Watch does its calculations, such as the heart rate app or the blood oxygen monitor, it has failed. A message pops up that tells me I need to have the back of the watch tight on my wrist and to remain still. I am sitting in a chair and have the watch band as tight as it will go on my wrist without cutting off circulation, so I don't know how much more I can do to try and improve conditions. This happens both when the watch is on the back of my wrist or when I put the watch on the inside of my wrist.

The same is true for the sleep app. The OnePlus Watch says it collects data when you wear it to bed, but I've had this watch on for over two weeks straight at this point and it still says I don't have any sleep data.

Communication Breakdown

One of my favorite aspects of the OnePlus Watch is that it shows my phone's notifications, making it easy for me to see if I need to respond to something or can ignore it until later. The big problem with this is that the notifications only pop up for a very short time, meaning that if you don't look at the watch right away you'll have to swipe to get the notification pulled back up. That doesn't save much time compared to pulling out your phone in the first place.

As far as I can tell, there is no setting to increase the length that notifications stay popped up on the OnePlus Watch. This is incredibly inconvenient for when I'm doing something like cooking or playing video games, where checking my wrist for notifications instead of my phone is really helpful, but I'm not always free to check it right that very second.

Speaking of notifications, the OnePlus Watch seems to show duplicate notifications frequently. Additionally, notifications I've already cleared return and old notifications pop up regularly. It would be nice if the "Clear All" button for notifications wasn't all the way at the bottom of the notification list to make it easier to sort through the junk.

Another major issue is that users can't reply to most messages from the OnePlus Watch. There is an option to reply to Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp notifications with a handful of stock phrases, but these phrases don't get sent on Facebook Messenger. Text messages and emails can't be replied to at all. I understand why there isn't a full keyboard built into the watch, but limiting the ability to respond to only one app with a handful of phrases isn't a good compromise.

The OnePlus Watch can also be used to make and answer phone calls, and conversations can even take place exclusively through the watch itself. The sound quality through the watch is surprisingly nice, as phone calls sounded just slightly more tinny than when using a typical smartphone. The person I talked to also said I sounded fairly normal, but did mention that she could hear a decent amount of background noise. This wasn't enough to make the call incomprehensible, but was loud enough to be noticeable.

While call quality is definitely good enough with the OnePlus Watch, making a phone call with the watch renders it useless for anything else. There is no multitasking here, which even includes the ability to check how much battery life is remaining on the watch.

What Does Work?

With many features that seemingly are missing or don't work, what can the OnePlus Watch do aside from tell the time? There are a few extra apps and services that do work with the watch, though they aren't anything too extreme.

It's easy to create an alarm on the OnePlus Watch, set up a timer or use the stopwatch function. There's a helpful "find my phone" button for those who happen to misplace their smartphones regularly. Once activated, it causes the phone that is paired to the OnePlus Watch to start beeping.

The "Flashlight" app causes the screen to go completely white and the OnePlus Watch sets its brightness to maximum. While this seems a little goofy, it works surprisingly well. A barometer and compass seem to work properly and there are TV controls built in for those who own a OnePlus TV.

It's possible to load the OnePlus Watch with up to 500 songs and connect a Bluetooth headset directly to the watch. This is great for those who want to exercise without having to lug their phone around with them. While loading music onto the phone isn't exactly the quickest process, the OnePlus Watch can also serve as a way to control music that is streaming through a linked smartphone by playing and pausing songs, skipping through songs on a playlist and adjusting playback volume.

Battery Life

The battery life of the OnePlus Watch does impress, as I've regularly gotten a solid week of use in between my charges. This is not a device that needs to be charged every day, or even somewhat regularly.

As for recharge speed, the OnePlus Watch does leave a little something to be desired. That's made especially true because it comes from OnePlus, whose phones have the fastest charging speeds out there right now. My watch went from one percent to 25 percent charge over the course of an hour, and it took just under three hours to get back up to 100 percent.

The OnePlus Watch also uses a proprietary dock to charge, instead of a USB cable or wireless charging system. While the OnePlus Watch does fit nicely into its dock via magnets, it does mean an extra charger that needs to be carried around.

Very Competitive Price

While the OnePlus Watch may be missing out on several important features, it is priced very competitively compared to other major smartwatch offerings. The OnePlus Watch is available for $160. For comparison, the latest Apple Watch starts at $400 and goes up from there. On the Samsung side, their watches start at around $200.

While those other smartwatches may cost more, they definitely can do more than the OnePlus Watch can as of right now. Hopefully, the OnePlus team can add additional features in future updates to make the OnePlus Watch a more competitive product.

Final Thoughts

The OnePlus Watch is a great piece of hardware that is weighed down by its lack of features and generally unimpressive software. Using the OnePlus Watch feels great with its large, clear screen, but there really isn't much to do with the watch outside of checking the time, weather or phone notifications (if you're fast enough). I have faith that the team at OnePlus will continue to add new features in future updates, but am not expecting those updates to be released any time soon.

Seeing as how the health monitoring apps don't really work, the OnePlus Watch is really only useful for checking the time and weather, and occasionally answering a quick phone call. Those who exercise regularly will likely enjoy the Bluetooth and fitness tracking features as well. However, if you're looking for a smartwatch that is capable of running apps and handling more complex tasks, you might want to look elsewhere.

The OnePlus Watch is available from oneplus.com for $160.