OnePlus Watch 3 evaluate: The greatest battery life, however not an excellent match for everybody

The third time’s the allure. This is a reasonably cliche time period that may be utilized to something, but it surely’s very true for the OnePlus Watch 3, OnePlus’s extremely profitable third try at making a full-fledged smartwatch answer.

Last 12 months’s OnePlus Watch 2 relaunched the model’s hopes of getting a profitable smartwatch by introducing the primary dual-CPU, dual-OS smartwatch powered by Wear OS. It received a number of issues proper — most notably battery life — however failed to satisfy the rigorous health monitoring expectations that Wear OS watches are identified for.

I’m pleased to report that OnePlus ironed issues out with its distinctive smartwatch structure, which not solely improved battery life over final 12 months’s watch but additionally mounted all the problems I had with health and exercise monitoring accuracy. The show is best and extra eye-friendly, the rotating crown really does one thing this 12 months, and the corporate is providing a further 12 months of safety updates.

It’s a generational leap, as our OnePlus Watch 2 vs OnePlus Watch 3 comparability proclaims, and it is properly price your hard-earned cash, even when there are some things lacking.

OnePlus Watch 3: Price, availability, and specs

The OnePlus Watch 3 retails for $329.99 USD or $449.99 CAD and is available in two colorways: Obsidian Titanium (black with a black band) and Emerald Titanium (silver with inexperienced band). OnePlus solely affords one dimension, and neither coloration choice helps LTE connectivity. The watch was initially scheduled to ship on the finish of February however was delayed till April attributable to a typographical error on the watch.

OnePlus sells a handful of various band kinds and colours, together with a blue one which matches the Ocean Blue OnePlus 13. Any 22mm strap will work on both watch, although, so you do not have to stay to OnePlus’s personal alternatives if you happen to do not wish to.

The watch ships with a charging dock and a pink cable within the field. You’ll want a OnePlus charger to get the quickest charging speeds, and you should utilize the one which comes with any OnePlus cellphone.

OnePlus Watch 3: What you will love

If the OnePlus Watch 3 has anyone overarching theme, it is enchancment to the purpose of excellence. OnePlus has come a good distance for the reason that authentic OnePlus Watch launch in 2021 and now affords best-in-class efficiency, battery life, well being monitoring accuracy, and {hardware} design.

Essentially, the one issues “mistaken” with the watch are issues it is lacking. Everything it does is nice, and that is what makes this an easy-to-recommend watch.

When selecting a smartwatch, you usually have to decide on two main options on the expense of a 3rd. Do you need nice battery life, wonderful health monitoring capabilities, or a lot of apps to play with? Galaxy Watches and Pixel Watches virtually all solely supply nice health monitoring and app assist however, apart from the Galaxy Watch Ultra, should be charged each single day.

Smartwatches from firms like Garmin or Coros supply nice health monitoring and tremendous lengthy battery life however lack the apps of a Wear OS watch. The OnePlus Watch 3 is ready to cowl all three of those pillars with out situation, and it is critically spectacular.

With AOD on, sleep monitoring each night time, and one hour of tracked train every single day, I usually received a full 4 days of battery life from the OnePlus Watch 3. While that is just like the OnePlus Watch 2, the Watch 3 is ready to do all this with out the warmth fee sensor issues and occasional notification points the Watch 2 suffered from.

Out of the field, the watch comes with AOD disabled, which can add roughly one other day to your battery life. If you do not care about sleep monitoring however simply need this as a exercise tracker and a daytime notification hub, you will get a full 6 days of use from a single cost. Typically, with this configuration — AOD off and no sleep monitoring, simply carrying it in the course of the day and monitoring a 1-hour train — you can stretch that to day 7.

When the battery ultimately will get low, topping up takes no time in any respect. In typical OnePlus fashion, a 20-minute cost will add about 75% to the battery, and one other 20 minutes will deliver it to a full cost. Even if you happen to solely had a couple of minutes to high it up earlier than strolling out the door, you will completely get a full day’s price of use with out fear.

If you do not care about Wear OS apps in any respect and simply need health monitoring, notifications, and sleep monitoring, the OnePlus Watch 3’s battery save mode will make it final over two weeks on a single cost. While this mode makes it extra like a Garmin watch, you will have the flexibleness to modify again to common “Smart mode” to get your apps again at any time.

The OnePlus Watch 3 addresses plenty of design and show modifications I’ve needed to see on smartwatches for some time. It features a rotating crown on the 2 o’clock place as an alternative of on the awkward 3 o’clock place, making it higher for figuring out if you happen to desire the crown dealing with your hand.

This digital crown is bigger than the one on the Watch 2 and, once more, really works as a rotating crown to scroll by menus. It’s received a beautiful grippy texture on it which, mixed with the dimensions, makes it extremely simple to make use of. It’s additionally received Pixel Watch-like haptics when scrolling which additional enhances its attraction. This is one of the best digital crown on any smartwatch, no contest.

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OnePlus elevated the display screen dimension and diminished the bezels on the Watch 3 versus the final two, all whereas holding the dimensions of the watch the identical dimension. The bezel appears to be like a lot nicer to me now that it has a protecting steel bezel across the face, plus the 10-minute tick marks add a little bit of visible flare that I see as an enchancment to the design over the Watch 2’s all-glass entrance.

OnePlus Watch 3 PWM and dithering assessments – YouTube

Watch On

The watch additionally makes use of a vibrant, vibrant DC-dimmed OLED panel that is simple to see within the solar but additionally that will not cook dinner your eyes in a darkish room. That’s all with out sacrificing brightness or show high quality. A win-win if I ever noticed one. Lots of different smartwatches use PWM dimming, which is not nice for anybody delicate to flicker, which means OnePlus is taking the lead on Wear OS eye well being.

Last 12 months, I wore a OnePlus Watch 2 and a Pixel Watch 3 to a Spartan Race. The OnePlus Watch 2 did a good job but it surely fell sufferer to a coronary heart fee sensor drawback that usually occurred to me more often than not I wore it. Essentially, the watch appeared to disregard any excessive coronary heart fee information in case your coronary heart fee spiked too quickly. Given the depth of the exercises I often put myself by, this watch merely wasn’t a superb match for me.

The OnePlus Watch 3 fixes all of that and isn’t solely proper in keeping with information from the Pixel Watch 3 — which I’ve been carrying since its launch due to its coronary heart fee sensor accuracy — but it surely additionally does a number of issues higher than the Pixel Watch 3 from a health monitoring standpoint.

First up is the well being dashboard. OnePlus OHealth app (not a fan of this app title, however no matter) makes wonderful use of display screen area and presents eight completely different information factors with out scrolling: every day steps taken, energy burned, exercise minutes, exercise periods, coronary heart fee with averages and a graph, sleep time plus a graph, thoughts and physique rating, and SpO2 measurements.

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The Fitbit app, which is utilized by the Pixel Watch 3, solely exhibits 5 information factors upfront, so OnePlus has an enormous benefit in design as a result of a very powerful common metrics are in full view the second you open the app.

The draw back is that it isn’t as customizable as Fitbit’s view. What you see is what you get with the OnePlus OHealth app, for higher or worse.

The similar design ideas apply to the remainder of the OnePlus Watch 3 expertise, as properly. When you end an outside run or stroll, the OnePlus Watch 3 shows a pleasant little map full with a implausible breakdown of your health metrics, together with easy-to-read graphs and extra information if you would like.

The Pixel Watch 3 tells you “good job” and offers a handful of stats, however the best way the knowledge is offered is usually far too succinct. Any further info can solely be discovered within the Fitbit app in your cellphone, and even then, a lot of it’s hidden behind a paywall.

I additionally love that every one of my watch information from the OnePlus Watch 3 is stored on my cellphone and my watch. OnePlus makes use of standardized cloud information to research my exercises for a few of its AI processing capabilities, however my precise exercise information is not being processed wherever within the cloud. It’s all achieved on the cellphone.

That is just not solely nicer for privateness causes, but it surely additionally means there is no month-to-month subscription to pay for to get all of your information. Samsung additionally does this, so OnePlus is not alone, but it surely’s a pleasant change coming from the Fitbit subscription-laden Pixel Watch.

OnePlus additionally consists of some really helpful information in every exercise abstract that I do not see on my Pixel Watch or in Fitbit.

On the OnePlus OHealth app, the map generated after an outside stroll or run is just not solely extra visually wealthy than on the Pixel — it exhibits a correct satellite tv for pc view by default — but it surely’s animated equally to a mountain climbing map generated by AllTrails. On high of that, you possibly can choose from two of eight information factors to show on this map, full with completely different line designs, map and route kinds, and completely different video lengths to generate for the animated map.

Seeing all this information on a map is really helpful for anybody coaching to get extra bodily match as it will probably assist immediately establish drawback factors on a traditional route, plus the place and how one can particularly enhance over time. It’s genius, and it matches proper in with plenty of different issues occurring with this watch.

None of this issues if the watch is not correct, and I’m pleased to report that OnePlus has fully mounted this facet of its newest smartwatch. I’ve accomplished dozens of exercises whereas carrying the OnePlus Watch 3 and the Pixel Watch 3 on the similar time — one on every wrist — and I’ve been impressed with OnePlus’ metrics.

This is a watch I’m assured carrying for any exercise, and I may even put on it pretty loosely and nonetheless get nice metrics because of redesigned LEDs and coronary heart fee sensors.

While the seize metrics have been largely an identical, one factor stored me coming again to utilizing the OnePlus Watch 3 for all my exercises: auto-pause. It’s not a revolutionary characteristic, neither is it the one watch that does this, however OnePlus’s auto-pause works so extremely properly that it felt like a recreation changer for me. It nearly-instantly auto-paused my strolling and biking exercises the second I finished, and it impressed me each time.

I wore the Pixel Watch 3, OnePlus Watch 3, and OnePlus Watch 2 on a number of completely different multi-mile walks, utilizing a handbook counting app to log my steps. As I had come to seek out out beforehand, the OnePlus Watch 2 and three are far nearer to my handbook counts than the Pixel Watch 3.

One instance is posted above however, on common, the OnePlus Watch 2 and three have been often inside 30 steps of accuracy whereas the Pixel Watch 3 was sometimes counted round 150 further steps.

OnePlus Watch 3: What may very well be higher

The OnePlus Watch 3 has extra constructive qualities than destructive ones, little doubt, however that does not imply it is an ideal gadget. OnePlus addressed virtually each single critique of final 12 months’s watch with this launch, but it surely’s really the lack of options that adorn the checklist of cons for this 12 months’s watch — not missteps.

The largest situation I’ve with the OnePlus Watch 3 is the bodily dimension of the factor. I’m somebody who prefers the smaller Pixel Watch mannequin and even selected it when Google launched a bigger dimension mannequin with the Pixel Watch 3. I already don’t love the sensation of one thing on my wrist on a regular basis, so once I put on a watch, I would like it to vanish as a lot as doable. The OnePlus Watch 3 undoubtedly doesn’t do this.

While it is nice to have such a big show on my wrist, I discover this massive of a smartwatch a hindrance to actions like sleep monitoring. Maybe a special form of band would assist, however as it’s, there have been loads of nights the place sleep monitoring was lower than correct as a result of I wore the watch too loosely, a direct correlation to its dimension relative to my wrist.

Based on the variety of completely large smartwatches on the market — plus the appearance of the “extremely” kind issue from some manufacturers — I’m clearly an anomaly right here. Still, think about individuals with thinner wrists may not get pleasure from an enormous honkin’ watch adorning them. Next 12 months, I’d like to see OnePlus supply a smaller dimension, even when which means I worsen battery life.

Some individuals would additionally love an LTE connection in the event that they wish to take their watch mountain climbing or swimming and wish to depart their cellphone behind. Unfortunately, that is simply not an choice right here, because the OnePlus Watch 3 solely helps Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity.

And on the subject of “one dimension matches all,” the OHealth app might use just a few extra customization choices. I really like the default information offered on the dashboard, however there is no method to customise it in any respect. You cannot choose completely different metrics to indicate, and you’ll’t transfer the prevailing sections round in any respect regardless of having a long-press animation that appears to deduce that it is a operate.

I’d additionally like to see OnePlus begin to incorporate some extra superior health-tracking options. Outdoor walks, runs, biking, and different actions can plot step cadence, tempo, and another actually attention-grabbing statistics however Fitbit is ready to calculate the cardio load that can assist you higher stability health progress whereas managing restoration successfully.

It’s successfully the distinction between carrying a smartwatch to satisfy surface-level targets like step monitoring and utilizing a smartwatch’s ample information to scientifically enhance your well being and health journey.

The OnePlus Watch 3 is roughly the identical value as its largest competitors — $300-$330, relying on when and the place you purchase it — but affords at the least one fewer OS replace than these watches. The Google Pixel Watch 3 will see the top of its assist across the similar time because the OnePlus Watch 3 regardless of launching greater than 6 months earlier than it. If you are holding monitor, which means these watches will see safety updates by the top of 2027.

Considering my historical past with smartwatches, I believe that is ample assist time for a $300 smartwatch. OnePlus guarantees quarterly updates for its watch, which suggests it is best to get 4 updates per 12 months, together with 4 safety patches and (presumably) one OS replace. Samsung affords two further years of updates for its watches however hasn’t traditionally been excellent at maintaining with these updates. In quick, if you happen to’re frightened about having a safe smartwatch in three years, you are simply going to should improve.

Outside of that, no ECG in North America is greater than only a bummer; it is an enormous missed alternative for OnePlus on the planet’s largest smartwatch market.

The FDA requires that OnePlus move a sequence of (costly) assessments with the intention to get ECG approval, which is why OnePlus did not embody the characteristic right here. Elsewhere on the planet, you’ll entry this characteristic with out situation. The newest Pixel Watches and Galaxy Watches all assist ECG, so it is a main setback for OnePlus’ health initiatives.

OnePlus Watch 3: Competition

Competition within the Wear OS area has dwindled as Samsung and Google have strengthened their chokehold over the market. If multi-day battery life is a should, the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra is the one actual Wear OS 5 different. Even then, you will solely get a most of three days out of the Watch Ultra on a single cost.

If detailed well being metrics or AI insights are vital to you, each Samsung and Google do an excellent job on this space, however Google’s Pixel Watch 3 pulls forward with Fitbit-powered insights. It additionally helps ECG in North America, in contrast to the OnePlus Watch 3. The draw back is that you will have to pay Google $80 per 12 months (or $10 a month if you happen to do not wish to commit) for this sort of information. For what it is price, I do not assume most individuals will discover this degree of knowledge helpful, however the ECG may very well be life-saving.

The Pixel Watch 3 affords three years of safety updates and three OS updates, which means it’s going to get Wear OS 8 earlier than Google ends assist. Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 household will get a further 12 months of updates past that, making it your best option for anybody who needs to carry on to their watch for a very long time.

OnePlus Watch 3: Should you purchase it?

You can buy it if…

• You want a lovely watch with a vibrant, eye-friendly OLED show.
• You desire a watch that’ll final many of the week on a single cost with out sacrificing health options or app assist.
• You use your look ahead to a wide range of workouts and bodily actions and wish one which’s able to monitoring all of them precisely.

You should not purchase it if…

• You want LTE connectivity
• You dwell in North America and desire a watch with ECG assist.
• You like small smartwatches

The OnePlus Watch 3 is the brand new greatest Wear OS smartwatch for anybody who likes huge watches. It’s received one of the best battery life amongst any Wear OS watch, together with a secondary mode that’ll triple the already wonderful battery life if you happen to do not thoughts diminished app assist. Fitness monitoring works impeccably properly, assembly and beating my earlier favourite, the Pixel Watch 3.

OnePlus’s OHealth app has improved to the purpose the place I desire its UI and options over rival apps. Data is stored and processed regionally, and shifting the watch between telephones works precisely as you’d count on, which means all of your valuable information strikes with you once you improve telephones. It even has some attention-grabbing and distinctive options, like an animated map after outside workouts and a short-form video scrolling distant if you happen to pair it with a OnePlus cellphone just like the OnePlus 13.

OnePlus can additional enhance the expertise by including just a few extra customization options to the OHealth app and giving prospects extra dimension and configuration choices, however outdoors of these few requests, that is pretty much as good as Wear OS 5 will get.