5 things I changed on my OnePlus Watch 3 to make it better

I’ve been wearing a OnePlus Watch 3 for a little over a week. So far, it’s been great. The 1.5-inch AMOLED display looks fantastic, the battery life is superb, and the fast charge times are a nice touch. I also love the design, which, while on the bigger side, looks classy and sophisticated to my eyes. If you ask me, it makes a strong argument for being one of the best smartwatches of the year.

That said, a perfect smartwatch the OnePlus Watch 3 is not. At least not out of the box. While the OnePlus Watch 3 makes a good first impression, not everything clicked with me immediately. However, thanks to the flexibility of Wear OS, there’s a lot you can tailor to your liking — and that’s exactly what I did.

Here are the five settings/features I changed on my OnePlus Watch 3 to make it the smartwatch for me.

As I mentioned above, the OnePlus Watch 3 has a killer display. The 1.5-inch size means it’s easy to see notifications and workout stats, while the AMOLED panel gives you lovely colors and deep blacks. The 2,200 nits of peak brightness also mean I’ve been able to see the screen just fine during the few (but wonderful) sunny days in Michigan this past week.

This is a screen I want to see all the time, but by default, its always-on function is disabled. Thankfully, turning on the always-on display (AOD) takes just a few taps:

• Open the Settings app on the OnePlus Watch 3.
• Tap Display & brightness.
• Scroll down the page and tap on Always On Display.
• Tap the toggle to enable it.

When you do this, you’ll get a pop-up warning that using the AOD may reduce your battery life by two days. It’s something to consider, but I think the ability to glance at my wrist and always see the time is well worth it. I’ve also still been getting over three days of battery with the always-on display, which is darn impressive in my book.

After enabling the AOD, you can scroll down the page to use the optional Schedule feature, allowing you to schedule the AOD to turn on and off at specific times. I have mine to automatically turn on at 8:00 a.m. each day and off at 10:00 p.m.

The OnePlus Watch 3 comes with its own OnePlus-made weather app. The app itself has a load of information — including the humidity, UV index, feels-like temp, etc. — but its tile leaves a bit to be desired. It shows the current temperature in big, bold letters, but not the weather conditions for the next few hours. That’s information I like to see at a glance, and thankfully, the Google Weather app has that.

This is the same weather app installed on the Google Pixel Watch 3, and after a quick visit to the Google Play Store on your Android phone, you can get it on your OnePlus Watch 3. Here’s how:

• Open the Google Play Store on your phone.
• Tap the Search icon at the bottom.
• Tap the search bar and search for Google Weather.
• Tap This device near the top of the screen and select OnePlus Watch 3.
• Tap Google Weather and then tap Install.

Once installed, open your apps page on the OnePlus Watch 3, scroll down to the bottom, and the Google Weather app will be waiting for you. The app is good, but I particularly like the two tiles it comes with. The Forecast tile shows the current temperature, daily high/low temps, and a four-hour forecast. There’s also the Sun tile, which shows how much daylight is remaining with a lovely sun animation that moves throughout the day per the sun’s current position.

The OnePlus Watch 3 has two physical buttons, a side button near the bottom and a rotating crown, and they can both be customized to do whatever you want. How? It’s easy.

• Open the Settings app on the OnePlus Watch 3.
• Scroll down and tap Controls.
• Tap Crown or Lower button.

My crown is configured to open Google Wallet with a double press and Google Assistant with a press-and-hold. My lower button, meanwhile, opens the Workouts app with a single press and the Relax app with a double press. There are ample other options for the buttons, such as opening your most recent app, seeing your recent apps/tasks list, turning on the flashlight, or opening any app installed on the watch.

Speaking of changing things, I’d also recommend reorganizing the Workouts app. It shows a generous list of exercises by default, but many are workout types I never partake in, such as swimming and cycling.

From the Workouts app on the OnePlus Watch 3, press and hold on any workout to enter edit mode. Then, tap the red minus icon to remove that one from the list. Additionally, you can scroll down to the bottom of the Workouts app and tap the plus icon to add new ones to your list. Exercises are organized into a few different categories (Run, Walk, Outdoor workout, Winter sports, etc.), and you can add as many types as you’d like.

You can’t reorder the position of your chosen workouts, but they are automatically sorted in the order of when they were last used. So, if you frequently track outdoor runs and strength workouts, those should always be near the top of the app.

Finally, on the note of fitness tracking, it’s worth visiting the OHealth companion app and playing with the various health settings there. The out-of-the-box health tracking setup is good, but it’s worth personalizing things to your lifestyle. To do this:

• Open the OHealth app on your phone.
• Tap the Devices icon near the bottom-right.
• Scroll down and tap Workout & health.

There’s a lot to customize on this page. You can adjust your step/calorie/workout/activity session goals, enable or disable get-up reminders, turn on fall detection, and change the rate of your heart rate readings. You can also customize your resting heart rate alerts, configure your SpO2 tracking, and a whole bunch more.

One of the first things I enabled here was to assess potential breathing problems while I sleep. I don’t have any that I’m aware of, but I’d like to be alerted if that ever changes. I also changed the workout heart rate alerts to a higher bpm than what the default was and made sure low SpO2 alerts were enabled, too.

This all may seem daunting at first, but I appreciate how much control OnePlus gives you over this stuff.

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg of what you can do with the OnePlus Watch 3 — or any Wear OS smartwatch for that matter. From third-party watch faces, hidden gems of Wear OS apps, accessibility settings, and more, there’s so much more for you to fine-tune and tweak.

What are some of your favorite Wear OS customization tips? Let us know in the comments below.