Mid-range smartwatch has impressive features – but no clarity over Wear OS 3.0
The Ticwatch E3 has launched after weeks of rumors – and is a major addition to the Wear OS smartwatch market.
The Ticwatch E3 is only the second smartwatch to run the Snapdragon Wear 4100 chip (after the Ticwatch Pro 3) making it a top performer, and with a host of fitness and wellness features.
And it brings the power of the Snapdragon 4100 to a mid-range price point. It costs – which is a competitive price tag for Wear OS and undercuts the likes of the Huawei Watch 3 and Oppo Watch.
However, we have no clarity over the status of Wear OS 3.0, which yet agains overshadows the launch of a Wear OS device.
Here’s everything you need to know.
TicWatch 3: specs and features
- Wear OS
- Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 410
- RAM: 1GB / ROM: 8GB
- SpO2, Accelerometer, Gyro Sensor, HD PPG Heart Rate Sensor,Low Latency Off-Body Sensor
- GPS
- NFC
- 44mm x 47mm x12.6mm
- 1.3-inch 360×360
- IP68 Water and Dust Resistance
- 380mAh
There are three strap colors available: yellow, blue and black.
At 12.6mm it’s not the slimmest, but it’s not going to trouble more slender wrists at 44mm and at 36g (without the strap) it’s not too bulky.
The screen is a middle-of-the-road 360×360 1.3-inch display with a 2.5D lens which won’t be winning any awards, but should do the job.
On board is GPS (with GLONASS and Beidou support) which powers the TicExercise app and its 20 workout modes.
There’s no news on battery life, which is disappointing. A big part of both Snapdragon 4100 and the new Wear OS is battery life and there’s a beefy 380mAH battery inside the Ticwatch E3 – so we’re hoping for more than single day. The dearth of information does seem suspicious, however.
But there’s a bigger focus on health, with an ever-expanding list of Tic-branded apps that live on top of the Wear OS operating system, adding loads of features that make it ones of the richest Google-powered smartwatch ecosystems.
The proprietary apps cover everything from blood oxygen (TicOxygen), heart rate tracking (TicPulse) and sleep (TicSleep) – but now there’s TicZen and TicBreathe, offering stress tracking via monitoring of heart rate variability (HRV) and guided breathing features on the E3.
And there’s the all-new TicCare. This provides information and health monitoring for other Ticwatch wearers in your home. It seems to be a play for those with elderly relatives or those that need extra support, although specifics are scant and it doesn’t seem to be a feature with mainstream appeal.
There’s also NFC for wrist-based contactless payments – so Google Pay is on the cards.
However, we don’t have any clue about whether this device will get the new version of Wear OS. To be quite frank, the situation from Google is a bit annoying – and we’d hesitate to recommend buying any Wear OS device before we have clarity on upgrades.
Fossil has said it won’t be updating older devices, and Mobvoi has rolled back on positive statements about updating older devices.
We need clarity – but on paper the TicWatch E3 looks like a great affordable device to take into the next generation of Wear OS.
