After years of its loyal community for smartwatches, OnePlus has finally delivered with its $ 159 OnePlus Watch. We have a full review of the new product in the works, but the many days I've spent so far with the OnePlus Watch have been a major deadlock in the software; that is not good.
OnePlus Watch software is a glaring Wear OS clone
They say that imitation is the
most honest form of flattery, and from its look, OnePlus really likes what
Google has done with Wear OS.
The software that ships on the
OnePlus Watch is about as close as you can get to a 1-to-1 clone of Google’s
platform. That starts with the navigation. From the watchface, a swipe down
reveals the quick settings menu, looking nearly identical to its Wear OS
counterpart, albeit with some different functions. A swipe from the watchface
shows your notifications, which again, look similar to how they do on Google's
platform. To the right of the watchface, you have "cards" for options
like workouts, weather, music, and more.
The similarities continue from
there. When switching watchfaces or adding "cards", the design is
similar to the same function on Wear OS. The app drawer also looks similar and
rotates in the same way. The only thing OnePlus doesn't have is the leftmost
screen, a Google Assistant page on Wear OS.
This is remarkably unfinished and unpolished
OnePlus makes its software a
matter of pride, which is why I was just shocked at the major flaws with the
Watch. Here are some examples so far.
The first defect appears during setup. Pairing is remarkably quick, but the OnePlus health app is a mess. During setup, you are asked to insert in your gender and birthday, but icons for gender are unnecessarily confusing. However compared to the rest it is modest. I had to install a system update on my watch after unboxing it, and during that process, the watch switched from English to Chinese. It was confusing!
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