OnePlus, the Chinese smartphone maker known for its flagship killers, is gearing up to launch its second smartwatch, the OnePlus Watch 2, which will run on Google’s Wear OS platform. The company has not officially announced the device yet, but it has been extensively leaked online, revealing its design, features, and specifications.
To generate some hype for the upcoming product, OnePlus has posted a teaser image on its community forum, showing a silhouette of the watch with a catchy tagline: “It’s time to do it right!” The company also invites its fans to participate in a contest where they have to guess the name of the product with a “wrong answer” and stand a chance to win a free OnePlus Watch 2. The contest is open until February 26, and only one lucky winner will be chosen by an “internal vote.”.
The teaser image and the tagline suggest that OnePlus is trying to make amends for its first smartwatch, the OnePlus Watch, which was widely criticized for its poor software and limited functionality. The OnePlus Watch, which was launched in 2021, used a custom RTOS (real-time operating system) instead of Wear OS and lacked support for third-party apps, watch faces, and notifications. It also failed to deliver on many of the promises made by the company, such as seamless integration with OnePlus devices, advanced health and fitness tracking, and smart features.
The OnePlus Watch 2, on the other hand, is expected to run on Wear OS, which would offer a much better user experience and compatibility with Android devices. It would also enable access to a plethora of apps, watch faces, and services from the Google Play Store, as well as Google Assistant, Google Pay, and Google Fit. According to the latest news, the OnePlus Watch 2 will feature a 1.43-inch AMOLED display and a Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 chipset, which is designed specifically for smartwatches. It will also have a circular design with a unique bump on one side, where two physical buttons are located. This could be a rotating crown or a touch-sensitive area, as seen in some of the leaked renders.
The OnePlus Watch 2 is likely to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, which is scheduled to take place from February 28 to March 2. The company has confirmed that the contest is open to “all users from India, North America, and Europe,” which implies that the smartwatch will be available in these regions. The pricing and availability details are still unknown, but it is speculated that the OnePlus Watch 2 will cost more than the original OnePlus Watch, which was priced at $159. The trade-off, however, could be a lower battery life, as Wear OS is known to be more power-hungry than RTOS. Nevertheless, the OnePlus Watch 2 could be a worthy contender in the smartwatch market, offering a combination of style, performance, and versatility.