OnePlus Watch Lite review: The best looking fitness tracker, hands-down

Best Prices Today: Oneplus Watch Lite

The OnePlus Watch Lite charts a new path for the smartphone brand, one that sees it enter the affordable fitness tracker space (properly this time).

Of all the brands currently operating in the Wear OS space, very few have been able to raise the bar quite like OnePlus. Recent entries such as the affordable OnePlus Watch 2R and the flagship OnePlus Watch 3 are particular standouts, with the latter going above and beyond in the realm of battery life.

With the OnePlus Watch Lite, however, the brand is steering away from the world of Wear OS and looking to capture the sub-£/€200 market with a watch that has all the trappings of a fitness tracker and the look of a pricier smartwatch. It’s an interesting concept and, after spending more than a week with the device, I’m happy to say that the gamble has largely paid off.

Design & Build

• Super slick design
• Just 8.9mm thick
• 5ATM waterproofing

I’ve spoken to enough tech journalists to know that OnePlus’ smartwatch design isn’t for everyone. Personally, I’m a big fan of the slightly chunkier build and rugged aesthetic that goes with it, but if you find yourself in the other camp, I can almost guarantee that you won’t feel that way about the OnePlus Watch Lite.

I’ve had the Silver Steel option in for review and it is easily one of the nicest-looking watches I’ve seen all year. There’s a wonderful shine to the chassis that really commands your attention, and the cream-coloured watch strap with just a dash of red stitching near the face is a really nice touch. 

The watch is very comfortable to wear as the strap feels soft against the skin, and the main body is just 8.9mm thick, so it was never at risk of catching on my sleeve. All of this propagates the illusion that the OnePlus Watch Lite costs a great deal more than it actually does. Right off the bat, if you want an affordable fitness tracker that actually looks good – this is an easy choice.

Admittedly, I don’t know that I could say the same for the Black Steel option which, to my eye, looks a little bit boring and brings back memories of the dreadful, first-generation OnePlus Watch.

Regardless of which option you go for, however, the OnePlus Watch Lite has a solid degree of durability thanks to IP68 dust and water resistance. The Lite can also be taken for a swim in depths up to 5ATM so, unlike the similarly affordable CMF Watch 3 Pro, it’s useful if swimming is your exercise of choice.

If you want an affordable fitness tracker that actually looks good – this is an easy choice

In terms of buttons, there’s a single rotating crown that can be pressed to open up the main menu or bring you back to the homescreen. Despite initial appearances, there isn’t a dedicated button on the bottom right-hand side: it’s a sensor designed to accommodate your thumb during certain readings.

Screen & Audio

• 1.45-inch AMOLED display
• Can reach 3000nits
• Built-in mic and speaker for calls

On top of its design prowess, the OnePlus Watch Lite continues its great first impression when you boot it up and see the gorgeous 1.45-inch display. With a fairly narrow bezel and an AMOLED panel, the display affords plenty of colour to any watch face, and space too – I never found myself squinting to read key bits of information.

I didn’t have any issues reading the watch outdoors, which was a huge win

Under certain conditions, the peak brightness can reach up to 3000nits, which is almost unheard of for a watch of this price. For context, it was fairly big news when the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 reached those same heights earlier this year, but that wearable is almost double the price at £319/$349.

With that level of brightness intact, I didn’t have any issues reading the watch outdoors, which was a huge win after having that exact problem with the CMF Watch 3 Pro. Although there’s plenty to love about CMF’s similarly affordable wearable, I would argue that the brighter screen does end up making the Watch Lite a better option for outdoor runners who need a clear look at their metrics in real time, even if you have to pay just a bit more.

There’s an onboard microphone and speaker, so if you need to take a call on the go and you don’t want to go searching for your phone, that option is available to you. The audio quality during a call is fairly solid, although I would always prefer to whip out a pair of earbuds for better call quality and privacy too.

Strangely enough, even though there are music controls available on the Watch Lite, you can’t use the inbuilt speaker to listen to those tracks on the watch itself. While this isn’t a must-have feature for me, it might have some appeal to others, so it’s worth mentioning. By comparison, the feature is available on the Apple Watch Series 11 and some Garmin watches.

Software & Features

• No Wear OS
• Basic smart features
• Dual-phone connectivity

I’ll be completely honest – before the OnePlus Watch Lite arrived and I slapped it on my wrist, I had incorrectly assumed that the device would serve as a means to bring Wear OS to a cheaper price point, not too dissimilar to the Samsung Galaxy Watch FE. You can imagine my surprise then when I found an operating system that felt reminiscent of something Huawei might have put together. It took a short while to adjust but I’ve come to appreciate what the Watch Lite is, rather than what it’s not.

Instead, the Watch Lite feels more akin to a fitness tracker in smartwatch clothing, with a UI that’s quite accessible as it’s not bogged down by integrations with wider ecosystems. There are a handful of smart features, including calendar access and using the watch to trigger your phone’s camera shutter, but not much more beyond this.

There is NFC onboard, although it’s not used for contactless payments. Instead, it can only be used for smart locks, which feels like a missed opportunity. What’s even more bizarre is the ability to connect to more than one smartphone which, for the life of me, I can’t quite wrap my head around.

I’ve come to appreciate what the Watch Lite is, rather than what it’s not

The feature is somewhat helpful for tech journalists who tend to carry around more than one phone at a time, but for everyone else, the explosion of dual-SIM phones has done away with the need to carry a second, separate work phone, so this feels like an odd allocation of resources.

I do appreciate OnePlus thinking outside of the box on this one, but I would have much preferred to see that attention paid into giving the Watch Lite access to NFC payments.

Thankfully, there’s a lot to like about the watch face library provided via the OHealth app. There’s a good mix of colourful, modern options and plenty of analogue-style watch faces so, depending on your eye for style, you can almost certainly find a collection that works for you. The OS is also very smooth in operation, with the watch feeling responsive to every touch of the display.

For all that you get here, £179/€179 feels like a fair price but any higher than that and I would have an issue. After all, the Apple Watch SE 3 and even previous-generation Samsung Galaxy Watches can be found for not that much more and offer far better smart features, including third-party app support.

Fitness & Health Tracking

• Excellent heart rate tracking
• Dual-band GPS
• Many health-focused metrics

This is where the OnePlus Watch Lite really stands out. As I mentioned before, the Lite has ambitions as a fitness tracker as opposed a typical smartwatch and as such, OnePlus has loaded the wearable with tons of features designed to keep you locked in with how your body is feeling at any given time.

In terms of workouts, there’s a solid collection here, with staples such as strength training and outdoor running, as well as the ability to track sports including football and pickleball. Unlike the CMF Watch 3 Pro or similarly priced Garmin Forerunner watches, there isn’t any type of coaching on board, so there’s an expectation that you’re not a complete novice to the world of fitness.

I could rely on the Watch Lite for a realistic idea of how my body reacted to each run

If you’re going to the gym for the first time, without any prior experience, then Garmin’s wearables and the best Fitbits can be better options for giving you advice on where to start.

However, I was very much impressed with the accuracy of the heart rate data that the Watch Lite was able to collect. When using the watch alongside the chest-worn Garmin HRM 600 during two treadmill workouts, the Watch Lite was only ever 1BPM off the average and peak rates captured by Garmin’s device.

That’s as small a difference as you can get, and it meant that I could rely on the Watch Lite for a realistic idea of how my body reacted to each run.

If you prefer to do your running outdoors, you’ll be glad to know that there’s dual-band GPS tracking on this device, and on average it only took seven seconds to establish a connection, which was then secure throughout.

Not too dissimilar to the Body Composition feature from Samsung Galaxy Watches, the Watch Lite boasts a holistic check-in on your health known as a 60s Wellbeing Overview. This feature engages all sensors at once to give you a look at your skin temperature, blood oxygen levels, resting heart rate and more.

It all works quickly, and it can be helpful if you’re feeling unwell as it may help you to zone in on any factors that might indicate what’s happening. The presence of a temperature sensor also means that the Watch Lite can be used to track your ovulation cycle.

Even though sleep performance is recorded with the Watch Lite, I’d like to see the feature expanded upon with a successor. Not only did it manage to record a longer sleep duration than the Whoop Strap 4.0, but the breakdown in the accompanying OHealth app doesn’t go far enough in terms of offering practical advice on how to improve your circadian rhythm.

Given that such a feature is now commonplace in most watches from competing brands, it would be great to see that brought into the mix.

Speaking of the OHealth app, however, I do very much appreciate its overall design. On the homepage, all of the key areas of interest are labelled clearly with helpful widgets, so you can see information at a glance without diving deeper.

Battery Life & Charging

• Up to 10 days per charge
• Around five days of intensive use
• Charging to full takes 67 minutes

One area in which the OnePlus Watch Lite needs absolutely no notes is the battery life. To give them credit, previous OnePlus Watches were already known for their battery longevity but the Watch Lite kicks things up a notch.

You can get up to 10 days of use between charges, which is wonderful if you’re coming from a smartwatch that needs to be charged every single day. Of course, reaching that peak requires a certain level of restraint in terms of how you use it on a daily basis. It’s fair to say that’s not how I use a smartwatch.

When putting the OnePlus Watch Lite through my typical use case, which involved toggling the always-on display, tracking two workouts and receiving a decent amount of notifications, the watch was able to get from 6pm on a Friday to around midnight on Wednesday the following week.

That’s an impressive degree of longevity and it definitely means that if you have a weekend away and forget to bring the charger, it won’t be any cause for concern.

On the topic of charging, it doesn’t take long for the OnePlus Watch Lite to get back to full health. From a dead battery, it only took 67 minutes for the OnePlus Watch Lite to reach 100% but if you’re in a rush you’ll be glad to know that it also reached 71% after just 30 minutes, which is more than enough to see you through a few days.

The included charging puck also establishes a solid connection when in use, and I was never worried about it becoming detached the moment I walked away.

Price & Availability

The OnePlus Watch Lite launched in Europe and the UK on 17 December, available in Black Steel and Silver Steel colourways, both at the cost of £179/€179 via the official OnePlus Store. At the time of this review, OnePlus hasn’t announced any plans to bring the Watch Lite to the US or Australia.

In the territories where it’s available, the Watch Lite is now the cheapest device in OnePlus’ wearable line-up, sat below the OnePlus Watch 2R (£249/$229.99) and the OnePlus Watch 3 (£319/$349.99). It’s worth mentioning that the Watch 2R has, on occasion, fallen to a price that’s either the same or slightly cheaper than the Watch Lite’s RRP, so it is worth checking to see if it’s on offer before committing to a purchase.

The Apple Watch SE 3 will be the biggest competitor for iPhone users as the device doesn’t cost that much more at £219/$249 and has a far greater array of smart features (although it can’t compete on battery life).

There’s also the Fitbit Charge 6, which may be a more tempting alternative to folks who want to spend even less thanks to a price tag of £139.99/$159.95. Not only is Fitbit’s OS better suited for newcomers to the world of fitness, the device also boasts Google Pay functionality, which is helpful for quick payments on the go.

Should you buy the OnePlus Watch Lite?

Despite my initial shock over the OnePlus Watch Lite ditching Wear OS in favour of an in-house, fitness-focused operating system, I’ve come to appreciate the watch as a solid device that’s perfect for people who like the idea of having a fitness tracker but would rather have the more refined look of a typical smartwatch.

Admittedly, without access to third-party apps, the OnePlus Watch Lite won’t be a must-buy for some, particularly against fairly affordable smartwatches including the Samsung Galaxy Watch FE and the Apple Watch SE 3, but for those who don’t want to be bogged down by smart features, there’s a lot to like here.

With a battery life of up to 10-days and a bright AMOLED display, not to mention a build that’s very comfortable to wear, the OnePlus Watch Lite feels like a great step forward for fitness trackers at large. Although the CMF Watch 3 Pro is also a valid option for anyone who wants to spend even less, I’d argue that the Watch Lite is worth the uptick at checkout thanks to its waterproof build and the array of health tracking features onboard.

Specs

• 44.98 x 44.98 x 8.9mm
• 59g (35g without the watch strap)
• 1.46-inch display
• AMOLED
• 3000nits peak brightness
• Dual-band GPS
• 10-day battery life
• Bluetooth 5.2
• NFC (limited)
• Dual-phone connectivity
• Temperature sensor