Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “OnePlus Watch 2: Time for redemption!”.
The new OnePlus Watch 2 promises 2 days of battery life on heavy use and up to 12 Days on light, use, we’ve been testing it. It’S true so just how how on Earth did OnePlus manage to get that kind of impressive battery life, when every single other manufacturer has failed to do that? There are two important reasons why OnePlus was able to achieve such a mindboggling battery life with a OnePlus Watch. 2 first there’s a large 500 milliamp hour battery with a big, but not so big display. The closest comparison point we can think of is the Samsung Galaxy watch, 6 classic and in comparison, OnePlus was able to put in a larger battery with a display. That’S a little bit smaller, but of course this wouldn’t be enough.
So OnePlus had to get creative and use two different chipsets with two different operating systems to push battery life to the max. The more demanding tasks like we OS apps third party watch faces and the always on display go to the Snapdragon chip that we all know. Other background tasks. Calls and notifications are uploaded to a much more power, efficient, chipset the BS 2700, and are handled by a different platform rtos. What OnePlus has done here is take an existing chipset that has been used as a co-processor before and an operating system that already exists mix them together with weos on the Snapdragon chip, all while making sure the transition between the two is seamless for anyone actively using The watch, the big question is: does it work? In short, yes, battery life has been beyond impressive.
We’Ve had the watch in our hands for about a week now, and not just one but three of my Android authority. Colleagues have confirmed that for Caitlyn our wearables reviewer, the OnePlus Watch 2 lasted 53 hours on a single charge and that included multiple GPS tracked workouts three indoor workouts, two full nights of sleep and general notifications and app use throughout the day for Amir, my colleague in India, the watch went from 50 % to 28 % back battery in 24 hours, and that is after fully setting up the watch, a 45-minute workout and a full night sleep. Look personally.
I’Ve never seen any battery life like that on a smartwatch before Amir told me, and I quote him, I can finally use Google Maps on a watch and not have it die on me before I get to my destination. The only downside we’ve noticed is that the watch doesn’t seem to be as smooth. Sometimes there are a few hicups here and there we’re not sure if this is happening, because the watch is switching from one operating system to another or because we’re still running pre-release software.
And if you want to push the battery life to the max, you can activate the power saver mode, which effectively kills we OS and turns on the rtos. Only mode, all of your Google Apps and your third party apps will disappear. You cannot add, or edit watch faces, you just have to use the buil-in ones and you still get some access to fitness and health tracking, but you can only track 11 types of sports in that mode.
The watch will go up to 12 days of use, but just don’t think that you can rely on this throughout the day, because it’s not easy to get get in and out of it, you have to restart your watch every single time. You have to go back to the regular mode. Aside from the awesome battery life, there are few other things we really like about the OnePlus watch to, and that is one that runs we OS, unlike the first OnePlus watch, so you get Google Wallet for payments home for smart home controls, assistant, calendar, Gmail and Maps.
You also get plenty of third party apps, like Spotify, WhatsApp and straa. Two, the fitness tracking has been really quite impressive. So far, once plus can track more than 100 different exercise types and it can autod detect six of them, and we love that it offers more than the basic stats for at least 11 different kinds of sports for running.
For example, you can customize your screens to show esoteric stats like ground contact time and vertical amplitude for swimming my personal favorite sport. I can see the swf score, the pace and the number of strokes. This is something that my Google pixel watch to with Fitbit. Just don’t show me, let’s be honest here.
I know that OnePlus is nowhere near garmin’s, activity, tracking and exercise tracking, but it’s all looking very promising so far, Plus in our early tests and comparison against a heart rate, chest Monitor and an Apple Watch. We noticed that OnePlus nailed it specifically the heart rate at rest and the spo2 level and three call this minor, but we really like that. The charging puck is not Soldier to the SBC cable, so we can just take the little charging puck with us. If we’re going on vacation, all of this is very very positive about the OnePlus Watch. 2.
So is there anything really bad about this watch? Well, sadly, yes, I think the first thing that struck us here at Android authority is just how masculine this watch looks. There’S nothing feminine or Sleek about it. If you don’t like the big, bold vintage aesthetic, this watch isn’t for you.
The watch 2 is also pretty massive. It only comes in one size, 47 mm and that’s pretty much the same as the large size of the Galaxy watch 6 classic. My colleague Caitlyn found it ridiculously large on her feminine wrist and so did Dro on his men’s wrist. Only Amir seems to appreciate it plus the bezels are equally large.
I mean this watch has the same size as the Galaxy watch, 6 classic, but a smaller display. So you do the math. However, the design and the size don’t come anywhere near the disappointment that we felt when we started using those buttons, because, yes, both of them are buttons even the top one. I know what you’re thinking it looks like a crown. It turns like a crown, but it does nothing.
Nothing look at me. Oneplus. You had the functionality right there in front of you.
You built a crown. You designed it like a crown. You made it rotate like a crown and then when we turn it, it does nothing. You know how frustrating that is in everyday use.
Also, we kind of don’t like how the two buttons are in different directions, so we can’t reach them at the same time, we have to sort of adjust our hand between them and, finally, we feel a bit mitigated around some of the fitness and activity tracking on The OnePlus Watch 2. Look, we know we’re running pre-release software, so these issues could be fixed very soon, but they also might not be fixed. So for now we’re putting these under a big question mark and not a big negative for One auto detection doesn’t seem to always work. We tried to do some walks and some runs and it detected some of them and just didn’t start for others. Two, the GPS seems to be a little off, sometimes especially compared to the Apple watch. It always gave us a shter distance, especially on Hikes and outdoor runs. We also tracked a run in the straa app and we noticed that the map put us in some Lawns and backyards instead of the sidewalk OnePlus is claiming very precise, dual frequency GPS. So this could be a big concern if it remains on the stable release.
Three: the heart rate measure is accurate when we’re resting, but it always seems to be a little higher than the Apple watch during exercise. Four sleep tracking is a little bit accurate, sometimes and sometimes a bit more generous. So it seems to mistake all the little times when we’re lying in bed awake asleep and it doesn’t seem to account for all those times when we wake up in the middle of the night and five, the o health app isn’t really our favorite Smartwatch companion app. There’S no easy way to export data from it and and the app seems to be a little bit thin on stats and data. So far, these are all our initial thoughts on the OnePlus Watch 2. It’S an impressive watch with an even more impressive battery life.
That’S standing up to our tests, but the design, the size and the lack of an LTE version mean that it’s not made for everyone. We’Re also still running some of our tests, so be sure to look out for the full review on Android authority. What do you guys think, are you interested in the OnePlus Watch 2 and would you buy it? Let me know in the comments and don’t forget to follow Android Authority for all the latest news reviews features tests and more .