OnePlus - Watch 3

I've tried Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy and at the moment I'm liking the OnePlus Watch 3. They all have their strong points but the OnePlus has fewer weak points.

I like the design, battery life and the apps page similar to Apple watch. But I just bought the Pixel 10 XL and it's not completely compatible like a pixel watch is. So I'll be selling mine once my pixel watch 4 comes in.

So I use a Pixel device and previous used all the Pixel watches since it came out. What I love about the pixel watch is, it syncs Do Not Disturb, Alam, sleep mode and constant heart rate monitor even on always on display on and you can see the heart rate changes without waking up the screen like tilt to wake functions. Heart rate is a minor thing but the rest is very useful. That's why I'm switching to the Pixel Watch 4. Will definitely miss the long battery life and design of it.

So I had OP 13 and no DND did not sync. Only Alam did. I would still had to manually do sleep mode on the Watch.

Hey Hey! So far I'm loving it! What I love the curve glass(in person looks so much better). The UI is so much better IMO. How the notifications pop up, the different themes are just something about it makes it that much better. It charges just as fast as the OPW 3! Sure battery life is not as superior to OPW 3 but it's easily 2 days with workouts, notifications, and always on display. More than enough for me. One thing that pixel watch does that no other wearOS watch does a live heart rate monitor on always on display. Don't need to wake the watch up to see my heart rate. Now I get it, some people don't care about that feature but that is something I use all the time and very useful. And the integration with my Pixel phone is just that good! BTW this is my 3rd Pixel Watch and they came a long way. https://preview.redd.it/gxih1cictgwf1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9b439e1d307073c9b6462f9d072715adf8ebf94 Would I go back to the OPW 3, sure if they can sync DND, Alam, Sleep settings with a OnePlus Phone. Maybe with the 15, they will do that? Idk. I will miss the little map of riding a bike, walk or running of the Ohealth app does similar to Strava. Which is pretty cool! Design is subjective but I definitely did get more compliments on the OPW 3 vs the Pixel Watches. But I will be selling my OPW 3 since I no longer use it. Hope this helps!

I have them both and I love them both. I’ve ultimately settled on the Pixel Watch 3 because I like fitbits tracking better. But it’s a hard call, because the battery life of the OP watch 3 is crazy good

Thanks for your excellent comparison. I bought the Watch 3 a few days ago and I may return it. It is so beautiful, but a bit limited for runners... No interval training, this is disappointing for me. I'm wondering, where did you find VO2 max on the Watch 3? I cannot get it...

I am writing this to maybe help others with their decision of whether to get the OnePlus Watch 3 47mm, as I spent a lot of time trying to find this information and some of those things were nowhere to be found. There's a lot to say and I'm no professional reviewer, but I will mark topics to navigate them easier. # Watch size Short version: * **It is big** * **Wrist width < 52mm → Too big for you** * **Wrist width \~52mm → Wearable but extremely close to the limit of what you can pull off depending on the curvature of your hand. Consider an aftermarket strap as well.** * **Wrist width > 55mm → Entering in the ideal territory** If style matters to you, the size of this watch will definitely factor into your decision. Yes, it is big. The 47mm case size specified everywhere does not tell the whole story and I spent hours trying to figure out what the lug to lug dimensions are to no avail... I had to order it and try it out. I have no tool to accurately measure it, but with what I had I could manage to measure lug to lug about 52mm (give or take 1mm). Bezel size is about 3mm thick, which means you get a screen of about 41mm in diameter to total the 47mm of the case diameter. So to make things simple, if your wrist width is below 52mm at the very limit, the lugs WILL overhang and it will look comical on your hand. The very limit of 52mm is already pushing it, because as you know, your arm curves, and the watch does not have a flat back like a classical watch with a good contour for it as it would be the case with my classical watch, so you want in fact to have a bit more than 52mm (at the very least) based on the curvature of your arm. If you have 52mm of "flat surface" on your wrist, then you don't really have anything to worry about. Maybe you could pull it off with about 45mm of flat surface (and 52mm wrist width), but it's really pushing it close to unwearable. For me, it kind of is close to the limit of what I could pull off. With the strap it comes with, you may find it that it is somewhat awkward, as it adds even more extra width to the watch and if you are close to that 52mm you may want to consider getting a different strap that allows free movement. If you wear tight sleeved clothes, you may find it a hassle to get them on as it might get caught. I often have such issues with my backpack when I take it off, so I had to change the way I do certain things to adapt to wearing the watch. # Battery Short version: * **Heavy use (AOD, GPS, Spotify, lots of SOT) -> 1-2 days or even less** * **Moderate (Tilt to wake, tracking workouts, No power saving mode, no AOD, no GPS) -> 3-5 days** * **Light (power saving mode on, limited to a few apps but can still do basic tracking of various things) -> 7+ days (5% power drain per day even when working out, lasting a bit over two weeks for me depending how much I use it)** The battery can last from about a day if you are turning everything on and are a heavy user to way over one week if you are a light user. I like that it does give you an estimate to how much each feature is expected to drain the battery. I'm not a fan of always on display and I usually have my phone with me for the heavy lifting like listening to music and everything else, so for my normal usage, it lasts about 3-5 days. And if you don't activate the power saver mode, that is what you should be realistically expecting with an average use. If you are a bit of a light user, maybe 5 or more, but I did not experiment with it enough to say anything on that. My use case: 90% of the time it's just a watch that monitors my heart rate, oxygen levels, my sleep, my daily steps and give me notification from my phone. No always on display, but tilt to wake. The rest of the time, I use it in the gym for tracking my workout. If I just keep tracking things like normal or use their "Workouts" app, I don't feel like the battery drains much faster. All that drains about 20-25% of the battery in a day, depending on how much I look at it, while using smart mode. If I activate power saving mode, that drops to about 5%, however that means you are not able to use your preferred 3rd party workout app. I personally find that using it in power saver mode is giving me most of the things that I want, but it is lacking, which at times I do have to switch to smart mode to get the things I want like using google wallet or my preferred workout app that actually tracks the exercises I do in the gym rather than just statistics about me... or just to customize the watch face or some other things that are somewhat unexpected to not be available in power saver mode (like showing how much battery is actually left without using the phone). Lately, due to a bug in my 3rd party workout app, I decided to stop using it on the watch, so that removed almost all reasons I would have to leave power saver mode, and as such, for me it keeps the power drain to about 5% per day. If I were to intensively use it, I can definitely burn through the battery fast. Spotify on the watch, Bluetooth connection to headphones, workout tracking app running, always on display, oxygen tracking, heart rate tracking every second, GPS, periodically checking the watch (screen on), etc will burn about 10% - 20% in two or so hours. The way I can balance things is to keep it in power saving mode most of the time, and activate smart mode during my workouts, which will last me longer. The downside is that when I go shopping, I often forget to turn on smart mode, so I end up having to pay using my card or my phone rather than the watch. Switching from power saving mode to smart mode is not instantly and it take a few minutes. Honestly, at times I don't even know why I bother with power saving mode given it will make it through a couple of days with my usage regardless, but on the up side, it should keep the battery healthy for longer. As for battery charging, it's damn impressive. I take a shower and eat and it's 100% full from about 20%. In 15 minutes you can charge it to get more than one day of usage if you're not a heavy user. I use a 30w charger, however I don't know what is the actual limit, and in the manual I did not see it specified. # Tracking activities Short version: * **It is accurate enough for most things you want** * **Workouts app is available in power saving mode** * **3rd party apps require smart mode power management** * **You should open the workout app before starting your activity to make sure tracking is up to speed** * **Sleep tracking does the job, but not that accurately. Being half asleep can be registered as light sleep.** I don't particularly do sports, but I found that it is quite accurate during runs with tracking your heart rate based on the devices we have in my gym. Usually there is a small difference, but if you're not looking for a medically certified device to track you, it's going to be good enough. By default, it does not track your heart rate every second (you can change it to do that), so if you start doing a workout without starting your workout app, you may find it takes a bit to figure out you are doing something and pick up the tracking of it. I did not find issues when you open the workout app (their app or your preferred one) before starting your workout. I'm completely fine with that, even if there is a function to detect your activities (which I disabled). The step counter also works quite well. I did notice that at time it won't register steps if there's not enough feedback from the hand, like when you're pushing a cart and you do a "fluid walk" (the watch not receiving any acceleration variation information to be able to tell if you are walking, driving and whatnot). I could also make it count steps when I wasn't making any while doing the hand motions (moving back and forth in an elliptical motion, moving up and down in a certain pattern, etc.). So if you stay in one place and move your hands a lot, you may end up doing some motions that will count as steps, and if you walk like a robot it may not register your steps. But all those are issues I could replicate on the pixel and the samsung watch that I had, so it's not actually such a big deal as it sounds. On a day to day basis, I feel like it is accurate enough. If you go on a normal walk like a normal human being it should be able to count relatively well your steps. Most people will not care about a misalignment of a few dozen or even hundreds of steps depending how active you were during the day. So far, it has worked well for tracking my workouts, and I do some light cardio and weight lifting. I don't have any particular issues with accuracy, but if accuracy is extremely important to you, you'll obviously not look for a smartwatch. You have a lot of tension in your arms during lifting, and a smartwatch will not be able to be extremely accurate on your wrist, but even so, I think it does a good enough. If you absolutely need the accuracy, then I would look at devices that can sit on your biceps or close to your heart. I think Amazfit Helio Strap will be released with a version that can sit on your biceps soon enough, so that will obviously be more accurate and it has no subscription. Sleep tracking is not something I can talk much about because I have no good reference to compare it against, and is quite tricky to get right from what I've seen with most devices... each watch I had seems to give different information. My sleeping pattern is completely fucked up due to some events, so I never really got to truly experience a normal full night's sleep with this watch. It seems my deep sleep is much shorter than what it should be, but I can't tell if that's just the algorithm or if it truly is that short. I almost never sleep more than 7 hours. I did notice that me just resting half asleep (sometimes I just sit there without showing any signs of life) counts as light sleep. Sometimes when I wake up at night it doesn't detect the entire time I was up, so for example if I was awake for like 5 minutes, I would see only 1 minute detected. Now I never truly planned to wake up at night just to test this and see how accurately that works, so take it more as an estimation than anything else. Honestly, if your sleeping patterns are bad like mine, don't expect too much out of it, or any other watch, and if that is important to you, you might want to invest in a specialized device, but don't expect that device to be comfortable and help you fall asleep if you are already having problems. At the very least it is accurate to give me a good enough estimation of how much I slept and I can work with that to try and improve my sleep. Snoring detection is something I tried to experiment with, but it seems it's the phone app dealing with that, not the watch itself, so technically speaking, you don't need to watch for it. I don't feel there's a point in talking about it, and I failed to properly launch it when I felt like trying it and I never did it again. You need the phone plugged in and close enough to you to register any noise while you sleep. # Design Short version: * **Looks good and you can dress it up** * **Compatible with most 22mm straps** * **Good build quality, but be careful to not wear it down with more involved activities if you want to dress it up because it is big and can get in the way if you're not used to it** * **Flat screen means you can easily put a screen protector** * **The crown placement makes it more comfortable to wear** * **It is big and it will get caught in things** The watch looks classic, elegant and it's something you could wear with a suit as well... IF your wrist is wide enough. For dressy outfits, you may want smaller watches, but it's not like you absolutely can't pull it off. That being said, getting it all scratched up might ruin that. If you do any extreme workouts, like rock climbing, boxing or anything that would put it in more risk to be damaged I'd reconsider using this watch if you want to wear it in other settings too. It is sturdy, but the more you ruin the aesthetics the harder it will be to pull off in other settings where the classic look would fit. Also, it is heavier than others, so if extra weight is going to be a problem, you might want to consider something made lighter materials. As I said, the watch is big. You need plenty of time to adjust to it if you didn't wear something as big before, and unavoidably, you may hit it against things as you're doing your workouts, so you need to pay even more attention to it. And if you are wearing gloves, you need to be mindful that they might rub against the watch. I wouldn't worry much about the case given it is steel, but the crown could be a weak point, and glass, even though it is sapphire, I've seen sapphire scratched in milder environments, so the danger is always there and with enough persistence you may still get scratches. I have a few workarounds to that: 1. Wear the watch in reverse to avoid damaging the crown, but the glass is still close to the gloves. 2. Wear the watch higher on your arm, but deal with it occasionally falling down. I got myself a FKM rubber strap (I'm not sure I could recommend you to do the same due to health concerns around FKM, which the original strap is also made of) which doesn't slide very much so I won't have to constantly mess with it. 3. Cut the gloves so when you are flexing your wrist they won't be against the watch, but you might lose some grip and the gloves might slide off during some exercises. 4. Don't wear gloves, but deal with more calluses. 5. Don't wear a watch. For gym I would probably want something that I wouldn't want to worry about wearing in other settings so that scratches wouldn't be a problem... but at the same time, I wanted something that I could wear in any setting, so I guess some wear on the watch from those activities would be the compromise if it ever gets to it. For now I am careful not to damage it, even though it should be able to take a bit of a beating... The design is actually the reason I got it over the OPW3 43mm. I was waiting for it because it would look better on my hand and would have a smaller footprint, but when the OPW3 43mm came out and they changed the design, I just couldn't pick that one up over the 47mm. It was either that I could pull off the 47mm or I would skip this year. As you know, the 43mm kind of looks like the pixel watch. I did have a pixel watch before, and while I did consider waiting for the pixel watch 4, when I heard that battery is only marginally improved I had to give it a pass. As I said before, the bottom part is not flat, and that will leave a mark on your hand. Not only that, but it will make the watch look raised depending on the angle you look at it, especially with the original strap. I'm not much of a fan of those straps that are locked in place, especially when it comes on such a big watch. I had a Samsung galaxy watch 6 classic 43mm and their strap was horrible, leaving a huge gap on the hand, but with OPW3 strap the gap was much more manageable. The good thing is that you can pick any 22mm strap for a classical watch and fit it on. HOWEVER! Be careful here. Some straps are designed with the idea that the lugs have a pass through hole to remove to strap, which this watch does not have. Don't end up spending a lot of money on a strap that you may have to cut off because of that. You have been warned. If you are going to pick a quick release strap, that's obviously not going to be a problem, but a quick release mechanism does compromise the structural integrity of the strap, especially if you go for leather. Another great thing is that the screen is flat, so you can put a screen protector on it without much of a hassle or having to get more expensive ones. The crown being displaced makes it more comfortable. With other watches, when I wear them too close to the wrist and I flex my hand, they kind of stab me with the crown at times. That gets even more annoying when driving. I never had this issue on the OPW3 because of the crown placement and the "flat" surface at the side. A pleasant surprise at no expense to the user experience. I don't find it any more difficult to use it than if it was in the more traditional place. The bracelet is really good. It is soft to the touch, flexible and comfortable that it can make you forget you are wearing it. Unfortunately, the green doesn't fit my taste and I wish they put a more generic black strap. If your wrists are not wide enough, there may be a bigger gap with it because the strap doesn't move freely at the lugs, so you might want to consider getting one that does. And if you ware wearing gloves in the gym and want the watch to sit higher, I find that it slips and have to readjust it every 15 minutes or so. I have tried various FKM straps, but none of them seem to come close to the quality of the original one. They are rubbery, not that soft, and some not that flexible, hard to put on the watch and hard to adjust on the hand which doesn't make them as comfortable as I wished. The leather strap I tried seem to work much better, but I can't wear them in the gym because the sweat will be absorbed by the leather and they're far more expensive (and they're not bought from aliexpress or amazon). Metal also seems to work quite well, but then at my job the metal one gets in the way and I can't wear it at gym with gloves as I need to adjust it so the watch can sit higher. Silicon is not as durable, but I guess that is what I will try next, as there is not so much controversy with it as with FKM. Maybe I will make a post one day if I find a good quality and affordable strap, but at this point I think I would have been better off getting the official black one and call it a day, it's just that the price was higher than I was willing to pay for FKM, but at least I know what I would get. Given I have the green one, even though it pains me to say it, at 34$ it kind of is worth it... Only if it was like 20$, then it would have been a deal for me. # Things I don't like * The crown of the watch seems like a weak point. I was relaxing, hand under my head, against the pillow (which is quite soft) and when I wanted to use the watch I realized the crown got stuck. It took a bit of fiddling to make it spin again, and even more fiddling (pressing it at different angles) to make it smooth again. Although not visible I believe it bent. It could be just my watch, but this never happened on any of my other watches that I had. It happened multiple times, at this point I can reproduce it quite easily. The only way to deal with it seems to be to not put any sort of pressure on the crown. However, when you sleep, it is not under your control where your hand goes, so if it happens to end up under the pillow, you may find yourself having issues with the crown. I must say this disappoints be, given the build quality of the rest of the watch. * After the latest update, the watch needs to connect to wifi at least once so google wallet is functional after you restart it or when you switch from power saver to smart mode. Bluetooth connection and pretty much nothing else will make it work. It used to work without any issues before the update. Doing a factory reset fixed it. * Battery is not shown on watch when using power saver mode. I really wonder what technical limitation is there, because to me that looks like a rather basic feature to have. You can however use a watch face to see an approximation of it, or use the phone app to get an accurate reading. * Google wallet does not work in battery saver mode. Along with many other 3rd party apps. I guess the chip architecture is a problem here, but I wish at least google wallet was made to work with the low power chip. * Watch face customization doesn't work in power saver mode. You can change the face, but you can't customize it. I wish at least on the phone it would have worked to customize the face when power saver mode was active. * When opening your preferred workout app, it is detected and the OP Workouts app gets closed. Why is this a problem? When doing workouts with your preferred workout app, it does not count towards your workout goals, and the data is not framed as a workout, so if your app doesn't have tracking, you will see the data and have to discern yourself at what point you've been working out. * The Workouts app is not that great for gym, so you may want to use a 3rd party app, but that means you have to exit power saving mode. * At some point, the workout app I used did not let the screen go to sleep when I opened it from the watch. It's a shame you can't remove permissions from apps for keeping your screen on. * There are plenty of watch faces, and they are customizable to some degree, but none really cater to my specific needs, so I had to settle for something less than ideal for me. * Depending on where you buy it, you don't have the same accessories available (brown strap for example), and the strap selection is based on the color of the watch rather than what you find appealing when you buy it. You should be allowed to select what strap colors you want. I just don't like green that much and black would have been a much better fit for me for the silver bezel version. * Size, as I said, is too big and I can barely pull it off... but the smaller version is not really a smaller version, but a different watch which in my opinion doesn't look as good as it has a black screen bezel that looks out of place. * I wish they gave more strap options that are not locked in place at the lugs, from different materials as well as FKM is controversial right now. * In power saving mode you can't reply to messages * If the phone is set to silent, it does not transfer to the watch as well. You have to set those things on the watch itself. * I was hoping to see a smart wake up alarm to wake you up based on a target of slept hours or at a good time when you are supposed to feel the most rested. Given it does track sleep, I thought this would have made sense. * Only 3 years of software updates (which I guess it is the standard for smartwatches, but with that build quality it will be a shame to only get 3 years) * The lugs don't have holes for the spring bars, so some watch straps may not work # User experience Short version: * **~~No bugs or glitches so far~~** * **~~After the latest update you need to connect to wifi so google wallet starts working when you switch from power saver to smart mode, or when you turn it on. This worked flawlessly before.~~** * **Update: after a factory reset it works like normal again.** * **The crown, as I was suspecting is a weak point. If you put some pressure on it at a certain angle, it will probably bend and then it gets stuck until you bend it back the right way. The bend is not visible to the eye, so it's difficult to say it's specifically this the issue, but nonetheless, it gets stuck for example if you sleep with it on your hand under the pillow.** * **Works like any other smartwatch in smart mode** * **No 3rd party apps in power saving mode, but you still get plenty of features** * **Battery is going to be good enough to not worry about using power saving mode with moderate usage** * **Again, size is maybe the only issue I can have with it so far** My experience with it so far has been good. I know some people complain about software glitches, calling it the most glitchy thing ever and what not, but I just didn't experience any of that. It was easy to set up, things worked as expected and I encountered only one bug which I don't even know if it's the watch or the workout app that I use. The bug was that the screen would not turn off while using a 3rd party workout app and I had to exit it for the screen to turn off, but that happened only once so far. Everything else worked just fine. The software did not feel any worse than any other smart watch that I used. There have been no stutters or slow downs, no weirdness or anything that would make it a bad experience. There are some more gimmicks, like tracking your temperature (as a relative unit, not absolute) and I guess that could maybe be used to figure out if you're getting sick, or maybe if you're a woman your fertility window or your cycle, but I'm yet to figure out what it is for. You can track your cycle with it, but I know some people are against using those apps. Data privacy is a thing and you may want to figure out how that works in your country. In Europe there are laws that makes things simpler. You can also do ECG and some other health related things, but I don't really use those that much given I don't have any particular health concerns. Some people complain about charging pins on the watch, but I don't get the complaint as I encountered no issues with them. It is more a efficient way to transfer energy, reduces the heat and increases the speed of charging. So far it looks like all the reasons to use pins are there. I guess you can't charge it with your phone on the go or something like that, but that's not something I would have used in the first place, and it would have definitely been slow and very inefficient. I can't really say anything about updates. I am on the latest security patch, May 2025. I did notice Pixel (obviously) got it faster and Samsung as well (likely due to the agreement they have with google), but that's about it. They promised 3 years of updates, and if I get all the security updates during that time I'd call it a win. OS updates are not likely to bring that many new features, and even on my phone I didn't really see much of a difference for the past android updates. I think it's more important that what works continues to work, and I can understand the complexity it would come with the dual chip architecture to not expect too much in that area. UPDATE 30/09/2025 : So far I have received 2 new updates, totaling 3 updates since I have the watch. The last update created a bug where the google wallet needs to connect at least once to the wifi to function after a restart or when switching from power saver to smart mode. To make it go away I bit the bullet and did a factory reset which thankfully fixed it. I don't really care nor want Gemini on the smartwatch so I can't talk about that. For the phone, I tried the watch with Samsung, but then I switched to Pixel, but I do not have a OnePlus to try it with. Regardless, I did not have any issues. The crown can be rotated for scrolling through the watch unlike its predecessor. It would have been fancier if you could rotate the bezel like an Omnitrix and then transform into an alien... yeah... or like the samsung watch classic version... but I realized that I am using the crown more than I used the bezel on samsung, so I guess the crown feels more natural to me. And the samsung galaxy classic watch does not transform into an alien either so there's that. The only issue I actually have with it is the size, but I can still pull it off, so it's not that big of an issue for me so far. # Some things I like * You can get amazing battery life in power saving mode and still track your heart rate and oxygen levels, get notifications, have alarms, timers and quite a few other useful things... for just 5% battery drain per day... and if you really abuse it, charging is just so damn fast and it's quite likely it will make it through the day while other watches would really struggle. * I can actually customize the actions from the crown and the button and there are a few shortcuts available as well. * Build quality. It looks good, like a classical watch and I dig that because I can dress it up. The materials are good and I am expecting it to last quite some time in good condition. * If you usually keep your tilt to wake and touch to wake on the watch, at night with sleep mode I don't get woken up by it randomly turning on. * The screen brightness is really great. I never thought the "flashlight" function would have any use, but when I used it I was surprised how well it worked due to how bright the screen can get. I also never had issues with looking at it in the sun. * When I get a notification, it automatically pulls it out when I tilt the watch to see it. * The speakers are actually usable (unlike the pixel watch 1 that I had) * It can automatically detect activities like walks... It's not something I would rely on, but it is a nice to have just in case one day I will want to turn it on. * Their Workouts app works in power saving mode * The watch automatically enters power saving mode when the battery gets low, so you can technically still get 1 more day at least from it with my use case. * You can control spotify on the phone with the watch and it has a quick access when you have their Workouts app open. # Conclusions Short version: **All in all, I'm happy with it because I can pull it off on my wrist**. I wish it was smarter in power saving mode and that it had some extra features, but for what it is, it's still a pretty good watch and I don't regret buying it. Definitely better looking than the square circle nonsense samsung is pulling and has only one app for the watch on the phone. No subscription like some smart wearables out there, yet it is plenty accurate for my activities. And I don't feel like it's lacking anything in particular compared to other watches. I wish it was smaller, but even though there is a 43mm version, the design is not the same and I much prefer the 47mm version over that in other aspects as well, except for the size. If you have wide enough wrists, I would definitely consider this.

It's been heartbreaking for me too, but at the end of the day, pretty much all smartwatches have this lifecycle. It's really a shame because with that build quality I am expecting it to last much longer. I was actually looking forward to the Pixel Watch 4, but when I heard the battery will be only marginally improved I had to give it a pass. Between the Pixel Watch and the OnePlus Watch, I don't see that many differences in the day to day life and I believe Pixel Watch 4 will also come with only 3 years of software support. At the very least that's how it's been for the past generations from what I remember. I also was never much of a fan for their curved glass as it is prone to damage (my ex managed to crack it) and it's difficult to protect with screen protectors. So looking at things from that perspective, the Pixel Watch would probably barely last those 3 years from a physical point of view, not to mention the hardware is getting a bit dated at this point (the PW4 is basically the PW3 with a slightly bigger battery and bigger footprint on your hand), and after those 3 years I might want to upgrade anyway. Not to mention that in the style department the OPW3 wins, and in the battery aspect wipes the floor with most smartwatches. To me heart tracking during workouts was important, but it seems the OnePlus Watch 3 does about as good of a job as the Pixel Watch... and if I would have taken the Pixel Watch, with its curved screen, it would have likely been scratched so far by the gym gloves. After the 3 years of updates, if I remove/disable any other security risky apps (google wallet is the only one I can think of right now), it should still be usable without much of a risk. At that point, it should still work just fine for most of the things I use it for. Not ideal with the limited 3 year support, but I do like to keep my things for a long time. I guess time will tell how that plays out. All that made me go for the OnePlus Watch 3 over waiting for the Pixel Watch 4... also an offer on Amazon which put it at around 260 + accidental damage protection plan for 2 years. I feel I got a rather decent deal on it compared to a Pixel Watch 3 that is older and a bit more expensive, and also compared to a Pixel Watch 4 which will likely come out at around 300. I must say that support from google has been stellar when it comes to warranty and it surprised me. I don't expect the same from OnePlus side (or pretty much any other company I ever interacted with after the experience with google), but I never needed their support so far and hopefully it stays that way, so I can't comment on it yet.

i have the oneplus watch 3 and i like it

I went from an Amazfit balance to the oneplus watch 3. They are both brilliant watches. The reason I changed is because I wanted OS wear, and a decent battery life. I love everything about the OnePlus watch 3. 5 days of battery life, great display. Access to play store.

Thanks very much for that. It sounds like a good, objective review of the watches. I'm a (very) happy OnePlus Watch 3 user. You're right to point out the good looks of the watch. I think it looks great. I couldn't go back to constant battery anxiety, which I had with previous Wear watches.

The more I find out about PW4 the more I cherish my OnePlus Watch 3.

@gdir You guys both say 'fast charging', but what does that mean exactly? I used the OPW2 for about 2 weeks before my OPW3 came in the mail and I compared with both chargers. The 2 charger was slower by about 10-15mins on each watch. With my 3 charger the most it ever takes is just shy of an hour, about 58-59 mins, and that's from 0-100%. If there's even 5-10% already on the watch when I snap it on it'll take 40-45 mins. So with using the 2 charger, that would be 1hr-1:15hr. I know 15 mins doesn't sound like a lot, but I never have to charge more than an hour, and that's huge to me. It's the fastest charging watch with 2nd to longest battery life, while still being the most capable I've ever used. I've used Garmin, Fitbit, and this OPW3 over the last 10 years. (I'm not including Moto 360 watch from 2014, that was a failure...)

I was comparing between these two exactly... Bought the OnePlus Watch 3 first and spent about a week with it. Great watch but it is lacking behind the PW from a heart rate tracking perspective. It's a beautiful watch for sure and the battery life is *incredible* for Wear OS. Overall I prefer the OP W3 looks vs the Pixel Watch. Right now I am wearing the Pixel Watch 3 45mm as I returned the OnePlus Watch. I simply wanted the best HR tracking for a Wear OS watch and this is it - for now. The Pixel Watch also slides underneath button cuffs on a long sleeve shirt and just looks more svelte overall. I do wish the PW had a more protective body like the OP does. I can get 2 days out of the PW but you are struggling at the end of those 2 days. The OP Watch you could easily leave on a Friday and not come home until Monday or Tuesday and be totally fine on battery.

30 hours of battery life! These guys are getting WAY ahead of the competition here with this release! /s (For context, I am wearing a PW 3 45mm LTE right now and the battery life is just "fine" and never groundbreaking. The OnePlus Watch 3 that runs the same version of Wear OS can go for DAYS)

I agree about the difference in the health sensors and that was one of the reasons why I ultimately have the Pixel Watch on my wrist right now. I also wanted LTE and the OnePlus does not offer that here in the states. I did buy the OnePlus watch and tested it for about 2 weeks before I returned it back to them and so I feel like I have a pretty good idea of how that watch operates. I was using a 3rd party watch face the whole time and I had AOD always on except for the auto sleep mode. I could *easily* go from a Friday morning to almost Tuesday morning with that setup. I was wearing a Whoop strap at that time and so I changed the Continuous HR monitoring to the Automatic Mode. *** The other REALLY big difference, and I've tested this on many Android watches, is the Raise to Wake feature - no matter if you have the AOD on or off, that feature adds to the battery drain because the accelerometer is constantly watching to see if it needs to activate the screen. If you can turn it off, on any watch, you will see a marketed increase in battery life. *** I wear my PW 3 with the AOD set to On, except for during sleep, and I can get about ~2 days max. Because PW uses a proprietary cable I cannot leave for a long weekend with my watch and not have to also take its proprietary charging cable along with me. From a purely battery standpoint - I could leave for a long weekend with the OnePlus watch and not even have to think about taking it's charging cable with me. That may seem like a small thing but I really liked that a lot about that watch. And if you did somehow manage to drain the majority of the battery you could switch it to its low power mode OS and it would easily last for 5 days more which is incredible.

OP, may I make another suggestion for you to consider? (I'm wearing a Pixel Watch right now so don't come at me Pixel lovers) The battery life is indeed a concern on these watches. If you want Wear OS and are open to a suggestion - take a look at the OnePlus Watch 3 in the smaller 43mm size. It will be very similar in size to your Garmin Venu that you had. You can get about 3 days of battery very easily and if you switch to the battery saver mode can easily go for days longer. I had the larger 46mm size of this watch and loved it - battery life is so good - but ultimately I needed (wanted) LTE connectivity for my watch and so I got the Pixel Watch 3 45mm LTE version. It's a nice watch but battery life is not good compared to Garmin, etc. Anyways, my suggestion is to check out the OnePlus - it's a beautiful, full featured, Android watch!