I've been testing the Moto Watch, and it really makes me wish Motorola would stop teasing us and just jump on the Wear OS wagon already

When I learned that Motorola was making a new smartwatch, I was cautiously optimistic. The Moto Watch isn't running Wear OS, meaning we still don't have a true Moto 360 successor, but the company's partnership with Polar seemed promising, as Polar makes some impressive fitness smartwatches. Surely Motorola would make the best use of this to turn this relatively affordable smartwatch into something worth picking up?

Unfortunately, my time with the Moto Watch proved that Motorola still has a way to go. There are some good ideas, but nothing feels fully baked, and I can't help but feel Motorola would have been better off with Wear OS, even if it means battery life takes a hit.

At first glance, the Moto Watch is actually a pretty solid smartwatch. The design kind of reminds me of something between the Galaxy Watch 7 and the OnePlus Watch 3. The aluminum frame gives it a premium look, and while the watch is fairly thick, it doesn't feel particularly heavy. I don't have the biggest wrists, but I don't mind that it only comes in a 47mm case size. This won't be for everyone, though.

On the plus side, the size gives the large 1.43-inch OLED display more time to shine, and while I don't know how bright it is, I never had much trouble viewing it outside.

Setting up the Moto Watch is fairly simple and just requires downloading the Moto Watch app and pairing the devices. The process walks you through the navigation, which is very reminiscent of Wear OS. A swipe down from the top opens the quick settings menu; swiping up shows notifications; and swiping from either side cycles through the panels, which are similar to Wear OS tiles.

In fact, much of the software experience is pretty smooth and reminds me of Wear OS, which is great because I find that some other smartwatch UIs can be too confusing and convoluted (looking at you, Garmin), or just clunky. Pressing the crown opens the app grid, which is laid out similarly to the one on Galaxy Watches, and the crown rotates to let you easily scroll through menus. Unfortunately, it feels awfully flimsy and cheap, despite being made of stainless steel.

The button below the crown is a shortcut key that you can also customize to open any watch app.

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Unfortunately, the similarities to Wear OS mostly end there, and it becomes clear very quickly just how minimal the Moto Watch is. For example, there are only a handful of available apps, which are mostly watch functions like clocks, timers, and weather, or tied to health and wellness features. You can't download anymore.

There are also very few customization options for the Moto Watch, and you won't find too many ways to change how the watch behaves. Fortunately, you can change and customize the watch face, many of which are available on the Moto Watch app. You can also use Moto AI on the companion app to generate your own watch face, which is pretty neat.

Speaking of Moto AI, its main function on the watch is to summarize notifications, which you can access via the Summarize button at the top of the notification view. It's only available on select Motorola phones, likely those that have Moto AI available, and while it's a handy way to catch up on notifications if you're bad at checking your phone, that's where its convenience ends.

In fact, the entire notification experience on the Moto Watch is lacking. Sure, you can view notifications from your phone, but you can't actually interact with them. As someone who primarily uses Wear OS watches, which let you type messages or select from pre-written responses, this is one of my biggest gripes with the Moto Watch. It sort of defeats the purpose of a smartwatch if I still have to pull out my phone to do basic things like respond to a message.

The confusing software decisions don't end there. Without access to streaming apps, you can only transfer music files from your phone via the Moto Watch app. While I don't mind this at all, the process is quite cumbersome, with the watch showing much less storage than it actually has available (merely 512MB, mind you). It only lets me transfer a handful of songs at a time, then forces me to go back through my extensive list of music files to select and transfer more, a process that has crashed on me a few times.

That only highlights a puzzling speaker placement on the watch. It sits at the bottom of the watch, and while it can get decently loud, it is frequently muffled by my wrist. On the plus side, you can still connect wireless earbuds to the watch.

Then there's a remote camera function on the Moto Watch, which sounds more exciting than it actually is. It only serves as a remote shutter button, not as a remote viewfinder; you can only set a timer and capture the photo without a way to see yourself on the watch. On the plus side, the Razr Ultra 2025 I've been using uses the cover screen as a viewfinder, so it's not a huge deal for me, but not everyone will have this functionality on their phones.

I also find it odd that there's no battery save mode. Fortunately, the Moto Watch has great battery life and has lasted me a full week on a charge, with at least one workout tracked each day, sleep monitoring each night, and tilt-to-wake enabled. Charging takes a while, though, and I got from 0-50% in 40 minutes and a full charge in about an hour and a half.

Motorola says you can get up to 13 days on a full charge, which feels about right, though it depends on your settings and how active you are.

When it comes to health and fitness tracking, the Polar partnership sounds more promising than it really is. The Moto Watch comes with all the typical smartwatch health-tracking features, including heart rate, blood oxygen, sleep, and even stress. You can view the details of these metrics on the watch or use the companion app for a better view.

The companion app has three sections, with one dedicated to Health. This shows you the activity ring and seven metrics underneath. While the information is easy enough to follow, there's not much in the way of insights into how these metrics can affect you, which I've come to expect after using other apps from Fitbit and Oura that inject AI insights to help guide users toward better habits.

The closest thing I've found is the Nighly recharge, which takes your "sleep charge" and autonomic nervous system (ANS) charge — a combination of heart rate, HRV, and breathing rate — into account to give you tips, if any, for the day on exercise, sleep, and energy regulation. However, these aren't very detailed, and I find myself looking for a little more guidance than "Go for it!" or "Exercising today will benefit you, as long as you listen to your body."

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Unfortunately, workout tracking leaves a lot to be desired. I've tracked several workouts with the Moto Watch, from Pilates and HIIT to strength training, and during each workout, I notice my heart rate is often 10-40 bpm lower than on my Pixel Watch 3 or Garmin Venu 4. There are times when the heart rate would more closely match the other watches, but those moments are few and far between.

I've also had the watch completely stop recording a power yoga session without me noticing. It's hard to tell whether this was due to the crown, which protrudes quite a bit from the watch, or to the auto-pause recording.

Either way, it was rather frustrating, and frustration only grew when I went to track a 2,500-step walk with the watch. The auto-pause feature kept triggering while I was actively moving, so the watch missed quite a few steps when testing it against the Pixel Watch 3. However, after turning it off, it performed well against the Garmin Venu 4, which was actually pretty surprising.

Ultimately, the Moto Watch doesn't feel very reliable, and that extends beyond fitness tracking. Sure, battery life is great, and the Wear OS-like UI makes it very familiar, but I feel like Motorola would've been better just going with actual Wear OS. At least then, the software would feel more mature, giving Motorola a better chance against competitors like Samsung, Google, and even OnePlus, which make great Wear OS smartwatches.

The Moto Watch is available now for $150, which is a good price for a seemingly mid-range smartwatch. That said, the experience leaves a lot to be desired, and you might be better off with something like the Galaxy Watch FE, which you can probably find for even less.