The OnePlus Watch will launch the company on March 23 with the OnePlus 9 series, the company confirmed today. In a short teaser on Twitter and a follow-up post on their forums, OnePlus teased the portable with a set of images and a bit of pun by referring to “clock” and “watch” and “time” during their entry. They weren’t subtle, but that was kind of the point.
We all know that the OnePlus Watch has been working for some time and that it was confirmed that it comes from OnePlus CEO Pete Lau earlier this year. We think it may come in two sizes and hope it will eventually run Wear OS, but we doubt it.
The Wear OS piece of this story is really a big question mark. OnePlus has publicly said that they are working with Google to make Wear OS better, but they have never officially paired this upcoming watch with Wear OS and have talked about it rather than separate topics. It definitely worries me that OnePlus is releasing a fitness-focused watch that is more of an upgrade from their newly released fitness band rather than a stand-alone Wear OS device. In fact, we’ve all seen tips on the watch that the OnePlus Health app shares with the OnePlus Band.
OnePlus at least told us that the OnePlus Watch will help us ‘be healthy, punctual and even take care of you while you sleep’. To translate there, it means it will be a health check, will have to keep up with the times and keep an eye on sleep. Wear OS still does not have sleep detection, so unless OnePlus has a plan to build it in there, I will continue to tend to suggest that it’s just an upgraded version of the OnePlus Band without Google’s OS behind it.
In the images below we get some tips for designing with a rubber band and metal frame with many curves. It must be a round clock, right?
Just a few days left!
// OnePlus