I’ll word that OnePlus is not the primary firm to attempt a novel strategy to fixing smartwatch battery life. Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 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 much like what Google affords 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 series. What OnePlus affords right here is respectable, 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 attainable.
One in all 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 capabilities and to entry well being and health knowledge like with its opponents. All the pieces 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’ll click on on them to entry extra info, however the app has some quirks. For starters, and you may see this within the image above, there are some design points, like phrases operating into one another (see the step depend objective). 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 obtainable is de facto the difficulty.
The discrepancies largely stems from step depend and distance traveled. Carrying the Pixel Watch 2 on my different wrist, I seen a giant distinction in these two metrics, with the OnePlus Watch 2 incessantly 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 challenge right here with the OnePlus.
