The OnePlus Nord Watch is the brand’s first entry- position smartwatch in the Nord series. OnePlus Nord smartphones are generally budget to mid-range bias, so it’s no stunner to see an entry- position OnePlus smartwatch from the Nord ecosystem. We’ve plenitude of choice in about 60 euro smartwatch member in India, both from original and Chinese companies, so what makes the Nord Watch special, and is it worth the asking price? Let’s find out.
OnePlus Nord Watch price, design, and specifications
The OnePlus Nord Watch is available atRs.,999 and comes in two homestretches – Night Black and Deep Blue. I entered the Midnight Black variant for review which ironically has a deep shade of blue when seen at certain angles. It comes paired with black silicon swatch, and a black pristine sword leg and buckle for fastening.
The IP68- rated watch case of the Nord Watch is analogous in size when placed alongside a 45 mm Apple Watch Series 8 The case of the OnePlus Nord Watch is made from zinc amalgamation which makes it relatively light at35.6 g, and weighs52.4 g with the watch strips on. The case has a rounded appearance and skinny lugs which hold the interchangeable silicon swatch in place. Its glass- suchlike finish catches fingerprints fluently but the display glass, which is flat, does a good job of rejecting them. The reverse the case( underpart) is made of polycarbonate and has all the necessary detectors in place along with two contact points for the glamorous bowl. On the right there is one button which is also made of essence but its functionality is limited to opening the app menu. A alternate press of the button from the app menu takes you back to the watch face. OnePlus Nord Watch doesn’t vend the Nord Watch’s 20 mm strips independently, so you’ll have to replace them with any third- party bones if and when they get damaged. The strips are made from a hypoallergenic material which feels soft and is relatively comfortable for all- day use , The 1.78- inch AMOLED display ( 368 x 448 pixels) on the OnePlus Nord Watch has thick bezels, although these are slightly conspicuous thanks to the deep blacks produced by the display and the software interface, which has black backgrounds. The device has no mic or speakers, so there is no Bluetooth calling functionality. This also means that all interface- related cautions( admonitions, announcements, etc) work using nudges from the vibration motor. The watch packs an optic heart rate and blood- oxygen detectors, and a 3- axis accelerometer for tracking health and fitness. Connectivity is limited to Bluetooth5.2 and the watch doesn’t have a erected- in GPS receiver moreover. The Nord Watch comes with 256 MB of storehouse( none of which is accessible to the stoner), and has a 230mAh battery.
OnePlus Nord Watch software, performance, and battery life
The OnePlus Nord Watch runs a customised interpretation of RTOS which is veritably light and runs fluidly utmost of the time, only with a many arbitrary cases of pause. The interface is as introductory as it gets. Swiping left or right from the watch face shows contraptions for the colorful preinstalled apps similar as Sleep, SpO2, Stress, etc. A swipe overhead from the watch face shows unlettered announcements in a list view, and a swipe down reveals the quick toggles. A swipe to the right take you back to the app menu. There are a sprinkle of preinstalled apps and they all show the applicable data that you’d anticipate. There’s no app store or access to third- party apps however, so the Nord Watch substantially ends up being the fellow of a fitness band and not a real smartwatch. (OnePlus Nord Watch ) What I didn’t like about the interface of the OnePlus Nord Watch is the manner in which the announcements are displayed. Save for the introductory apps similar as WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook and Instagram, the watch won’t display app icons for individual announcements, which makes it extremely delicate to identify whether the alert is an dispatch( from Gmail) or a communication from Slack. The announcements themselves are also abbreviated, so it’s not possible to read long dispatches( or forwards) directly on the watch. The OnePlus Nord Watch works well when paired with the N Health app which is available for both iOS and Android platforms. The setup process is quick and simple, and it asks for utmost warrants in one go on iOS. On Android, this requires a many redundant way( to enable announcements, incoming calls and bus- health shadowing features), which was not a hassle. (OnePlus Nord Watch )
OnePlus Nord Watch software, performance, and battery life
The Android interpretation of the app also has a’ Background warrants’ settings section which provides instructions on how to keep the app running in the background. This was a bit delicate to set up as the Settings app generally looks different across smartphone brands. I used the Nord Watch with Google’s Pixel 7 and faced no issues post setup. During the entire review period I endured no fresh battery drain on the smartphone because of the app either, which was good. The N Health app is designed well with a well- spaced out interface and minimum clutter, which is good to have. It makes the app easy to use when paired with both iOS and Android smartphones. The app has three sections – Home, Exercise and Me. Home gets you a neatly laid- out exercise of all conditioning and health readings. Exercise lets you start an out-of-door drill( with GPS shadowing using a connected smartphone), and the Me tab lets you change and pierce the settings of the app and the connected watch. Despite being fairly easy to set up and use, I did encounter a bug where the alarm didn’t let me set the time using a 12- hour timepiece, indeed though the watch was set to it. (OnePlus Nord Watch ) As mentioned over, the watch doesn’t have a GPS module. This only lets it track fitness- related data( using the onboard detectors) during an out-of-door drill. Carrying your smartphone along when running or walking outside adds GPS shadowing to the blend and gets you accurate GPS shadowing, but for this to work, I had to start the drill from the N Health app and not the watch. (OnePlus Nord Watch )
As for health shadowing, heart rate monitoring was relatively accurate when compared to a palpitation oximeter, but the SpO2 shadowing kept shifting and wasn’t stable. Step shadowing was spot- on when I counted to a,000 way, and the fitness tracking data came near to the Apple Watch Series 8. Sleep shadowing was also relatively accurate but was limited to preset hours( post 6PM only), meaning it didn’t track short naps.
Being Further of a fitness band than a watch, battery life of the OnePlus Nord Watch was relatively good. I managed to use it for an entire week with all the health- shadowing features enabled, announcements, and fitness shadowing for short out-of-door walks every day. The watch takes about 1hour, 45 twinkles to completely charge.
