The OnePlus Nord Watch is the corporate’s second smartwatch and the primary to be branded below the inexpensive Nord line. A rebranded model of one other Chinese smartwatch — the Haylou RS4 Plus — the Nord Watch is supposed to be an entry-level product for the Indian market, coming in at simply INR 4,999.
Visually, the Nord Watch is sort of equivalent to the RS4 Plus, save for a special ‘crown’ and strap design. The design appears to be impressed by the Apple Watch, which is not unusual for entry-level Chinese smartwatches.
The watch case is made out of zinc alloy however the again is plastic. The show glass is scratch-resistant and has gently curved edges. The straps are hooked up to the protruding lugs with easy-to-remove sliding spring bars. The watch bands look just like these on the dearer OnePlus Watch however with a conventional buckle design. The watch is available in two colours, Deep Blue and Midnight Black (pictured right here).
The design of the Nord Watch is reasonably pedestrian. While it is not essentially unhealthy, it’s wholly unremarkable and boring to take a look at, particularly in black.
The show on the watch is a 1.78-inch, 368×448 decision AMOLED panel with a 60Hz refresh price. It’s a handsome display with adequate decision and ample brightness outside. However, the show lacks automated brightness adjustment, so you’ll have to do it manually. You can also’t simply place your palm on the display to show it off as you’ll be able to on most different wearables and as a substitute have to attend for it to show off by itself.
Another lacking function is an always-on show, no less than the kind you usually discover on different units. The watch enables you to preserve the show on for so long as half-hour, although. This will not be the identical low-power model you discover on different units however reasonably simply the conventional watch face being on at no matter brightness you set. It considerably achieves the aim however in an extremely clumsy means.
This might be a great time to delve into the software program. On the watch itself, the gadget is working one thing known as RTOS. It’s the identical type of glorified health gadget UI we discover on different funds ‘smartwatches’ however with some heavy watchOS inspiration. Regardless, it’s simple sufficient to navigate and the watch has good UI efficiency.
Since that is rebranded Haylou watch, the companion cellphone app can be a rebranded Haylou app known as N Health. This could be irritating for current OnePlus wearable customers because the OnePlus Health app used for the OnePlus Watch and OnePlus Band can’t be used for the Nord Watch. The N Health app additionally forces you to create an account, which, so far as I can inform, has no purpose to. The setup course of can be irritating with a dozen completely different permissions that it’s worthwhile to allow earlier than the app is usable.
N Health app
Once setup the app is straightforward sufficient to make use of. There are additionally a great variety of the standard health options, together with coronary heart price, sleep, SpO2, and steps monitoring, though the SpO2 monitoring solely works robotically once you sleep and never all through the day. There’s additionally an choice to trace ladies’s well being, one thing that was lacking on the opposite OnePlus wearables.
The app additionally comes with a ton of watch faces, a few of that are additionally animated. There is an efficient little bit of selection right here and extra are added by means of updates however there is no technique to customise any a part of a watch face.
All of the inspirations and idiosyncrasies would have been tolerable if the software program no less than labored nicely however the Nord Watch has been extraordinarily buggy throughout testing. Aside from the elevate to wake function not working, the center price sensor additionally stopped working at one level and the answer for each was to reset and re-setup the watch. In the early days of testing, the map view within the Exercise part of the N Health app was additionally damaged. The exercise detection additionally by no means appeared to detect something.
But by far the worst problem was that the Nord Watch wouldn’t monitor time appropriately, one thing you’d assume a factor with watch in its identify could be able to. It was constantly half-hour behind the present time and regardless of how a lot the time was modified from the paired cellphone (as a result of there isn’t a technique to change the time on the watch itself or by means of its app), the time distinction was maintained.
Fortunately, I received a second evaluate unit, which did not have this problem and the primary watch was finally fastened with a software program replace. Still, the primary time I skilled it, it actually threw me off as a result of I assumed I used to be by some means dropping monitor of time.
The watch even has {hardware} points. You can see within the video above that urgent the crown typically does nothing because the button is seemingly damaged on one of many watches. The watch additionally initially had hassle re-pairing with the cellphone if one among them went out of vary. Eventually, it simply stopped pairing with the cellphone completely, and the app would simply present an error that said ‘The community connection is irregular, please verify and check out once more.’
After some time, I misplaced all curiosity in testing the product. I’m unsure of how correct the health options are since apparently, you’ll be able to’t even depend on this watch to point out the time appropriately. And whereas the battery life appeared fairly good, it would not matter how lengthy it lasts when it typically would not appear to work very nicely. I even have two of them however they each take turns to mess up and at no level is both working appropriately.
In the top, the Nord Watch is a robust rebuttal to the adage “There are no bad products, only bad prices.” Some merchandise are unhealthy no matter their value, and the Nord Watch is one among them.