OnePlus Watch 2: 5 things to know

OnePlus is no stranger to the smartwatch world. Back in May 2021, among the easing of lockdown restrictions where everyone just wanted to get out and about, its first watch was released.

It was a pared-back affair, something that looked brilliant on the wrist but lacked some key features. It used its own OS for a start, which restricted the amount of apps you could use through the device.

On the flipside, the battery life on the watch was week-long which is utterly impressive.

The dream, then, would be for OnePlus to somehow combine the functionality we all crave on a smartwatch, via WatchOS, while managing to keep the battery life longevity.

Enter the OnePlus Watch 2: here are 5 things to know...

1. It's got seriously good looks

Desirable and durable is the order of the day for the new OnePlus Watch 2. It's a desirable looking wearable, thanks to two lovely colourways: Black Steel and Radiant Steel.

The durability comes in, thanks to the 2.5D sapphire crystal face and stainless-steel chassis, which has been textured thanks to being both brushed and polished.

OnePlus reckons having the thing made out of stainless steel makes it stronger than aluminium which should prevent any nasty cracks and the like if it is dropped.

In my tests, it's certainly a premium-looking smartwatch. The chassis has a thickness to it that gives it a little bit of heft but it isn't heavy on the wrist, weighing just 80g with the strap.

2. It's built for extremes

To go alongside the durable materials used, OnePlus has also made the OnePlus Watch 2 both up to 5ATM (up to 50 metres for 10 mins) and IP68 standards (water resistant up to1.5 metres for up to 30 minutes in fresh water). It's also US Military standard so there is certainly a lot of resilience in this new smartwatch.

Did this mean that I was happy to knock the thing about when testing it? Well, no. I still made sure that I didn't scrape it across any rough materials or that it wasn't repeatedly dropped on the hard gym floor.

But I wasn't too worried when I strapped it on and used it for sports...

3. The OnePlus Watch 2 loves more sports more than you do...

In total there are some 100 sports that the new OnePlus Watch 2 tracks. These include: running, walking, cycling, swimming, rowing machine workouts, and elliptical machine workouts (which is good for this reviewer, given most of their gym time is on the cross trainer).

It doesn't take long for the OnePlus Watch 2 to recognise which sport you are taking part in and if you are particularly partial to badminton, then you will be given some recommendations on improving your game.

You'll get stats on how long your rallies were and the number of swings you took. When it comes to tennis, things like type of shot played are also analysed.

These are also available for those using the watch to track their runs.

On running, the watch uses its GPS functionality as well as tracking the following: vertical amplitude, ground contact time and balance, maximal oxygen consumption, and stride length. This is said to help with accuracy of tracking, while also offering some useful feedback.

You can also track skiing through the watch (total skiing distance, ski time, maximum speed, average speed, vertical distance, maximum slope, and maximum altitude are all looked at).

4. All's well with the OnePlus Watch 2

Sport and fitness tracking is obviously a huge part of the functionality of the OnePlus Watch 2 but it's only one side of the wellness coin.

As well as fitness tracking, the OnePlus Watch 2 also has sleep tracking. This doesn't just measure the amount of sleep - or lack of sleep - that you get in a given night but the different levels of sleep (deep sleep, light sleep, REM, awake) and also your breathing rate, if you were snoring your head off the night before (your significant other will probably let you know about this, too) and measure sleep blood oxygen levels.

All of this data is available in the OHealth app. To get the snoring and breathing results, you need to tell the app to monitor this data. You also get a daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly view of your sleep patterns.

Alongside this, there is a stress monitor that will let you know when in the day your stress levels are at the highest, with the hope that you can do something about this.

5. OnePlus goes big on Battery

With all this additional data, using Wear OS and the powerful chips inside the new OnePlus Watch 2 - there are two chips inside running the thing, one dedicated to WearOS - OnePlus was never going to get close to the battery levels of its previous watch but this thing can run to 100 hours on a single charge, which is utterly impressive in the world of smartwatches.

There's also a Power Saver Mode which means you can go up to 12 days without charging the thing, although there are limits as to what you can do with the device when this mode is in operation.

Interestingly, though, essential functions such as sleep and heartrate tracking, fitness tracking modes are available through Power Saver Mode.

The OnePlus Watch 2 is available from 4 March with pre-orders starting now. Price starts at £299 / €329/ $299.