The better variant - but not one that goes far enough
After launching two editions of the chunky Watch 2, this lighter follow-up only goes some way to covering OnePlus' bases in its smartwatch range. With the Watch 2R, there is now mercifully a OnePlus watch that's suitable for comfortable workout tracking and sleep tracking. Yet, it remains baffling that a smaller watch variation wasn't launched here, and the lack of any design personality or Wear OS tricks is beginning to show next to Samsung and Google's offerings. The battery life is still the big draw of this OnePlus generation, but we can't pretend to get too excited about this relatively barebones experience.
Pros
- Much more comfortable for exercise
- GPS and HR accuracy is solid
- Multi-day battery life
Cons
- Still too big for smaller wrists
- Feels very barebones in places
- Design could have been bolder
It’s been a busy year of smartwatch releases for OnePlus. After redemption was achieved through the February release of the Watch 2, and a roughly identical Nordic Blue Edition followed a couple of months later, there’s now a Watch 2R to consider.
On the surface, very little has been changed for this latest model. OnePlus has addressed one of our key complaints from the standard Watch 2 – the weight – but, aside from this case material switch-out, the headline features remain the same.
That means you can expect multi-day battery life, smooth-running Wear OS, and a solid build for the price. Yet, despite some high points, we can’t shake the feeling that OnePlus could have gone a bit bolder with its latest smartwatch. Here’s our full review.
Price and competition
Sitting at $229.99/ £249 / €279, the Watch 2R is a chunk cheaper than the standard Watch 2, launched at £299/$299.
It’s a price that sees it below the starting editions of the platform’s two undisputed premier options – Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 and Google’s Pixel Watch 3 – but also a huge step on from budget options like the Xiaomi Watch 2 (or last-get devices like the Galaxy Watch 6).
Really, the key competition for the Watch 2R comes from Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 5 and Pro 5 Enduro, both of which are often found hovering at the same $200-$250 mark.
Non-Wear OS watches from Garmin and Huawei are also serious options for those who don’t necessarily require smart features, which is particularly pertinent with a watch like the 2R that doesn’t offer an LTE option.
Design and display
The look and feel are the only major differences between the OnePlus Watch 2R and its sibling, the Watch 2.
After we struggled mightily with the sheer bulk of the latter, though, seeing the brand switch from stainless steel to an aluminum case for the 2R has been very welcome.
The 47.6 x 46.6 x 12.2mm dimensions mean it’s still not recommended by us for smaller wrists – it still looks far too big, as evidenced below – but it is now much more palatable for all-day wear, particularly if you value comfort in activity tracking and sleep.
Compared to the 80g (with strap) weight of the Watch 2, the Watch 2R clocks the scales at around 60g. It’s still heavy in relative terms, but it’s now within the typical range we expect from a 47mm watch – and the weight balance is also much friendlier than found with a stainless steel/rubber band combination.
As we discovered with the Google Pixel Watch 2 (which switched from steel in the first generation to an aluminum alloy for the second), the overall feel also doesn’t really suffer. This is still a stylish watch on the wrist, and, ultimately, if you want top-tier build quality, you’re better off looking at a titanium case found in a device like the Galaxy Watch Ultra.
It’s not exactly comparable in every other, either, to be clear, with something like the display’s covering glass less scratch-resistant than the 2.5D sapphire crystal present on the Watch 2. We haven’t experienced any issues with wear or tear during our couple of weeks wearing the 2R, and the non-sapphire glass is less smudgy, but it still doesn’t come recommended for any rugged activity or hard wear.
The rest are minor style points – the jutted edge of the Watch 2 has been swapped for a more traditional rounded bezel with two buttons, while the two-tone hour marker and indices section have been borrowed from the Nordic Blue Edition, as shown above.
We don’t have any strong feelings on these changes, particularly, but we would say they’re fairly emblematic of a mid-cycle update (that was probably, let’s be real, planned since way before the Watch 2 launch). As such, it also has some of the same design issues as the standard edition, such as the laborious navigation and lack of a functioning crown, despite some coincidental improvements from changing the case material.
It’s definitely our favored design of the two (three, if you count Nordic Blue), but it still baffles us that OnePlus refuses to make a smaller version of the watch. The battery life (more on that later) would suffer, to be sure, but at least 50% of the population (possibly more) would have the OnePlus Watch 2R available as an option.
Smart features and Wear OS
As with the Watch 2, the same real-time operating system (RTOS) is paired with the growing might of Google’s Wear OS platform. It’s a shame we don’t see the latest version of the software – Wear OS 5 – on board, but, given Google and Samsung are the only brands ever running the most up-to-date version, this also isn’t a surprise.
Aside from the obvious benefits of security updates and longer support, we’ve also highlighted in many recent Wear OS watch reviews that the differences in the last few versions are imperceptible. So, it’s not like you’re missing out on any killer features from this.
As expected, the dual-chip design of the Watch 2R’s internals proves speedy and smooth for all your classic power-intensive smart tasks – music streaming and following map instructions – while lesser functions such as notifications and the AOD are super efficient. No matter which chip is handling which task, there is still a toll from running any of these features particularly hard, but we’ll save that analysis in the battery section below.
If we have a criticism of the 2R’s smart features, it’s the lack of personality. After some initial time exploring the nooks and crannies, we didn’t feel especially interested in navigating the menus or interacting with different elements.
Coming straight off testing the latest version of Samsung’s Wear OS skin – One UI 6 Watch – the difference is stark. There are no fun tricks integrated to help you get around the watch integrated, Tiles widgets are minimal, and watch faces (though stylish enough) aren’t very customizable.
When you consider that LTE isn’t an option, it remains a smart experience that’s a good rung below what you get from Samsung and Google. And that’s also true of OHealth, the 2R’s companion app. In the gap between its two smartwatch launches, OnePlus has upgraded it slightly to include more customizable workout modes and more depth in sleep tracking and some health metrics.
Like last time, though, it isn’t a super compelling companion app. This matters less when you have a screen to back it up, of course, but you just get your standard tracked metrics and not much else – again, ensuring that we only ever jumped in to double-check workout details.
You can’t argue with the basic integrations here, though.
Google Assistant works cleanly with the built-in speaker, there are tons of second-screen apps like Komoot and Spotify that link well with Android.
Activity tracking
As is quickly becoming the standard in smartwatches, dual-frequency GNSS appears in the Watch 2R – and it’s probably the most impressive performance we’ve seen at this price point. While Xiaomi’s smartwatches do offer the feature for less, the application hasn’t proved any more accurate than what we would expect from standard GPS. The 2R, by comparison, was always tracking within around 25-30 meters of our Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) over 10-mile distances.
Interestingly, we’ve also found the heart rate slightly more reliable than on the Watch 2. While its sibling struggled – particularly in the swimming pool – to decipher higher heart rate readings during different intervals, the Watch 2R has proven capable of keeping within the same rough range as our Whoop 4.0 and Garmin during gym sessions, cycling, and swims.
It still underreports by around 1-3bpm, as a rough average over a session, but the maximum heart rate readings were all pretty much bang in line. This is demonstrated in our swim session below, where the Watch 2R stuck to the very reliable Form Smart Swim 2 goggles.
Really, then, the key thing you miss out on compared to a more serious activity tracker is in the wider feedback. There are now some run-focused insights (like ground contact time and vertical oscillation), and the 2R will also attempt to detect your swimming stroke (with pretty rough accuracy) and SWOLF, but no kind of readiness assessments, training load breakdowns, areas of focus, or coaching here.
So, while enough to get a good insight into your distance and heart rate – with the odd neat metric to flesh out the post-workout feedback – this isn’t a comparable experience to a premier smartwatch (like the Apple Watch Ultra 2) or a dedicated sports watch.
Health tracking
Like with its smart features, the health tracking experience on the 2R sits below that of Samsung and Google in the breadth of features.
There’s no room for unique insights, like Samsung’s AGEs index and body composition data, or Google’s cEDA-enabled stress tracking, while mainstays like ECG, temperature sensing, and fall detection are also lacking.
As we said in our Watch 2 review, we’re not opposed to OnePlus skipping over those latter mentions – we would rather have no implementation, mostly, than a half-baked implementation.
But when there’s nothing else for users to focus on – just the standard high/low notifications, resting heart rate (RHR), and blood oxygen analysis – it becomes limited as a health smartwatch.
For the price, we think there should be a little more here – a simple dashboard or daily report collecting the most pertinent insights would do – but, still, the stuff present does at least seem in line with our baselines from Oura, Whoop, and Garmin.
Blood oxygen data (once you turn it on) never had any tell-tale dips below 95%, the 0-100 stress tracking was loosely aligned with Garmin’s similar system, and RHR info was bang on.
Again, we wish there was more depth and breadth here; there’s not much difference between the health tracking on this and a $50 fitness tracker.
Sleep tracking
Things are a bit better in the sleep tracking department, with elements like sleep scores offering a bit more detail and context to fill things out.
The 2R also proved very good at understanding when we fell asleep and woke up – even when we spent 15-20 minutes in bed meditating before turning the lights out to sleep or sticking around too long on our phones after waking up in the morning.
Unlike health, there’s just a bit more going on here, too, with the 2R working in the background to spot snoring, external noise in your environment (ambulance sirens or dogs barking, say), and vitals like respiratory rate. Like with workout tracking, it means you have a good base from which to trust the rest of the data.
Our gripe, though, is that none of it is that compelling in the long term. You’ll get an Apple Health-style view of your daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly stats – but this sleep data sits isolated to the rest of what’s tracked. And with many major watch brands now moving to a more holistic, all-encompassing view of tracked data, it means even something mostly good like sleep detection falls flat after a while.
It does the job if you want an insight into sleep hours. But, again, you’re not getting much more here than what’s achieved handily by some of the industry’s most basic trackers.
Battery life and charging
While the tracking experience doesn’t set our hearts on fire, it’s difficult to argue with the efficiency of OnePlus’ 2024 smartwatches.
It remains one of the few Wear OS watches capable of a two-day battery life when running the always-on display, extending to four full days once you turn it off.
Unlike what we’ve found with some batteries over the last year or so, the drain is also pretty consistent, meaning you can forecast when it will need a stay on the charging puck.
As with any other watch, hammering the GPS, streaming music, or enabling blood oxygen sensing will see that estimation drop by a decent chunk. Yet, we didn’t get caught out by the 2R as we often do with devices like the Galaxy Watch 7 or Pixel Watch.
That’s also partly because of the rapid charging, with 10-15 minutes off your wrist providing a good 30% or so – enough for another day of use (if you turn the AOD off).
For transparency, we should say that we still don’t find the 100-hour battery life here quite as impressive as what Mobvoi has managed with the TicWatch Pro 5’s dual-display, which achieves the same results with a novel always-on screen.
But, again, you can’t complain too much about what OnePlus has achieved – especially when Google’s third-gen watches are still only just scraping above 24 hours in most use cases.
