OnePlus has revealed more information on its upcoming OnePlus Watch Lite wearable, ahead of its full launch on December 17.
The OnePlus Watch Lite is not going to be a wholesale downgrade from the Watch 3 series in every respect too.
For one, it has a 316L-grade stainless steel shell, and will sit somewhere between the 46mm and 43mm Watch 3 in size — its 1.46-inch screen is smaller than the 1.5-inch one of the 46mm Watch 3, but larger than the 1.32-inch screen of the 43mm variant.
This AMOLED screen can reach 3,000-nit brightness in high-brightness environments, while OnePlus says it will hit a solid 600 nits at other times.
The watch’s design is also much closer to that of the smaller Watch 3, lacking the more built-up bezel of the larger existing version.
On the OnePlus Watch Lite’s rear, which is yet to be shown, sits an “8-channel” heart rate monitor and “16-channel” blood oxygen sensor. That matches the OnePlus Watch 3 series. But there’s no mention of an ECG feature, which is no great surprise as ECG is also missing from the 43mm OnePlus Watch 3.
So where’s the separation between the Lite series and the full-blown OnePlus Watch 3? Battery life reveals what’s going on here.
OnePlus says the Watch Lite will last “up to 10 days of typical use” between charges, which is radically different to the “up to 60 hours” of the 43mm Watch 3.
This effectively confirms the OnePlus Watch Lite does not use Wear OS, but instead a more stripped-back style of software that makes the Lite more of a fitness tracker than a smartwatch. And that is consistent with what OnePlus currently highlights about the watch.
It says the Watch Lite can work out your VO2 Max and Lactate Threshold, and has “more than 100” sports and activity tracking modes.
The OnePlus Watch Lite also has dual-band GPS, which is missing in the 43mm Watch 3.
One big remaining question about the Watch Lite is what the software interface will be like.
OnePlus’s first Wear OS watch was the Watch 2 from 2024. The company’s first watch, the OnePlus Watch from 2021, used a custom interface. But at its release it had so many problems I had to describe it as “broken.” Hopefully the OnePlus Watch Lite arrive without those issues, all these years on.
