ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Moto Watch is at the moment on sale for $150.
- It is a sturdy, comfy health tracker with almost 100 exercise modes and long-lasting battery life.
- Its lack of third-party app help and primary function set could depart energy customers wanting extra.
extra shopping for selections
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Final yr, Motorola re-entered the smartwatch market after an extended hiatus with the Moto Watch Match. I did not get an opportunity to assessment it personally, however the general response from critics and customers on-line was largely constructive. For 2026, the corporate adopted up with a brand-new wearable merely referred to as the Moto Watch.
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I’ve spent the previous few weeks testing it, and I genuinely loved my time with the smartwatch. It nails the fundamentals down and could be very straightforward to make use of. Nonetheless, as a lot enjoyable as I had, I could not shake off the larger query: Is that this sufficient to place Motorola on the prime of the smartwatch market? To be completely sincere, I do not know. The Moto Watch is a stable wearable, however sure limitations could depart customers a bit upset.
Consolation meets sturdiness
The design is one in every of my favourite elements. The Moto Watch has a round chassis with barely thick bezels across the glass. These thrives jogged my memory a variety of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 8, though Motorola’s watch is bigger, measuring 47 x 47 x 12mm (1.8 x 1.8 x 0.4 inches) and weighing 40 grams. For comparability, the Galaxy Watch 8 measures 42.7 x 40.4 x 8.6mm and weighs 30 grams.
At a look, that additional heft feels like it might make the Moto Watch cumbersome, but it surely actually does not. It is really fairly comfy to put on. I used to be in a position to jog, raise weights, and even sleep with out feeling inconvenienced.
The Moto Watch homes a vibrant 1.43-inch OLED display screen protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 to forestall scratches from ruining the colourful show. Setup is tremendous easy; all you need to do is obtain the Moto Watch app in your telephone, pair it to your cellular gadget, and comply with the guided directions. Inside minutes, you are up and operating.
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Sturdiness is one other sturdy level, because the Moto Watch carries an IP68 resistance ranking. This implies it is absolutely protected in opposition to mud, can deal with temporary freshwater submersion as much as one meter, and may stand up to splashes. You may nonetheless wish to take it off earlier than swimming or showering. Nonetheless, based on Motorola, extended publicity to water can degrade resistance.
Navigating the Moto Watch is fairly intuitive. Swiping down from the highest opens the Fast Settings panel, whereas swiping up launches notifications. A left or proper swipe cycles by widgets such because the pedometer and the climate forecast.
The crown on the higher proper facet brings up the complete drawer, offering fast entry to Exercise Modes, the telephone dialer, a distant shutter to your smartphone’s digital camera, and different apps. Under that may be a customizable button that immediately launches options it is tied to. By default, it opens the Exercise Modes.
Polar-powered watch
What’s fascinating concerning the Moto Watch is that it does not run on Google’s Put on OS. As a substitute, Motorola partnered up with health model Polar to develop a proprietary working system. It leverages Polar’s well being algorithms to energy many options. Sarcastically, the interface resembles Put on OS a bit, significantly within the app grid structure. No matter any similarities, the software program succeeds in what it goals to perform: it is clear, responsive, and straightforward to navigate.
Battery life is unbelievable. On the time of this writing, the Moto Watch has been operating for 5 days straight, and it is solely dropped to 49% cost. The corporate claims it will possibly go almost twice that quantity, hitting 13 days. Irrespective of the way you shake it, this smartwatch has spectacular longevity, far outlasting rivals just like the Galaxy Watch FE, which has a reported most runtime of 30 hours. I ought to point out that there is not a devoted battery saver mode, so extending the hours largely comes all the way down to limiting utilization and disabling options.
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Like each different health band, the Moto Watch tracks a variety of well being and health metrics, all viewable on the gadget itself or within the companion app. After a health club session, you’ll be able to see your peak coronary heart price, complete energy burned, and a breakdown of which vitality sources your physique relied on most: carbs, fats, or protein. Cardio exercises present comparable in-depth info, together with common pace, cadence, and distance ran.
Sleep monitoring is dealt with by the Nightly Recharge function, which evaluates how effectively your physique recovered in a single day. In my case, it bluntly instructed me my sleep was “compromised”.
Whereas the information is useful, I want the steerage have been extra detailed. To enhance my sleep, I used to be instructed to do one thing stress-free and, whereas stress-free, deal with my environment. I believe that is alleged to be a suggestion to meditate, however the app by no means explains something intimately. A bit extra directed teaching would’ve been appreciated.
One other space the place the wearable falls brief is in its general versatility. It is a barebones smartwatch — it covers the necessities and never a lot else. You may’t even set up third-party apps on the gadget. An organization rep instructed me “customers can select which third-party apps they’d prefer to obtain notifications from”, however that is it. What comes preinstalled is what you get.
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Additionally, the smartwatch solely comes with 512MB of storage. That is not lots. To place that into perspective, the typical audiobook file is roughly 280MB. So, you have got sufficient house for a single audiobook and possibly a small music playlist. Since there isn’t any native streaming app help, you will must manually add audio information by the telephone app. It really works, however removed from seamless.
ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation
The Moto Watch is at the moment on sale for $150 and is on the market in only one shade: Volcanic Ash (black). At present, no first-party substitute bands can be found. The watch does help common 22mm bands, so you’ll be able to swap out the strap for many third-party 22mm choices.
Whereas I totally loved the wearable’s design, fitness-tracking tech, and wonderful battery life, the restricted software program help and restrictive 512MB of storage maintain it again. For those who’re keen to spend about $50 extra, Samsung’s Galaxy Watch FE can ship a extra developed expertise.
