It’s not every day that a new player enters the smartwatch game, so I was intrigued when OnePlus’s then-CEO Carl Pei hinted last summer that a wearable might be on the way. Rumors have been increasing for the past few weeks and now we know what the watch will do looks like. After months of curiosity, I am … impressed.
Ahead of OnePlus’s upcoming March 23 event, @BuienRadarNL dropped what appears to be a leak of the oh-so-cleverly named OnePlus Watch. After looking at the image for about two minutes, I can confirm to everyone that it looks like every other non-Apple smartwatch out there. There are two buttons on the right side, black straps and a black case, and a fairly standard looking dial. Woo. This is a bit boring milquetoast design and to be honest I expected something better from OnePlus.
Smartwatch leaker Ishan Agarwal also dropped some more deets on his Twitter, noting that the watch would be 46mm (a big boy!). It also has IP68 water resistance, 4 GB of storage, and the ability to control music and OnePlus TV. In terms of health features, which have become a huge selling point for smartwatches, OnePlus will reportedly offer automatically workout detection, including swim workouts, and also track sleep, stress, blood oxygen saturation and heart rate. No word on battery life, but Agarwal said it supports Warp Charge, or the ability to charge for a week within 20 minutes. This means that you will wear at least a week out of this thing, which would be great but who knows.
The interesting thing about these rumors is that the OnePlus Watch will not run Wear OS despite being an Android watchThis has been heavily rumored leading up to the March 23 event, and according to the VergeCEO Pete Lau confirmed in a forum that this will be the case. Instead, the company has chose an RTOS (real-time operating system) type of OS. Not a word on what that means for a third-party app ecosystem or a digital assistantAs for why OnePlus didn’t go for Wear OS, Lau says the company wanted to provide a smooth, reliable experience along with long battery life. Wear OS has made improvements over the past year, but battery life is still a sore point for that platform.
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This is all well and good, but it’s not what anyone would describe like terribly exciting. It would be one thing if OnePlus came out with a unique design, or decided to put its own spin on Wear OS like the Oppo Watch did. But OnePlus seems to have played it safe – onedoubtless too safe. Unless we see something absurd like a 30-day battery life, unique software, or a groundbreaking health feature (we’re not holding our breath for), this smartwatch seems to be just for diehard OnePlus fans.