INTRODUCTION AND PRICE

OnePlus Nord Watch, the second smartwatch from the company, is also the first to be branded in the Nord line. The Nord Watch, which retails for INR 4,999, is intended to be an entry-level product in India.

ONEPLUS NORD WATCH BODY AND DESIGN

The case is made of zinc alloy, but the back is made from plastic. The display glass is scratch resistant and has gently curving edges. The straps attach to the protruding edges of the lugs using easy-to-remove sliding spring bar attachments. The traditional buckle design gives the watch bands a look similar to the OnePlus Watch. You can choose from two colors: Midnight Black or Deep Blue. The Nord Watch’s design is relatively pedestrian. It isn’t bad, but it is boring to look at in black.

ONEPLUS NORD WATCH DISPLAY

The watch’s display is a 1.78-inch, 368×448 resolution AMOLED panel at a 60Hz refresh rate. The screen is attractive and has adequate brightness outside. The display does not have an automatic brightness adjustment, so you’ll need to adjust it manually. It is impossible to place your hand on the screen to turn it off, as you can with other wearables. Instead, you will have to wait for it to turn off.

A display that is always on is another feature missing from the watch. This is the same level as what you find on other devices. You can keep the watch on for up to 30 minutes. This is not the low-power version that you will find on other devices. Instead, the watch faces will remain on at any brightness setting. Although it does the job, it is prolonged.

SOFTWARE

This is a great time to explore the software. The watch runs RTOS on the device. It is a glorified fitness device interface we see on other budget smartwatches, but it has some inspiration for watchOS. It is simple enough to use, and the watch performs well in terms of UI performance.

FEATURES

One plus Nord watches have a health app. N Health app is the app’s title. N Health app requires you to create an account. It is frustrating to set up the app, as you must enable a dozen permissions before it can be used.

The app is simple to use once it is set up. The app has fitness features such as heart rate, SpO2, sleep, and step tracking. However, the SpO2 tracking is only available when you are asleep and not during the day. The OnePlus watch also has the option to monitor women’s health. This feature was not available on other OnePlus watches.

There are a lot of watch faces available, some animated. There are many choices here, and new ones are constantly added. However, there is no way to modify any part of a watch face.

SOME ISSUE

If the software worked, all of these quirks and inspirations would have been acceptable. Apart from the raise-to-wake feature not working, the heart rate sensor also stopped working. The solution was to reset the watch and reset it up. The map view in the Exercise section of the N Health app also failed. Also, the workout detection didn’t detect any activity.

The Nord Watch was unable to track time accurately, which is something that you would expect from a watch with its name. The watch was always 30 minutes behind the current hour, and it didn’t matter how often the paired smartphone changed the time (because there was no way to change its time on the watch or in its app). The time difference was still maintained.

A software update finally fixed the issue with the watch.

Even the watch has hardware problems. As you can see, pressing the crown does not always work, as the button appears broken on one watch. If one of the watches were out of range, the watch would not re-paint with its phone. Eventually, it stopped pairing with the phone, and the app would show an error message that said, “The network connection was abnormal. Please check and try again.”