OnePlus Watch 2 unveiled with Wear OS, stainless steel body

The original OnePlus Watch came out three years ago and it ran a proprietary OS. Since then, the company has gone back to the drawing board and has brought significant changes to the new model – meet the OnePlus Watch 2.

It is based on a “Dual Engine Architecture”, meaning that there are two chipsets and two OSes. One is the Snapdragon W5 that runs Wear OS, meaning you have full access to the app store. The other is the BES2700, which runs a real-time OS (RTOS) at a low power.

In Smart Mode, you can run Google Maps, Assistant, Wallet, Calendar, Keep, Gmail, you name it. There are 20 watch faces built-in with 80 more downloadable. In this mode the 500mAh battery lasts up to 100 hours with regular use or up to 48 hours with heavy usage.

The Power Saver Mode keeps just the RTOS around, but that still leaves a lot of functionality available – sleep and heart rate tracking, sports mode like swimming and cycling, you can even make and receive calls in this mode. With Power Saver enabled, the watch can last up to 12 days.

And when you finally deplete the battery, the 7.5W VOOC fast charger will top it up quickly – a full 100% charge happens in 60 minutes, but if you are in a hurry, you can get a full day of battery life (in Smart Mode) in just 10 minutes.

The OnePlus Watch 2 has a stainless steel body that measures 47.0 x 46.6 x 12.1mm. Stainless steel is harder than aluminum and gives the watch some heft – 49g by itself, 80g with the fluoro rubber strap (with a stainless steel buckle).

2.5D sapphire glass guards the 1.43” AMOLED display. It has a resolution of 466 x 466px and runs at 60Hz. In High Brightness Mode it can reach 1,000 nits, vital for outdoor visibility.

Speaking of the outdoors, the watch has a 5 ATM water resistance rating, making it suitable for swimming. It is also built to the MIL-STD-810H standard.

OnePlus Watch 2

It has a dual-frequency GPS (L1+L5) and supports the major constellations (including Beidou, Galileo, GLONASS and QZSS). Other sensors include a compass, accelerometer, gyroscope, a barometer and even a light sensor to adjust the screen brightness.

There is an optical pulse oximeter too, of course. During sleep tracking, it detects your sleep phases, rates your sleep quality, monitors your breathing rate and oxygen levels and can assess your risk of snoring. Stress monitoring is available too as the sensor keeps an eye on your heart rate variability.

Running mode makes use of the GPS and other sensors to track your runs and performance with metrics like vertical amplitude, ground contact time, balance, maximal oxygen consumption and stride length. This not only tracks your progress, but it enables your watch to be your running coach.

Sport modes: Running • Badminton • Tennis • Skiing

Similarly, there are Tennis and Badminton modes that keep track of the number of swings taken, the number of shots played (and even what type of shot it was like forehand, backhand, topspin, slice, etc.). Skiing mode tracks your maximum and average speed, maximum slope and altitude and more.

Note that the Wear OS 4 system has access to 2GB of RAM and 32GB storage for the apps that need it – this lets you store offline maps, music and so on.

The OnePlus Watch 2 goes on pre-order today, open sales will start on March 4. There are several different offers per region. In Europe, pre-ordering gets you a €30/£30 discount and a free pair of OnePlus Buds 3. After the pre-order period ends, you can still get a €30 discount and TWS buds until the end of March (but it’s the cheaper Nord Buds2).

In the US, there is a trade-in offer - $50 off for any watch in any condition. If you are buying the Watch 2 alongside a phone, you will get $200 off if it’s the OnePlus 12 and $100 off if it’s the 12R. Once open sales start, you can still get the $50 guaranteed trade-in credit and 30% off with the purchase of a OnePlus 12 or 12R until the end of March. Amazon Prime Members get an exclusive perk - $50 off.

Don't miss our hands-on review of the OnePlus Watch 2!