OnePlus Watch 2 Evaluation: A 3-Day Battery Smartwatch

I’ll word that OnePlus is not the primary firm to strive a novel strategy to fixing smartwatch battery life. Mobvoi’s TicWatch Professional collection has lengthy used dual-display expertise to preserve battery life, offering comparable outcomes to OnePlus. However that watch is bulkier, the software program feels clunkier, and the corporate’s replace coverage is spotty.

Talking of, OnePlus is promising two Put on OS updates and three years of safety updates. That is just like what Google gives for its Pixel Watch lineup, however paltry in comparison with what you will get from Samsung, which guarantees 4 Put on OS updates and 5 years of safety updates for its Galaxy Watch6 collection. What OnePlus gives right here is first rate, however it will be good to see it match Samsung so you’ll be able to benefit from the watch—with new options, safety patches, and bug fixes—for so long as doable.

Considered one of my favourite components of the OnePlus Watch 2 is the truth that you solely have to take care of one app. No have to have two separate apps for the watch’s features and to entry well being and health information like with its opponents. The whole lot is managed in OnePlus Well being (OHealth). However well being and health is the place the compromises begin to creep in.

Puzzling Well being

{Photograph}: Julian Chokkattu

I like how the whole lot is specified by accessible tiles in OHealth, and you may click on on them to entry extra data, however the app has some quirks. For starters, and you will see this within the image above, there are some design points, like phrases working into one another (see the step rely purpose). There are additionally lacking well being options like an electrocardiogram, pores and skin temperature sensing, interval monitoring, and fall detection. All of those are on equally priced opponents, however the high quality of the data accessible is admittedly the problem.

The discrepancies largely stems from step rely and distance traveled. Carrying the Pixel Watch 2 on my different wrist, I observed an enormous distinction in these two metrics, with the OnePlus Watch 2 regularly undercounting, typically by 2,000 or 3,000 steps. On February 29, I traversed round Barcelona, sightseeing, and the Pixel Watch 2 says I walked 12.35 miles with 25,000 steps. OnePlus’s watch says it was 5.82 miles with 24,000 steps. With rudimentary estimates, 25,000 steps equates to roughly 12 miles, so there’s clearly some concern right here with the OnePlus.