The OnePlus Watch 2 is hands down, one of the best WearOS-based watches you can buy. After a lacklustre debut with the original OnePlus Watch, the company has completely overhauled its approach with the OnePlus Watch 2. This time around, OnePlus built a timepiece that brings everything the premium smartwatch market could ask for with a feature-packed wearable that boasts an elegant design, smooth performance, and absolutely stellar battery life.
Once unboxed, it is immediately evident just how refined the OnePlus Watch 2 is in comparison to the first offering. The OnePlus Watch 2 exudes an understated class with its circular stainless steel chassis and sapphire crystal display. It comes in two handsome colorways: a polished Radiant Steel (this is the one I reviewed) and a more subdued Black Steel. The watch feels substantial and well-built yet surprisingly light and comfortable on the wrist. OnePlus says it’s built to military-grade durability standards, so it should hold up well to the bumps and scrapes of daily life.
I will be the first to admit it: I am clumsy, and even with constant bumping into tables and other random furniture, the OnePlus Watch 2 has held up incredibly well. After around two weeks, the watch still looks new, with no scratches or scuffs anywhere to be seen. I do not “love” the green rubber style band it comes with, but it makes sense for a watch that is meant to be used for fitness, sleeping, and everyday use, giving it a clean look while managing to be rugged. Thankfully, if you want to accessories the watch to fit your personal taste, it takes standard 47mm bands, so the options for personalization are nearly endless.
Looking at the back of the watch, you’ll find a range of health sensors, including an optical heart rate monitor, blood oxygen sensor, and more. There’s also a speaker and microphone for taking calls right from your wrist. The OnePlus Watch 2 carries a 5ATM water resistance rating, meaning it’s safe for swimming and can withstand pressures equivalent to 50 meters underwater. Sadly, being someone who does not often swim, I had to test the watch using water at home and around the office, and it held up incredibly well, with the water causing no harm at all to the OnePlus Watch 2.
Even with all the design improvements compared to the previous watch, the star of the show is still very much the new gorgeous 1.43-inch AMOLED display. It’s bright, vibrant, and responsive, with an always-on mode that lets you check the time without waking the watch. The bezels surrounding the display are minimal, giving you maximum screen real estate to view notifications, health data, and maps.
Powering the OnePlus Watch 2 is a unique dual-chipset architecture that OnePlus developed in collaboration with Google’s Wear OS team. A Snapdragon W5 chip runs the full Wear OS experience, while a secondary BES 2700 chip handles background processes and simpler tasks to optimize battery life. This setup allows the watch to switch between high-performance and efficiency modes as needed intelligently. It is an innovative concept and looks to ensure the watch can last you more than a day when being used.
Even as complex as it sounds, thankfully, it pays off in the battery department. OnePlus claims the Watch 2 can last up to a staggering 100 hours on a charge with regular usage. Even with heavy use, you can expect around 48 hours of endurance before needing to juice up. In my testing, I was consistently getting 3-4 days of battery life, which is frankly unheard of for a full-featured Wear OS watch.
“OnePlus has nailed the overall experience with the OnePlus Watch 2, with everything feeling as quick and instant as you would hope for from a watch.”
I have long been frustrated by WearOS and its battery life issues. My take on the Xiaomi Watch 2 Pro faced this major downside, so to see OnePlus do it properly is fantastic. I also love that the OnePlus Watch 2 features fast charging, so when you inevitably hit that limit and start getting low battery warnings, it is a trivial task to get it all charged up and ready for your next use.
On the software side, as I mentioned, the OnePlus Watch 2 runs the latest version of Google’s Wear OS. This means you can access a huge selection of apps and watch faces through the Google Play Store, plus staples like Google Maps. Google has been putting effort into the platform, and it shows that even if there are not as many apps as the Apple Watch, you still have access to plenty of apps for your day-to-day needs.
The interface is slick and intuitive, with smooth animations and snappy performance thanks to that Snapdragon W5 chip. OnePlus has nailed the overall experience with the OnePlus Watch 2, with everything feeling as quick and instant as you would hope for from a watch.
OnePlus has also put effort into ensuring it retains the feel people have come to expect from their brand. The company has integrated its own OHealth companion app, which serves as a central hub for tracking your fitness and health data. Here, you can view trends over time, set goals, and dig into the details of your workouts and biometrics. Basically, if you are into fitness, this is the place you go to find everything the watch tracks when it comes to your health.
If you like fitness, the OnePlus Watch 2 has you covered. It supports over 100 different exercise modes, from running and swimming to more niche activities like badminton and skiing. During outdoor workouts, the built-in dual-frequency GPS tracks your route with excellent accuracy, and you can view a map of your path right on the watch screen. It has the features you would normally need a fitness tracker for and does it all with an interface that is easy to understand and jump into.
If you are one of the people who love running, the Watch 2 offers some advanced metrics like ground contact time, stride length, and VO2 max to help you fine-tune your form and performance. It also does a great job with the basics, like heart rate monitoring and step counting. Post-workout, the OHealth app presents a detailed summary of your session with helpful insights. OnePlus has taken the time to sort out what people actually need and integrate it into the Watch 2 design. That attention to detail shows in the final product and how well it all works together.
“OnePlus has taken the time to sort out what people actually need and integrate it into the Watch 2 design. That attention to detail shows in the final product and how well it all works together.”
While I do not love wearing a smartwatch to sleep, OnePlus has done a great job with sleep tracking on the Watch 2. It’ll automatically detect when you drift off and provide a breakdown of your light, deep, and REM sleep stages in the morning, along with a sleep quality score. You can even see your breathing rate and snoring risk. From looking at the data, it feels in line with other devices I have tested in the past, although I would not say it is recommended for anything vital, and I would consider a medical-grade device if you are looking for the best data possible.
Other health features include all-day stress monitoring based on heart rate variability, guided breathing exercises, and SpO2 readings on demand. Honestly, OnePlus has packed a lot of features into the watch, making it almost a one-stop shop for tracking, but there are a few notable omissions.
The OnePlus Watch 2 does not include ECG, body temperature, or menstrual cycle tracking, these are an odd omission, considering many high-end smartwatches have started including them. Even if female health tracking is a hard area these days, giving buyers the option is always welcome, even if they ultimately decide to avoid it.
Even beyond the tracking features, there is also the fact the OnePlus Watch 2 doesn’t have a cellular option, so you can’t make calls or stream music without your phone nearby. It also lacks fall detection, which is increasingly common on high-end smartwatches, and something that can truly be useful to help people who may run into issues with health.
While the OnePlus Watch 2 is a solid package overall, it only comes in one large 47mm size. This will likely be fine for most wrists, but it may be too big for some. I wish OnePlus offered a smaller 42mm or 44mm option for those who prefer a more compact watch, especially given how well-built it is.
The final issue I have with the OnePlus Watch 2 is that OnePlus is only promising two years of software updates and three years of security updates. This falls short of the three years you get from Samsung and Google or the five-plus years of support from Apple for their smartwatches.For a premium smartwatch, I’d like to see OnePlus commit to a longer lifespan.
While this likely isn’t a deal breaker for most people, it is something to consider when making your purchase. The watch will probably still work past the end of the update period, but if you’re like me and enjoy wearing watches you like for many years, this limited support timeline could be an issue.
But those are ultimately minor issues, and as a whole, the OnePlus Watch 2 is a compelling smartwatch that more than makes up for the missteps of its predecessor. The elegant design, smooth performance, robust fitness tracking and mind-blowing battery life make it a strong contender in the premium wearable space.
At $299, it undercuts the latest offerings from Apple and Samsung while delivering comparable features and a vastly superior battery. For OnePlus fans and Android users in general, the OnePlus Watch 2 is an excellent choice and a serious alternative to the big names. OnePlus has redeemed itself and then some with one of the most well-rounded smartwatches on the market.
- Redefining Durability: The OnePlus Watch 2 fuses a stainless-steel chassis with a robust 2.5D sapphire crystal face, delivering a sophisticated design that withstands daily wear and tear with a 5ATM and IP68 rating, and military-grade standard for durability.
- Unmatched Precision: Equip yourself with professional-grade location tracking thanks to the watch’s dual-frequency L1+L5 GPS, ensuring you always know exactly where you are when you explore the outdoors.
