Review: moto watch — a smartwatch without the frills at an amazing price

Motorola recently launched their biggest, most impressive lineup of devices into the Australian market and part of this lineup is the moto watch.

Now, Google has put a lot of time and effort into their watch operating system, WearOS but not all manufacturers are still on board.  Motorola may have been one of the first manufacturers to run Android Wear (as it was known back then) but now, with the moto watch, it is moving to a different OS.

Motorola has made the switch and although I was sceptical at first, I may well be a believer.  Sure, it’s great to run a heap of apps on your watch, but who really uses them that much?  I use my watch to see notifications as they come in and to occasionally reply to them.  

That’s it, and it seems I don’t need a fully functional watch operating system to be happy with it.  I love the moto watch and am impressed with the design, software, battery life and overall software.  This one is a win for Motorola.

Design

The moto watch that I was sent to review was the black stainless steel model with a stainless steel link band.  Now I never get this sort of watch band and I’m not sure why.  I’m not a massive fan of exercising with my watch on, so I rarely do, so why not have your watch look stylish when you do actually wear it?

The black stainless steel looks amazing and still supports fitness and health tracking through Motorola’s partnership with Polar.  If you do want to use the watch for fitness tracking, you can easily pick up an official silicone band or any aftermarket 22mm band – I had a 22mm band from AliExpress lying around, and it slotted into the watch case perfectly.

The watch is still thick, just as all smartwatches are, but I love the 47mm frame.  I prefer a bigger watch and this one fits the bill.  Even with the stainless steel band, the watch was comfortable on the wrist, once I had the correct number of links removed from the full length – Motorola do include a tool to help you easily remove the links as required.

The display is a 1.4-inch OLED display, covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 3, offering some protection against accidental knocks and scrapes.  The display is bright and easy to see in the light, though I had to fiddle with the auto-brightness settings to get it to where I wanted.

The watch can be easily used for exercise thanks to its IP68 rating and underwater protection up to 1 ATM.

Wearing the watch is actually very comfortable.  The watch case weighs just 35 grams, making it much lighter than the WearOS watch I normally use.

Software

Although the moto watch does not run WearOS from Google, it is compatible with smartphones running Android 12 and up.  This means you can get notifications from your phone on your watch, no dramas.  I certainly had no issues there.  The issue here is though that you cannot reply to the notification from the watch – not something I do much but if you do that often then this is not for you.

Just remember though, the watch doesn’t run the apps on it so you will not get the rich notifications that you can get with WearOS watches.  You will also need to go into your phone’s watch settings and enable notifications for each app you want to receive notifications from.  It does not default to allowing, but to not allowing.

There are a heap of watch faces available so you should be able to find one that suits you and your current use of the watch.  If not, you can use Moto AI to create a watch face based on your prompt to it – just using standard generative AI.  It works ok for the background of a watchface but you cannot change the information displayed on the watchface such as steps, battery life etc.

Motorola has included “Panels” for you to quickly access information you may need, such as health progress, weather, timer, heart rate and more.  I like these, but all watches have them, so they are not groundbreaking.

Health

Powered by Polar, you’d expect the moto watch to be good at this – and it is, although don’t expect any super detailed information.  You’ll see activities, sleep quality and overall sleep data, heart rate, stress levels and even Blood oxygen.  You can get all the usual basic readings and using my other devices, the results are accurate.

Of course, if you want more detailed information, you’ll need to buy something like a more expensive, dedicated fitness watch from Polar, Garmin, or Apple.

Battery life and charging

Motorola states that the moto watch will give you up to 13 days of battery life, up to 7 days of always-on display.  Often, manufacturers overstate how good the battery life is on their devices, but not here.  Seven days of battery life was achievable with the moto watch – you won’t get that with a WearOS watch.

Charging was super quick, with the ability to get a day’s worth of battery in just 5 minutes.

Final thoughts

The moto watch does not run WearOS but instead Motorola’s own operating system, based loosely around Polar, and it reaps the benefits of going its own way. The big difference is the battery life. It looks great, has a similar display, and does similar things to a Wear OS watch (with a few limitations), but offers battery life of nearly a full week.

You cannot reply to messages on the watch, but you can see all your phone notifications and track your activity, heart rate, oxygen saturation, weather, and more. Not many folks actually use their watch to reply to messages and for this reason I feel like the moto watch is a big win for motorola.

Priced at just 9 in PANTONE Volcanic Ash and Matte Black, it is much cheaper than other smartwatches, albeit with less functionality. If you don’t need your watch to do exceptionally fancy stuff, reply to messages and run apps that are also on your phone, then you should really be checking this out. It has its limitations but at under 0 it is amazing value.

If you like what you read above, you’d better get in quick because Telstra has it on sale for just 9 until May 4!