Design and software
The OnePlus Watch 3 retains the same basic design as the Watch 2 but with some subtle improvements. Defaulting to an analogue display and with a stainless steel case and classic, thick lugs, it’s still aiming to look like a regular timepiece first and a techy wearable second.
The 1.5in OLED display is bright, and the impressive 2,200 nits peak brightness keeps the screen readable in even the sunniest of morning runs. While still only available in just the one 47mm size – which is a smidge too chunky for my thin wrists – there’s now a premium titanium bezel running around the dial.
The addition of the functional rotating crown addresses one glaring omission from the Watch 2. You can now use it to scroll through menus and screens, offering the same tactile and intuitive navigation found on competitor watches.
Running on Wear OS5 – the Google-built operating system found on most Android smartwatches – means you get the smart wearable features you’d expect: NFC card payments via Google Wallet, on-wrist notifications and messaging, and turn-by-turn directions using Google Maps.
Health and fitness tracking
OnePlus has bolstered its health-tracking arsenal this year, most notably adding a sensor to gauge the skin temperature of your wrist. Improved optical heart rate sensors and SpO2 detection give you greater insights into workout intensity and blood oxygen levels while exercising. You get a glut of health monitoring features, including the new “vascular stiffness” measurement – unique among watches I’ve tested but dubiously useful information for the average user. The ECG function and a 60-second health check are unavailable at launch, pending medical approval.
The updated sleep tracking now analyses your snoring to better assess your breathing overnight, at the expense of battery life. An overall “wellness” score pulls in data from your heart rate variability, resting heart rate and activity levels to slap a number (and an emoji) on your supposed physical and mental state.
The data is nice to have, but I can’t say that I found the results particularly enlightening – it mostly tells me that I’m sad when I take a nap, when the opposite is true. Also odd is the helpful reminder to get up and move around if you’ve been sitting still for too long, which includes a slightly alarmist reference to your chance of developing type 2 diabetes if you ignore it.
For better or worse, the OnePlus Watch 3 gives you mountains of health information to pore over, as well as the simpler rings system used to stay on top of your daily activities. Workout tracking and sleep detection were accurate, particularly the improved heart rate monitoring, which closely correlates to a chest-strap I use to benchmark wrist-based heart rate sensors on runs. The OHealth phone app looks great, displays your stats clearly and without clutter, and integrates with Strava to sync your runs and workouts.
The dual-frequency GPS tracking is a major upgrade, too, locking on to a signal in a fraction of the time it takes my dawdling Pixel Watch 3 to detect one. Designed to deal with interference caused by tall buildings, the GPS on the OnePlus Watch 3 returns more accurate results during segments of my run through built-up areas of London.
Battery life
Across its phones and wearables range, OnePlus has always prioritized battery life. The OnePlus Watch 3 is no exception. Using the same new silicon tech found in the OnePlus 13, the watch boasts up to five days’ battery life in “smart mode”. That drops to about three days with the always-on display enabled.
The extended battery life is down to the larger 631mAh cell, up from 500mAh on the previous model. The more efficient Snapdragon W5 chip and WearOS 5 help stretch the juice even further. In testing, those 120-hour battery promises without the always-on display were easily achieved.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to keep the display on – I find classic smartwatches look weird without something visible on the screen – but even then, the OnePlus Watch 3 offers double the battery life of my regular watch, the Pixel Watch 3.
Fast-charging is impressive, too, with a 10-minute zap delivering enough power for a full day of use. The watch comes with a charging dock and a separate USB-A to USB-C cable, which gives you more flexibility when it comes to topping up the battery versus the fully integrated USB-C charging cables of Samsung and Pixel watches.
