OnePlus Watch First Impressions: It’s About Time

OnePlus Watch is the company's first smartwatch, and it was launched alongside the new OnePlus 9 series last month. The OnePlus Watch has a circular dial and offers features such as SpO2 oxygen saturation tracking, heart-rate tracking, and fast charging. It also claims to offer a week's worth of battery life even for the most active users. So how good is the OnePlus Watch? I got my hands on it, and here are my first impressions.

OnePlus Watch price in India

The OnePlus Watch is priced at Rs. 16,999 in India but the company is offering it at an introductory price of Rs. 14,999. The duration of this introductory offer isn't known but OnePlus is offering further discounts for select credit card holders.

OnePlus Watch design

The OnePlus Watch has a circular dial. It has a 1.39-inch AMOLED display with 2.5D curved glass on top. The case of the OnePlus Watch measures 46mm and is made out of stainless steel. OnePlus offers this watch in two colour options, Midnight Black and Moonlight Silver. I had a Midnight Black one with me for review.

OnePlus has also shown off a special edition of the OnePlus Watch called the OnePlus Watch Cobalt Limited Edition which is made out of cobalt alloy and has sapphire glass protecting the display. OnePlus hasn't announced the price and any information about the availability of this limited edition watch at this point.

Heart rate and SpO2 tracking sensors on the underside of the OnePlus Watch

The company has chosen to go with its own operating system, not Google's Wear OS. The OnePlus Watch, aka the OnePlus Watch Classic, has two buttons on the right side of the case. The upper one brings up the apps on the watch, while the lower one is a shortcut key that can be reassigned. The OnePlus Watch has a microphone hole at the bottom of the case (6 o'clock position) while the speaker is on the left. Given the hardware, you should be able to take calls on the OnePlus Watch directly.

On the underside, the OnePlus Watch has sensors to measure heart rate, stress, and SpO2 oxygen saturation. It also has two contact pins for charging.

The OnePlus Watch doesn't feel too bulky or too heavy on the wrist. The watch is IP68 rated for dust and water resistance and can handle upto 5ATM of pressure when submerged.

OnePlus has opted for 22mm watch straps made out of fluoroelastomer, which feel soft to the touch. The strap included with the watch has a pin and tuck design just like the default Apple Watch strap. It can be removed easily without any tools, making it easy for you to swap it for any other strap of your choice.

The OnePlus Watch strap has a pin and tuck design just like the Apple Watch Sport Band

The OnePlus Watch has a 402mAh battery, and the company claims that it can last about two weeks with “sustainable use” or about one week for its most active users. OnePlus also claims that you can get about a day's worth of usage after only five minutes of charging and about a week worth of usage with a twenty-minute charge. This is something I'm looking forward to testing in my full review.

OnePlus hasn't disclosed processor and OS specifications yet, but a post on the official OnePlus Forum by a product manager does shine some light on this. The OnePlus Watch uses three chips that each perform a different function, and I'll deep dive into that in the full review. In terms of software, the OnePlus Watch runs a custom RTOS (Real-time Operating System).

The 1.39-inch AMOLED display is crisp and had good viewing angles indoors

The OnePlus Watch can be paired with a smartphone running Android 6.0 or higher using the OnePlus Health App. However, it doesn't support iOS at the moment. It has 4GB of internal storage, of which 2GB is available to the user.

Overall, the OnePlus Watch seems promising with its battery life claims, but I am curious to see how accurate it is at tracking health and fitness data. If you have your mind set on the OnePlus Watch, stay tuned to Gadgets360 for a full review, coming up soon.