OnePlus Watch Lite Review: A surprising amount to like

Design and screen

• One case size option
• Slimmer than the OnePlus Watch 3
• Suitable for swimming

The most striking quality of the Watch Lite is just how slender it is. At 8.9mm thick, it’s skinnier than an Apple Watch Series 11 and a few millimetres thinner than both the 43mm and 45mm versions of the OnePlus Watch 3.

You’re getting your pick of black or silver stainless steel case looks and that’s matched up with what has been a very comfortable and secure flurorubber strap to wear. That strap is removable and, thankfully, has a more favourable button mechanism, making it quick and easy to release from the case.

The main way to control the Lite is through the rotating crown button and the high-quality, 1.46-inch, 464 x 464 AMOLED touchscreen. It looks like there’s another button down the side of the case, but that’s just the electrode sensor to capture biometric data like heart rate.

The AMOLED screen is nicely responsive, and the curved 2.5D glass enhances the Lite’s overall likeable look while nicely showing off the display’s deep, rich black levels.

It’s a bright screen too, even when not cranked up to the maximum brightness setting. OnePlus says it can hit a maximum brightness of 3,000 nits. That’s the same peak brightness as the pricier Google Pixel Watch 4.

It’s always good to have a smartwatch you don’t have to whip off before washing or going for a swim. OnePlus gives the Lite the same 5ATM rating as the Watch 3, making it suitable for submersion to a depth of 50 metres. The IP68 rating means it has added protection in fresh water and can keep out dust.

Performance and software

• Runs on OxygenOS Watch 7.1 
• No payment support
• New cross OS dual connectivity

Let’s get the headline story out of the way first. The OnePlus Watch Lite does not run on Google’s Wear OS like the Watch 3. Instead, you’re getting OnePlus’ own OxygenOS operating system. Unlike the Watch 3, this smartwatch will be able to work with Android phones and iPhones.

That’s thanks to a new connectivity feature that lets you pair an Android phone and an iPhone to the Lite at the same time. At the time of testing, that functionality wasn’t live and will be delivered as an OTA update. OnePlus haven’t confirmed when that’s coming. For now, this is a smartwatch that works with the OnePlus Health app on an Android phone.

Without Wear OS, you do miss out on features like mobile payments through Google Wallet, the ability to download third-party apps or swiping through Google’s improving user interface.

What you get in its place is still a pretty clean, beginner-friendly operating system with features that I think many will be happy with. Take notifications as an example; while not actionable, they are easy to glance at and will still let you know when you need to reach for your phone to investigate further.

There’s a nice range of free watch faces, including animated ones, the music controller works with music streaming services like Spotify, and you can make calls over Bluetooth. You also have staple features like setting alarms, checking the weather and pulling through calendar appointments to make use of.

No, you don’t get a smartwatch with Wear OS, but I don’t think that necessarily gets you a bad smartwatch. Just one that tries to prioritise staple smartwatch features and make sure it can be useful to wear when you’re not tracking your workouts.

Tracking and features

• Dual-band GPS
• Over 100 sports modes
• 60-second health check

There’s a pretty sizable amount of features that the Lite offers if you’re planning to use it to track your exercise or just keep tabs on your general wellbeing.

For sports tracking, you have the ability to automatically track six different activities. That includes running, walking, swimming and indoor workouts like the elliptical.

When you’re heading outside, OnePlus includes dual-band GPS to give you the latest in GPS technology to track movements more accurately than single-band GPS setups. I found the sports tracking in general to be pretty solid for activities like runs, indoor bike rides and swims. Especially when comparing outdoor and indoor tracking to other much pricier sports watches. 

There are some nice added features here too, like the ability to follow workout programmes, once built inside the OHealth smartphone app. There are richer metrics for sports like tennis, and you can build interval-style training workouts from the watch for activities like running.

When you’re not exercising, the Lite behaves as a pretty competent activity tracker too. It can monitor sleep, heart rate, temperature and let you perform 60-second measurements of a range of different health metrics. There’s also support for features like guided breathing, and it can track menstrual cycles.

If you use metrics like heart rate data to assess how reliable the onboard optical sensors are, I found that resting heart rate and heart rate tracked during sleep typically align with other trackers I tested it against. During exercise and for some daily tracking, the Lite’s average and maximum heart rate readings didn’t always match those of a chest strap monitor and definitely felt less reliable in these scenarios.

Sleep-tracking performance was good overall compared to two other sleep trackers I wore alongside it. That included producing similar sleep durations, overall sleep scores, and recognising when I’d fallen asleep and woken up the following morning.

That sleep data is nicely presented on the watch, which isn’t always the case on a host of other smartwatches.

OnePlus offers its Mind and Body scores and trends to give you a better sense of the stresses being placed on your body. That’s done by monitoring average heart rate variability and average resting heart rate data. The colour-coded feature can then indicate whether you’re handling those stresses well or poorly and help influence the decisions you make about your day.

It’s another feature that’s nicely displayed on the watch and can help you gauge whether you’re taking good care of yourself and making time to relax on more stressful days.

Battery life

• Up to 10 days of battery life
• Up to 7 days in heavy usage
• Fast charge mode

The Watch Lite features a 339mAh capacity battery, and that does get you more battery than you would from one of OnePlus’ WearOS-packing smartwatches.

It maxes out at 10 days and is most likely to run closer to 7 days with more regular use of key features. If you decide to make use of the always-on display mode, that battery number drops to 4 days.

I’d say that this is a smartwatch that’s capable of lasting a week. That’s based on enabling and using features like viewing notifications, music controls, regular GPS use, and taking it to bed to track sleep.

If you do keep the screen on and keep the screen very bright, then you can expect the battery to noticeably drop below a week. Given that the OnePlus Watch 3 can get to 3 days in heavy use, the Lite can push about another day in the same scenario.

When you do hit 0% battery, the Lite takes 90 minutes to fully power back up again. You also have a very useful fast charge mode that can muster up a day’s use from just a 10-minute charge at your disposal.

Should you buy it?