Original sketches of the unnamed OnePlus smartwatch scrapped in 2016
OnePlus doesn’t typically like to rush products, designs, and features out the door just to follow trends and compete in every possible market around the world and little segment of the tech industry, instead taking as much time as it needs to refine things like wireless charging, water resistance, and true wireless earbuds before deeming them useful for the masses and ready for primetime.
The same could be said about mid-range handsets, long considered a waste of resources by the otherwise incredibly ambitious company before the
5G-enabled Nord entered the picture, as well as smartwatches.
You may not remember this now, but OnePlus planned to
take a crack at wearable devices roughly half a decade ago, ultimately deciding not to bring into production
an elegant circular smartwatch whose design was pretty much completed. The 2013-founded outfit felt it was important at that point in time to remain focused on high-end smartphones with extremely competitive price tags, which is obviously no longer the case. Hence, it shouldn’t come as a shock that OnePlus Watch rumors are back with a bang once again.
We have a name but not much else
Unfortunately, said regulatory document is devoid of any other information on this possibly impending smartwatch, so we’re left wondering, for instance, if
OnePlus is still planning to go the circular design route or if the company may now be ready to adopt a square shape more akin to the aforementioned
industry-leading Apple Watch family.
We also have no idea what price point OnePlus is targeting after recent smartphone entries in both the high-end and mid-range sectors, but if we were to take a (wild) guess, we’d anticipate a debut alongside the
8T handset in the premium category sometime this fall.
Another Apple Watch copycat with Wear OS?
Coincidentally (or not), this OnePlus Watch name sighting has taken place on the heels of
Oppo’s headline-grabbing smartwatch debut. Of course, the first-gen Oppo Watch caught our attention primarily with its Apple Watch-inspired design, which seems like a plausible path for the OnePlus Watch to follow too.
For those who are unaware of the close ties between the two companies, we should highlight it’s by no means a coincidence that their products often look so much alike. That’s because a Chinese giant called BBK Electronics actually owns both brands, as well as a number of others, including Vivo and Realme.
Interestingly, a former OnePlus employee also told
TechRadar the company has “actively been looking into a smartwatch for the last year”, which brings back memories of gossip from shortly after the 7T smartphone announcement of last fall. Sadly,
that early OnePlus Watch rumor was even lighter on specifics than this new one, although everyone assumed Wear OS would be the software platform of choice right off the bat.
Google’s inability over the years to turn the operating system into a viable alternative for Apple’s watchOS or even Samsung’s Tizen might be the main reason why OnePlus has spent so much time prepping its smartwatch debut. Of course, there’s no such thing as perfect timing when looking to take on a supremely successful product like the Apple Watch, but with a
relatively important software update and
a new processor right around the corner, this is definitely not the worst moment to join the struggling Wear OS movement.
