Prabhu RamUntil now, the smartwatch as a conduit to connected health and fitness was a close battle between two early innovators – Apple and Samsung. Early technology adopters, and brand loyalists of the two brands, enthusiastically embraced their smartwatch offerings. The WearOS-enabled Android smartwatch landscape has been seeking a champion smartwatch brand for some time now. In OPPO’s new smart watch debut, it has found one. The OPPO Watch is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 and WearOS by Google.
Big and Bold Design Aesthetics
The OPPO watch brings forth a bold play with a 1.91-inch display of a 402 x 476 resolution. This is a step forward from what’s currently available from pioneering smartwatch incumbents – bigger screen, gorgeous and responsive AMOLED display, higher resolution, among others. True that it reminds you of the Apple Watch, but the design and the user experience take it a notch ahead.
The rectangular screen shape is reasonably big, and provides generous screen estate for reading text, and relishing those lovely watch faces, such as my personal favorite, the Blossom. What makes the OPPO Watch interesting is that the colors look gorgeous, and the touch interface is pretty smooth. It comes with two side buttons: a back button and a power button.
It is fairly simple and smooth to navigate the OPPO Watch. Moreover, one can customize the watch with their preferred style. The OPPO Watch comes with multiple watch faces, to suit one’s personal moods and style.
High on Health and Wellness
There is a Daily Activity app that provides us with number of steps taken, workout time, calories burnt, and activity sessions. The five-minute workout app keeps one moving, with suggestions for workouts such as Morning Energizer or Bedtime Stretches. Every hour, it reminds one to get up, move along, and suggests a handful of stretches for us to choose from. The integrated speaker counts through each exercise, thankfully eliminating the need to reach for the smartphone.
This nifty workout feature on OPPO Watch is interesting. More so, because Apple has gone ahead and introduced a similar feature with its new Fitness+ subscription feature with the Apple Watch Series 6. The Apple Fitness+ lets one work out anywhere with world-class video workouts from top fitness trainers. Apple Watch users, whether it be beginners or fitness enthusiasts, can avail a first-of-its-kind personalized studio-style workout experience delivered by inspiring world-class trainers and underscored by motivating music from renowned artists, making it easier and more rewarding for customers to exercise, whenever and wherever they like.
All of this to say that OPPO has got all the fitness essentials right with its debut. It should now focus on lean deeper into the services model, build on its niche fitness videos, and eventually, offer fitness subscription services to its users on-demand. Healthtech will remain strongly in-demand for consumers in a homebound economy, and brands that cater to it, would win big.
There are five dedicated work-out modes, beyond the five-minute routine. These include fitness run, fat burn run, outdoor walk, outdoor cycling and swimming. They all rely on the heart rate sensor and pedometer to record user workouts.
Lastly, OPPO Watch comes with a heart rate monitor on the back. It can be left either always on or, used sparingly when required to conserve battery life. OPPO Watch works with Google Fit app, as well as OPPO’s own Hey Tap Health app.
I must add that the step tracking is fairly accurate. In addition, sleep tracking is fairly accurate. That said, it is not comfortable to wear while sleeping.
VOOC keeps the juice going
With the OPPO watch, one can easily get upto 24 hours of battery juice. That said, it depends on consumer personas – fitness enthusiasts versus laggards, and how they use the smartwatch. Interestingly, OPPO has provided some battery profiles that enable one to get more juice at the expense of some functionalities. Charging time on the OPPO smartwatch is decent, thanks to VOOC charging, and it replenishes swiftly in just around an hour. The VOOC charging leverages tiny contacts on the underside of the watch and the proprietary charger to fuel the watch.
In Closing
The OPPO Watch streamlines and leverages WearOS to be the best-looking Android smartwatch out there. What makes a smartwatch great is good hardware and smooth software coming together. With a gorgeous display, decent battery life, swift charging, good performance, and good pricing, this smartwatch is the one to buy.
The opportunity is there for OPPO to build on the health feature. Yes, the ECG feature is good. But, what would make it interesting is a compelling value proposition that makes the OPPO Watch, a must-have for its users. This could be potentially through value-added subscription services that provide personalized training from fitness divas (think Bipasha Basu and Shilpa Shetty), as well as Rujuta Diwekar for some diet recommendations.
All said, a smartwatch is a reflection of one’s personal tastes. For Android users out there, it’s an opportune time to sit and take note. For tech enthusiasts, the OPPO Watch is a good buy. For the fashion-conscious consumers, the key question is where they love round smartwatches or square display ones. If it is the latter, they cannot go wrong with the OPPO Watch.
