OnePlus Watch Lite Announced, With High-End Features At Lower Cost

OnePlus has announced its next smartwatch, the OnePlus Watch Lite. While most of the finer details are still unknown, the company has said when it will get the full unveil.

The OnePlus Watch Lite will get its proper moment under the spotlight on December 17, when it will launch alongside the OnePlus 15R phone and OnePlus Pad Go 2 tablet.

What is known so far? OnePlus says the Watch Lite will have “flagship-level health and fitness features” despite bearing the Lite name, and is intended to land at an “even more accessible price point.”

OnePlus’s most recent watch is the 43mm of the OnePlus Watch 3, announced in July. It sells for $299.99 and is a Wear OS watch, not a longer-lasting but more basic fitness tracker.

The Watch 3 series also offers some obvious places OnePlus can cut down the spec to reach a more approachable price. First up, the OnePlus Watch 3 has a steel casing, where other models use plastic or aluminium to cut down on costs. It made this concession in the last-generation OnePlus 2 family — a downgrade from steel to aluminium with the OnePlus 2R.

OnePlus has already confirmed the Watch Lite will be sold in a single “Silver Steel” style, though, suggesting steel is here to stay.

The company could also use a cheaper strap than the fluoroelastomer one that ships with the Watch 3 series.

Perhaps the clearest way to make the Oneplus Watch Lite cheaper would be to employ a fitness tracker OS rather than Google Wear OS, as Amazfit did with the Active 2. This would in itself be potentially a pricey project for OnePlus, though, as this would require additional software development given the brand’s current watches use Wear OS.

Xiaomi has already set an impressive bar in this area, having released the Xiaomi Watch 2 and Watch 2 Pro in 2024, the former of which is available for around $174.99.

OnePlus’s current key boasting point for the Watch 3 series is in battery life. The original 46.6mm Watch 3 is rated for up to five days of use between charges, although this dropped down to a more familiar 60 hours in the smaller, lighter 43mm Watch 3.

The OnePlus Watch Lite was teased a week ago, with a silhouette-style teaser image that suggests it will have a design similar to the Oppo Watch S, a super-slim 8.9mm thick wearable that runs a custom software rather than Google’s Wear OS.

Forbes