At just $200, the new TicWatch E3 is a fairly affordable smartwatch. Yet it’s also one of the most powerful Wear OS devices to date, as it’s the second smartwatch to run on Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon Wear 4100 processor (Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 3 was the first). If you’re shopping for a Wear OS device today, the TicWatch E3 looks like a no-brainer … sort of.
While Mobvoi’s line of “E” smartwatches usually run on low-end hardware, the TicWatch E3 is blows most Wear OS devices out of the water. Its Wear 4100 processor offers the best performance around, and feature-wise, the TicWatch E3 boasts a ton of modern sensors.
There’s a blood oxygen saturation sensor (SPo2) and Vo2Max sensor to measure your oxygen intake during exercise. Continuous heart rate monitoring can alert you when your heart rate is too high or low, and the sleep tracking mode includes ambient sound measurements. Plus, with over 20 exercise modes and IP68 water resistance (for swimming), the TicWatch E3 can help you track workouts and set new goals.
But there’s a lot of confusion surrounding Wear OS right now. The short of it is that Google and Samsung are joining forces to create a newer, better Wear OS, which may require more powerful hardware than what’s currently available to most smartwatch manufacturers. Because Qualcomm hasn’t taken the wearable market seriously, most Wear OS devices run on the 7-year-old Snapdragon Wear 3100 chip, so there’s a good chance that existing watches won’t get the upcoming Wear OS update.
While the Snapdragon Wear 4100 is significantly faster than the ancient Wear 3100 chip, we don’t know if it’s powerful enough to run the next version of Wear OS. If you aren’t in a rush to buy a smartwatch, you may want to hold out on the TicWatch E3 for a bit just to see where things go. But hey, if you need a Wear OS device today, the TicWatch E3 is one of the best options available to you.
