This week, the media showed interest in onePlus’ second smartwatch due to its claimed 100-hour battery life. Using a sophisticated dual-chip architecture, the gadget easily transitions from the far more power-efficient BES 2700 MCU to the Snapdragon W5. Beyond the enhanced battery life, users won’t notice the shift if the device performs as intended.
Another noteworthy feature of the OnePlus Watch 2 is the three-year interval between releases. Due to the first-generation device’s lackluster evaluations, several people theorized that the Oppo-owned firm may have given up on watches entirely. Rather, client resistance merely forced the business to start over from scratch.
I sat down on two folding chairs outside Google’s MWC booth this morning with Tuomas Lampen, head of strategy for OnePlus Europe, in advance of the device’s official announcement. Even though OnePlus made headlines, the firm decided not to have a booth this year, instead choosing to have an off-site briefing one day before the show began. Of course, Lampen was wearing the Watch 2, and during our talk, he gestured to it quite a bit.
Maybe it’s not fair to say that the gadget is a complete departure from its predecessor. Apart from the knowledge gained from the previous device, the hybrid chip design’s low-power component depends on certain characteristics created especially for the Watch 1. In other words, the initial product wasn’t a complete evolutionary dead end. However, the product’s chip and OnePlus’ choice of the minimal internal operating system, Real-Time Operating System (RTOS), over Google’s far more popular Wear OS could be held responsible for a large number of its flaws.
The original OnePlus Watch functioned more like smartwatches from the era before the Apple Watch. Because of this, the product has an outstanding battery life; nonetheless, most users are searching for a fitness band with more sophisticated functions. Community response, according to Lampen, “wasn’t great.”
“For myself, I didn’t do any fitness tracking or stuff like that,” he continues. With alerts and other features, it was a terrific phone buddy. It was quite easy. You could say that we took advantage of the time to consult with our community and learn how to create an excellent wristwatch.
Since its founding, the community has been a key component of OnePlus’ operations. Early smartphone development was greatly aided by forums, where the firm routinely interacted with its small user base and solicited feedback. But it gets harder and harder to keep those kinds of close relationships going as businesses expand. After expanding its product line and ultimately merging with Oppo, OnePlus was criticized for losing sight of the relationships that made the business so special.
Still, the Watch 2 is very much a result of these relationships. According to Lampen, the two most requested characteristics for the product were Wear OS and battery. The new gadget thus offers a sort of balancing act between the two. OnePlus claims that the second watch has been in development since the first one was made available. Despite seemingly dismal sales, the corporation didn’t seem to be considering giving up on the category entirely. Although he is unsure of the precise number, Lampen notes that the company didn’t produce as many gadgets as it could sell, which caused a shortage in some regions, such as Europe. Still, one would expect that if the first device had received the kind of response the corporation was hoping for, it would have ramped up production to keep up with demand.
According to Lampen, a significant factor in the disparity between devices was the hybrid chip/OS system. The executive states, “Building the dual-engine architecture… took some time.” To get it to function, we had to collaborate with engineers from Google and Qualcomm. In addition to having to modify the Snapdragon chip, Google also needed to make a change to Wear OS.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what Google will gain from the agreement other than the introduction of a new Wear OS product. To squeeze out as much battery life as possible, future Wear OS devices may use a hybrid strategy like what the company’s collaboration with Samsung on an Android version that is compatible with foldable screens suggests. “I’m sure we filed a bunch of patents [about the dual-architecture engine],” Lampen interjects, raising the possibility that this kind of technology may stay exclusive for a while.
To solve what is generally acknowledged to be the greatest flaw in smartphones, OnePlus may be able to license the technology, depending on how comprehensive such patents are (and whether they are awarded). Not unexpectedly, the CEO refrained from conjecturing about its potential future beyond OnePlus’s handsets.
The new technology comes with a much greater price tag as well. Watch 2 costs almost twice as much as its predecessor, starting at $299 instead of $160. The new gadget is referred to by Lampen as a “flagship device” because of its capability and affordable pricing, which places it more in line with global brands like Apple and Samsung. Flagship also appears to indicate the potential release of a less expensive version in the future, though the executive again declined to comment.
