The Moto Watch feels like a kid trying his best to excel in sports, but walk away with a participation trophy. You’ve spent years revising prices fitness trackers again smart watchesI know how rare it is for an affordable $150 device to come with true reliability, so I really wanted this. When Motorola announced a partnership with Polar, along with dual-band GPS and a week’s worth of battery life at this price, it felt like a breakthrough moment. I thought this could be a big comeback for Motorola in the wearables realm.
Then I actually used it for a few weeks and the truth set in.
Motorola is no stranger to this space. The Moto 360 helped define early Android wearables back in 2014, and made a strong impression in doing so. But the years since then have been slow to wear on its front. This new Moto Watch is its most ambitious attempt to traverse space over time, and the Polar partnership gives it a level of road information for fitness tracking that’s rare at this price.
But theory and execution do not match well here. At $150, the Moto Watch isn’t trying to compete directly with high-end wearables from Samsung or Google; instead, it tries to create a league of its own with this 47mm large screen watch. And no more home runs — yet.
The Moto Watch has a metal frame and a rotating crown that can be used to navigate around the screen.
Polar partnerships, explored
Polar integration is a feature of the title that I was most excited to put through the paces. The brand is synonymous with accuracy among endurance athletes, and its H10 chest strap is CNET’s gold standard for measuring heart rate among other devices.
So I took both to the college track — three miles (12 laps) — with the watch unpaired on my phone and the chest strap recording simultaneously for comparison. The watch was still standing, but I noticed that it was struggling during my run.
The workout summaries showed the same numbers, which is why I prefer to send the raw, second-by-second heart rate data to get more granularity. The Polar app makes it easy to export a spreadsheet of your HR data, but the Moto Watch uses its own app, and there was no export option. I had to settle for comparing the metrics summary I got to the workout summary.
The Moto Watch workout summary compares heart rate metrics from the Polar H10 chest strap.
The graphs look similar at first, with consistent peaks and valleys between laps when I pick up my pace. The average heart rate is only one beat from the chest line. But the watch seemed to smooth out the spikes, and the maximum heart rate dropped by seven beats (173 bpm on the watch versus 180 bpm on the chest strap). That kind of gap is a good standard for wrist-based tracking, which measures blood flow rather than the heart’s electrical signals. However, you may not be getting full credit for your effort if you plan to use this as an important training tool.
Distance tracking was another real test. Dual-band GPS is usually reserved for high-end sports watches, so I had high hopes that the Moto Watch would fare well. It took a while to lock on the satellite and I dropped more than one connection during my 30 minute run. In the end, it gave me an extra credit of 0.15 miles. That’s about a 5% error rate, which sounds small until you’re training for a half-marathon and your long runs keep coming back full force. It’s fine for casual activity tracking, but this isn’t a Garmin replacement.
Health factors
Away from the track, the Polar combination holds up better. The watch monitors heart rate, blood pressure and stress levels throughout the day, although it lacks advanced features like ECG or temperature tracking. Wear it to bed (if you can) and you’ll get sleep stages and Night Charge Status, a Polar version of recovery or a readiness score that can help guide training intensity.
But it’s too big to wear comfortably while sleeping. I only wore it to bed once during my month-long test trip because I felt the large size interfered with my sleep quality. Admittedly, I don’t like sleeping with accessories on; I don’t even wear my wedding ring to bed. Testing a wearable always means making a few compromises, but the Moto Watch didn’t do what I was willing to put up with. It’s definitely a lot better than the Garmin Fēnix 8 Pro than the Pixel Watch, which I’m ready to wear to sleep.
Motorola’s new Motorola watch looks big at 47mm.
Design: It screams ‘bro’
Motorola has positioned this watch as the Clark Kent of smartwatches: a fitness watch covered in a polished suit that can go from sweatshop to boardroom. That was the pitch. What landed on my desk, was a different picture with a lot less polish than I imagined. Strapping it on made things worse, because the 47mm watch looked (and felt) like it swallowed my 6.5-inch wrist.
The 1.43-inch OLED touchscreen wasn’t the problem — that was the bright spot. It’s more responsive and clearer than you’d expect at this price, with smaller bezels thanks to the cleverly placed dial.
You also get a rotating crown for scrolling or clicking, and a programmable side button. The aluminum case looks polished, too, but it’s easy to miss. Large black silicone bands run straight across the frame without a visible break, making the whole thing look like one continuous slab.
It turned out that all that was needed was a stylist. The desperation of wearing this thing for weeks put me into troubleshooting mode, and I realized that the straps were standard width (22mm) and easily replaceable with third party bands that you can buy anywhere. Once I changed them, it ended up looking like the watch Motorola sold me. It was still shouting “brother,” but it was the board room, brother.
The Moto Watch with its stock sports band (top) versus the imitation leather upgrade (below).
A battery that won’t quit
After a three-mile run with GPS on and no phone, and a full day of notifications from its always-on display, most flags will eventually be down, but not the Moto Watch. This smartwatch didn’t break a sweat and finished the day with 85% battery.
With the display always on (and no sleep tracking), I made it a full week on a full charge. Switch the screen activation from always-on to wake-up and Motorola promises it will last 13 days, which I haven’t tested, but it seems entirely possible. This is impressive even by sports watch standards.
Battery life on the Moto Watch is on par with long-lasting sports watches.
For the right person, the battery life alone would be the reason to buy this.
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Application, setup and operation of the smartwatch
Out of the box, the watch has notifications turned off and is set to rise to wake (presumably to help get you to the promised 13 days of battery life). And while that may work for some people, I spent most of my first day wondering why nothing was happening to my wrist. If you like to be aware of what’s going on with your phone, I suggest you dig into the settings before you start wearing it.
I was skeptical because the watch runs on Motorola’s proprietary software rather than Android Wear OS, although it seems like a bare-bones collision. Text preview is coming, call notifications are working and basic alert management is fine. But there are a lot of trade-offs that left me wondering why they went bad in the first place, especially since it still only works with Android phones. It doesn’t support responses to messages from the handset, Google Assistant, NFC payments or much of the third-party app ecosystem. Changing the quick view of your phone’s notifications, it works. For anyone hoping to communicate with their phone in their hand or use a smart watch to pay for a train ride, it’s falling apart.
The phone app combines aspects of life and technology into a single interface, which takes some getting used to, but ultimately works. It’s a hybrid of Fitbit’s health widget layout and Apple’s activity ring system — an almost obvious, but effective borrowing for tracking daily steps, active minutes and calories.
The 47mm Moto Watch looks big on my 6.5″ wrist.
The problem of price ownership
The Moto Watch is priced to sound like a bargain: stellar battery life, dual-band GPS, Polar-backed tracking, blood oxygen, sleep stages and a screen that surpasses its price. On a given sheet, it punches above its weight.
But $150 is a tricky number. It’s not cheap enough to be an obvious budget choice, and it can’t compete with Polar’s level of performance. Sensory limitations and lack of data transmission put a premium on what that relationship can deliver.
Instead, it sits at a strange intersection, the first attempt to carve something in between. The bones are good. Doing it takes work.
Who is this for?
If you’re an Android phone owner looking for sports watch-level battery life in a compact package, this one might be worth a look. It’s perfect for casual fitness trackers looking for a watch that covers the basics. Serious athletes will want something more precise.
But bargain hunters might be better off with the $160 Fitbit Charge 6 for its extra features or one of Amazfit’s true budget watches like the Bip 6 and Active 2. Style options are limited, and there’s no cycle tracking, so it’s also less appealing to women looking for those features.