The OnePlus Watch launch was disastrous. Never owned a flagship smartwatch since Will.i.am’s infamous Pulse smartwatch failed in such a spectacular way. I recently wrote 2000 words about how it was the worst smartwatch I’ve ever used. Today OnePlus has released an over-the-air update claiming to fix some of the watch’s glaring omissions and cock-ups.
It’s better than nothing, but to be fair, the OnePlus Watch has launched with next to nothing that works well so I’m not overly impressed. According to an post on the OnePlus forum, the update includes:
- Improved GPS performance
- Improved activity tracking accuracy (walking and running)
- Optimized heart rate measurement algorithm
- Enabled app icons for the most used apps
- Improved lift to wake function
- Optimized algorithm for synchronizing notifications
- Fixed some known bugs
- Improved system stability
Reader, look at this list and cry-laugh with me. This is a scathing list of everything OnePlus screwed up at launch. G.PS performance, accurate activitytracking, heart ratemonitoring and notifications that are properly synchronized base features that you would expect to work as advertised out of the box. The “fsome known bugs fixed ”bullet point also does a lot of heavy lifting here. The problem is there were that much known bugs I now let you guess which ones have been addressed. The vagueness doesn’t inspire confidence, but I contacted OnePlus to see if they will clarify what bugs they are talking about here.
When I initially raised concerns with OnePlus, the company told me – and other reviewers – that I could expect a mid-April update. A spokesperson told me that the mid-April update was finally sleepingtracking data and SpO2 history to the OnePlus Health app. That’s big, because sleepTracking is only useful if you can view your trends over time. So here we are, a week after launch with what I assume is the update OnePlus was referring to.
I have updated the app and the OnePlus Watch. My sleep and SpO2 data is nowhere to be found. I’ve synced at least five times. I suppose my sleep history has disappeared on the air. So either OnePlus told us the wrong thing and this widely reported bug remains unresolved or the watch itself doesn’t store more than a week’s worth of data. Neither option is good. (For the record, my smart scale can store 14 days of data for 8 different people, so the latter is just ridiculous.) I asked OnePlus about the sleeptracking / SpO2 app sync too, but I didn’t get a response.
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Anything else that was not resolved? My arm buzzes and buzzes the whole time I’m writing. I have at least 100 notifications for unread emails. Anyway, at least my notifications have icons.
Admittedly, I’ve only had this update for a few hours and need more time to investigate if the really major bugs have been fixed properly. But what baffles me is that you still can’t switch to a 12-hour time format from a 24-hour format. This, along with sleep history and SpO2 sync issues, was a commonly reported bug and yet it remains unresolved. OnePlus says this will come in a future update, along with an always-on display, remote camera control for Android smartphones, four new languages, the rest of the more than 110 promised training modes, and an AI watch face. Listen, OnePlus, given what you seem like failed French translations and gave several reviewers (myself included) watches that were initially stuck in Hindi, maybe prioritize getting this thing working fully as advertised before startingk it to other markets.
In the best case scenario, these updates will fix some of the biggest issues I had with the OnePlus Watch. Which then leads me to ask: W.he could do this for God’s sake launch not incur a delay week if a week was all it took to fix this shit? Consumers are not beta testers.
Honestly, I’m especially angry that it means going back and reliving the trauma of this testing experience. This fix-it-as-you-go approach is incredibly disrespectful to me, my fellow reviewers, and consumers. But listen, OnePlus, I am a professional. You said running accuracy and GPS were fixed. If I run five kilometers in good faith and the fitness data is still not good, me can not Be held responsible for bringing this thing in the East River.