Three years after the launch of the original OnePlus Watch, the company has delivered an excellent upgrade. Smartwatches from Apple and Samsung usually last a couple of days on a single charge but OnePlus Watch 2 can easily go on for days, and that too without making compromises to the way you use it.
It’s a biggish watch with a circular design and there is a sapphire cover glass over a 1.43-inch 60Hz AMOLED display. The design goes well with the camera bump on the OnePlus 12 phone. There are two buttons on the side, one is circular and the other, rectangular. It’s a classy shape and looks good on the wrist.
The companion app for the Android smartwatch offers enough details.
At the back, it’s a standard fare of sensors — like optical heart rate sensor and pulse oximeter for blood oxygen — and four pins on the top for charging. The strap remains interchangeable and the watch is IP68 rated for dust and water. Beyond this, it can withstand extremes of temperature, shock and moisture (it is MIL-STD-810H certified; won’t get damaged even if you drop it). The display too is quite good, goes up to 1,000 nits of peak brightness, so you will not have issues under bright sunshine.
Awesome battery life
All this is fine as smartwatches have matured to the point that not many changes are taking place every year. What OnePlus is doing differently is battery life. Depending on how you use it, you can get up to 100 hours of battery life in Smart Mode. Now four days of battery life means you can go on a short weekend break without having to worry about the smartwatch running out of juices. An ordinary day for most users would be going for a workout and poking around the UI to check step count, calories burned, heart rate and so on. All this is accommodated by the OnePlus Watch 2. Further, if you are wearing a full-sleeve shirt, the light sensor will turn the brightness way down to save battery life.
The dial on the side should have been assigned more functions.
What makes the OnePlus Watch special are its two processors. There is a high-powered Snapdragon W5 performance chipset and that’s powering Wear OS 4. There is also a BES2700BP MCU that is always on and runs RTOS, which takes care of most background activities and some tasks like calls and notifications. Wear OS comes into play for intensive tasks, like Maps and music playback, but RTOS is for basic tasks.
Dual frequency GPS
Using the UI, I found it very responsive and there are several watch faces to choose from.
Good battery life sits well with those with active outdoor lives. It’s very good for measuring workouts and activities. Runners will like the smartwatch because of its dual frequency (L1+L5) GPS, which is not common in smartwatches at this price point. It also runs on Google Wear OS, which means it’s compatible with a wide variety of apps and has Google’s services baked in… that alone gives it a leg up over several rivals in the market. But not all credit to the dual-chip technique for excellent battery life; there is a 500mAh battery… it’s a substantial increase over similar watches. When you turn on power save mode, battery life increases substantially. The OnePlus Watch 2 is in every way a big step up over the original.
Here's what the OnePlus Watch 2 looks like on the wrist.
All the health data is sent to the OHealth app, which is well-planned. But it is not as extensive as Samsung Health App or Apple Health App.
Should you buy it?
There are some quibbles. First, it’s a big watch that comes in one size. Second, the crown. You can press it to choose options but when you rotate it, there is no function attached to it, like increase/decrease volume. Next, the charger: It’s not the best looking option available. It’s a squarish plastic block but it will get you a day’s charge in 10 minutes.
Working in favour of the watch is the number of apps you can download. Also, the on-device keyboard works fluidly. Features like SpO2 and heart rate are as accurate as on, say, a Samsung Galaxy Watch6 Classic. Sleep tracking is also accurate and offers details like deep, light and REM, besides information on how you can improve sleep cycle. I wouldn’t get into workouts because there are a number of them, including badminton.
Having so many functions makes me wonder why OnePlus hasn’t delivered an LTE option.
Overall, OnePlus Watch 2 is the device to have if battery life is important to you. And given the dual processor and dual frequency GPS option, it’s well priced (Rs 24,999 for 46mm size).
At a glance
Device: OnePlus Watch 2
Price: Rs 24,999
High notes
Exceptional battery life
Fluid UI
Looks great
Metrics are accurate
Muffled notes
The crown doesn’t have any functionality when you twist it
No LTE option
One size doesn’t fit all
