Ten days with the OnePlus Watch 3: Redefining smartwatch expectations

The OnePlus Watch 3 launches today, February 18, and along with a cool $30 off promotional price comes a slew of meaningful improvements over last year's re-entry into the wearable market.

I've been using the OnePlus Watch 3 for ten days, putting it through its paces during intense workouts, relaxing evenings, and early mornings. It measured my heart rate, stress levels, and sleep cycles and told me to calm down and relax more than once.

The new features added with Google's Wear OS 5 and OnePlus' own health lab are a substantial improvement over last year's watch, which delivered epic battery life at the expense of more accurate health tracking. Not only does this year's watch feature even better battery life, but it adds a proper rotating crown, heart rate sensors that work properly, fixes the notification issues, and even swaps out the display with a more eye-friendly DC-dimmed OLED.

You can see everything OnePlus changed in our OnePlus Watch 3 vs OnePlus Watch 2 comparison. It's pretty mind-blowing.

Smartwatches are data-hungry gadgets, though, which is why I'm not yet comfortable giving this a full, scored review. Instead, I'm going to focus on three areas where OnePlus improved this watch that make me actually want to wear it every day, unlike the OnePlus Watch 2 which I quickly ditched for the Pixel Watch as soon as I could.

OnePlus Watch 3: Price, availability, and specs

Preorders for the OnePlus Watch 3 begin on February 18, 2025, with open sales starting on February 25. The watch normally retails for $329.99 USD or $449.99 CAD, but a nice little launch promotion discount brings that down to $299 USD.

The OnePlus Watch 3 comes in two colorways: Obsidian Titanium (black with a black band) and Emerald Titanium (silver with green band). OnePlus sells a handful of different band styles and colors, including a blue one that matches the Ocean Blue OnePlus 13. Any 22mm strap will work on either watch, though, so you don't have to stick to OnePlus's own selections if you don't want to.

The watch ships with a charging dock and a red cable in the box. You'll need a OnePlus charger to get the fastest charging speeds, and you can use the one that comes with any OnePlus phone.

Far more accurate health tracking

The main reason I stopped using the OnePlus Watch 2 is that its health tracking stats were simply unreliable. I mostly wear smartwatches for fitness tracking, so if this one feature doesn't work right, I'm not going to stick with it. To date, the Google Pixel Watch 3 has been the most accurate smartwatch for workout tracking for me, but the OnePlus Watch 3 easily matches that watch's accuracy in nearly every workout I've done so far.

I say nearly because I had some big technical issues with it on my first day that caused the heart rate sensor to throw out the data — presumably because it thought my high heart rate must have been an error. No, CrossFit just really gets your heart rate going.

I've seen this problem crop up with a ton of other smartwatches in the past, including brands like Amazfit, CMF, Garmin, and others. It's a common issue but one that's still overly frustrating when it appears. Beyond this initial mistake, however, I was incredibly impressed with the OnePlus Watch 3 during workouts and a multi-mile biking session when compared to the Google Pixel Watch 3.

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I also found that I prefer the way the OnePlus Watch 3's OHealth app presents the data versus how the Fitbit app shows things. The organization is more concise, the layout doesn't waste as much space, and I really love that I can view everything on my watch afterward.

Plenty of stats on the Pixel Watch 3 require you to look at your phone instead of presenting them on the watch, and that doesn't make it very pleasant to use.

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So far, the OnePlus Watch 3's workout tracking accuracy is a monumental improvement over the OnePlus Watch 2, particularly for my workout style. I found that the OnePlus Watch 2 would often miss high heart rate moments while the OnePlus Watch 3 perfectly mirrored the Pixel Watch 3.

OnePlus has also added a bevy of new health features like a 60-second daily checkup, ECG feature for the international crowd — sorry North America, it's not coming for this model — a quick wellness score that's updated throughout the day, a temperature sensor, and a bunch of really cool looking AI-powered health features.

I say cool-looking because I haven't worn it to bed enough for it to calculate my scores. I'll save that for the review. For now, it's very worth noting that any feature that relies on AI computation is done within the OHealth app and isn't sent to a server somewhere, which is something that can't be said for Fitbit stats.

Revolutionary battery life and charging

For the first charging cycle, I only wore the OnePlus Watch 3 during the day. During this period, I used it for 4 CrossFit workouts and a GPS-tracked 45-minute biking session. I don't normally wear a smartwatch to bed because I don't like something on my wrist all night, so this type of usage was the most important thing for me to know.

I began wearing it on February 6 and didn't have to charge it until February 12. Even then, the watch had 19% battery capacity, so I could have easily waited until February 13 to charge it. That's six whole days on a single charge with room for a seventh depending on your usage. Remember, this is a Wear OS 5 watch, not a Garmin or some low-power watch that is missing features and can't run proper apps.

That battery life is legitimately insane, and it completely rewrites the book on Wear OS battery life. To make things even more impressive, a 25-minute charge took it from 19% to 99% battery using the included charging dock and a standard OnePlus 80W charger.

That blows every Wear OS smartwatch out of the water. Every. Single. One. If you've ever stopped wearing a smartwatch because the battery sucked, you need to use a OnePlus Watch 3. It will completely change your perspective on what a smartwatch can do.

This was achieved by a larger 631mAh battery — compared to the 500mAh battery in the OnePlus Watch 2 — which is not only larger in capacity but slimmer and lighter thanks to its Silicon NanoStack makeup. That means the watch is the same size as the Watch 2 while having a bigger battery, something that seems to defy physics.

Design changes that matter

OnePlus seems to have taken nearly every common complaint about the OnePlus Watch 2 and addressed them on the OnePlus Watch 3. Center to that is the digital crown which actually works as a rotating digital crown this time around. Last year's OnePlus Watch 2 curiously featured a crown that rotated but didn't function as more than just a button.

This year's crown doesn't just rotate to scroll through menus, though. It has a phenomenal design that's far more comfortable to use than the one on the Pixel Watch 3. Not only is it larger and more pronounced than that watch's design, but it's textured and offset at a 45-degree angle.

Quite literally everything about this design is better than what Google offers, and it even has top-notch haptic quality to boot. It's a massive improvement that, again, adds up to make me actually want to use this watch every day over any other smartwatch.

OnePlus Watch 3 PWM and dithering tests - YouTube

Watch On

The display has been slightly enlarged without affecting watch size by reducing bezels, and the plain bezel from the first watch has been swapped out with a sportier bezel that I think just looks nicer. It's an LTPO AMOLED display with the same emitting material and eye care features as the OnePlus 13, so you won't have to squint to see it in the sun.

The 2200-nit brightness is fully driven by DC dimming, meaning this watch is actually safe to use for PWM-sensitive folks. No PWM dimming is used at any brightness level, even when AOD is enabled. That's absolutely fantastic, as it means this display is comfortable for everyone to use and, ultimately, better for your eyes in the long term than Galaxy and Pixel watches.

Looking forward

I'm incredibly impressed with the OnePlus Watch 3 after using it for more than a week. I didn't feel this way about the OnePlus Watch 2 and it's great to see OnePlus address so many complaints in a single generation.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be testing sleep data accuracy, how well the watch compiles all health data into a local AI-driven report, how well the watch holds up to the rigors of gym life, and how much better the new GPS chip is. I'll also be pairing the watch with a OnePlus 13 to check out some OnePlus-exclusive features, like the video control feature in the image above. There's a lot to look forward to!