I’ve had the $329.99 OnePlus Watch 3 for a few days, and so far, this isn’t an Android watch that flips the script. Instead, it’s a story about refinement (and playing a bit of catch-up), rather than pushing boundaries. And you know what? If it means a strong Google / Samsung alternative with a rotating crown that finally scrolls, I’m totally fine with that.
On the design front, the Watch 3 is quite similar to the OnePlus Watch 2, with a few key changes. The OLED display is a smidge larger and brighter at 2,200 nits, and the bezels are notably smaller, though that’s partially because of a slight design tweak. The screen is spiffy to look at, especially with the new video watchface where you can upload your own clips. (I, of course, have uploaded one of my cat asking for belly rubs.) The casing is still stainless steel, but there’s a new titanium physical bezel, too. It gives it a more classic analog look, but otherwise, this isn’t a dramatic change. My big design gripe is that the Watch 3 still only comes in a single 47mm size. It’s not horrible, but I have smaller wrists, and the lug gaps are notable. Offering just one size excludes folks with smaller wrists from comfortably using the Watch 3, and that feels like a missed opportunity.
I’ll forgive OnePlus this oversight now that there’s a proper rotating crown. This time, you can actually use it to scroll through screens — a baffling omission from the last watch. There are delightful haptics that go along with it, and while this isn’t a groundbreaking addition, it soothes my inner curmudgeon that OnePlus has seen the errors of its ways and now upholds the nerdy wearable covenant that a rotating crown must also scroll.
Battery life has also been improved from 100 hours to 120 hours — or five days with regular use and the always-on display turned off. Turning on the AOD shortens that to roughly three days. That’s fairly typical for all flagship smartwatches these days. In a power-saving mode, you can get up to 16 days. OnePlus says it’s managed to stuff a larger 631mAh battery in the Watch 3 using the same silicon nanostack battery as the OnePlus 13. Since it runs Wear OS 5, that should add some extra battery mileage. I haven’t been testing the watch long enough to definitively comment on battery life just yet, but I always appreciate faster charging. You can get a full day’s worth in about 10 minutes.
OnePlus says it changed the sensor layout and made tweaks to the materials to improve tracking accuracy. Speaking of sensors, the Watch 3 adds one for wrist temperature, an eight-channel optical heart rate sensor, and a 16-channel blood oxygen sensor. It’s also revamped the GPS with a “circular polarized antenna,” which it claims will help improve GPS maps in areas with tall buildings. I’m getting over a cold, so I haven’t had the chance to test this on a run yet, but I’ll see whether it makes a dramatic difference. Technically, the Watch 3 can also take EKGs, but that functionality won’t be available for users in the US or Canada. In a briefing, OnePlus spokesperson Spenser Blank said that’s because OnePlus hasn’t received FDA clearance but that, for “business reasons,” the company doesn’t plan on pursuing FDA clearance.
That’s disappointing given some of the new health features. The big one is OnePlus’ 60S Health Check-In, where you touch the side button and get a quick scan of your heart rate, blood oxygen levels, mental wellness, wrist temperature, sleep quality, and vascular age. European users will get EKGs included in Q2 2025. Also new is a vascular health test, which measures your arterial stiffness. It’s similar to a feature Oura introduced last year, and it’s meant to gauge your circulatory system’s overall state. (Mine is “normal.”)
With the Watch 3, OnePlus is refocusing a bit on sleep tracking and wellness. The company says sleep tracking has been overhauled, and you’ll now be able to use the watch to track snoring patterns to assess your breathing disruptions. Stress tracking has also been rebranded as “360 Mind and Body,” and it uses heart rate variability, resting heart rate, and activity intensity to approximate how you’re doing… with emoji. Depending on how it evaluates your stress, you might get recommendations for guided breathing. I’ve been running a beta version of the OHealth app with these updates, and so far, I have received more insights into sleep tracking — though I’m not entirely sold on the emoji. So far, all I’ve been is roasted for my “moderate” wellness.
A lot of these updates are things other competitors already have. They just have a OnePlus twist to them, and it’ll take me some more time to really put subtler software tweaks through the testing gauntlet. So far, though, wearing the Watch 3 is a pleasant reminder of how OnePlus has surprisingly emerged as a competitive alternative to Samsung and Google. But one change I know I don’t love is the Watch 3 is $30 more expensive than its predecessor — though Blank told me that the price increase has nothing to do with tariffs.
The OnePlus Watch 3 is available for preorder starting today and will begin shipping on February 25th.
