motorola launched the moto watch, the company’s latest smartwatch, in India last month alongside the motorola signature. It has an 1.4″ cricular OLED display, comes with Dual-frequency GPS, comes with Health and fitness tracking powered by Polar’s wellness platfor and promises up to 13 days of battery life.
Is the smartwatch the best one in the price range? Let us dive into the review to find out.
Box Contents
- moto watch in Matte Black colour with stainless steel strap
- Strap link removal tool for resizing
- Charging dock with USB Type-C cable
- User manual
Design and Build
The moto watch has the 47mm, round face that is similar to most watches. It measures 47 x 47 x 12mm and weighs 34.5 grams without the strap. The smartwatch has IP68 + 1 ATM water resistance. There is Accelerometer, Gyroscope, 24h Heart Rate Monitor, SpO2 Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, E-Compass. It uses Bluetooth 5.3 to connect to Android devices, and doesn’t work with iOS yet.
Coming to the strap, it has a lightweight 22mm interchangeable strap design, and the version we have has a stainless steel strap that looks and feels premium. You also get strap link removal tool for resizing, if it is too big for your hand. It also comes in leather and silicone strap variants in several colours.
- Matte Back – Stainless Steel
- Matte Silver – Stainless Steel
- PANTONE Volcanic Ash – Silicone
- PANTONE Parachute Purple – Silicone
- PANTONE Herbal Garden – Silicone
- PANTONE Mocha Mousse – Leather
Wish the company had bundled a silicone strap in the box since you can’t wear the stainless steel strap everywhere, such as for outdoor activities like running.
There is an aluminum-alloy functional crown on the right side that lets you wake up the watch, go back, open the menu, and also pause workouts. There is a function button below it that lets you open exercise and can also be customized to launch other functions.
On the back, on the other side, there is a speaker grill. You can also see the microphone, heart rate, and SpO2 sensors that have glowing green and red LED lights when you are using it to measure heart rate and blood oxygen. There is a charging connector port above it. Even though the sides have a metallic frame, the back of the watch has a plastic finish.
Display and features
Coming to the display, the moto watch has a large 1.4-inch OLED colour touch screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. You can set it to turn on when you lift your hand, and the screen turns off in a few seconds to save power. The touchscreen is smooth to use.
Outdoor visibility is good. You can adjust the brightness by swiping from the top or from Settings→Adjust Brightness. You can adjust it from 10% to 100% and increase the screen timeout to 60 seconds. Since the watch has an ambient light sensor, there is auto brightness adjustment, so you don’t need to worry about adjusting the brightness for outdoors.
When you swipe from the top, you can see quick settings. This has brightness control, sound mode, vibration, DND, sleep mode, settings, torch, find my phone, and water ejection.
There is also an easy notification shade when you swipe from the bottom. You can read them and dismiss them. There is also a quick reply, but you can’t type any custom messages. With moto ai integration, it can summarize the notifications.
Pressing the crown shows workout, workout record, daily activities, vitality, heart rate, SpO2, sleep, nightly recharge, stress, breathing, contacts, dial pad, call history, alarm, stopwatch, timer, compass, weather, music, camera control, find my phone, torch, and settings. It has 4GB built-in music storage.
Settings shows watch faces, display, sound and vibration, sleep mode, advanced settings, notifications, system, and watch orientation. Swiping to the right shows activity data, steps, sleep score, heart rate, SpO2, stress, music control, and notification summary.
Bluetooth Calling
Since the phone has a built-in Bluetooth calling feature with a microphone and a speaker, you can directly make and take calls when connected to the phone over Bluetooth. It shows the call log, and there is even a dial pad, in addition to the contacts option, which you can add from the app.
Calling experience is good indoors, and the microphone is able to pick up the voice well, and the speaker output is loud enough. It is not that clear if the environment is noisy.
Software
The moto watch uses the Moto Watch app that works on Android. It shows all the important details on the health tab. The watch 3 tab panels, quick settings, apps, watch settings and music. My page has health connect and sync data to cloud.
The face gallery shows different types of watch faces under different categories such as tradition, sports, fashion, high-end, mechanical and funny cartoons. There are over 300 customizable watch faces to choose from, and several options show data such as steps, heart rate, calories burnt, weather, and other details.
It can only sync to Google Health Connect, which needs to be enabled from My page → Health Connect.
Fitness tracking
The moto watch has 10+ workout modes with the main workouts being, outdoor walking, indoor walking, outdoor running, strength training, outdoor cycling, indoor cycling, cricket, core training, yoga, and badminton. You can choose customize option to add more workouts directly from the watch.
motorola has partnered with Polar, a global leader in wearable sports and fitness technology, for fitness insights. Even for daily activity, you get a lot of details.
For outdoor activities, you get all the details, such as distance, calories burnt, average heart rate, average speed, average pace, cadence, duration and step length. However, it doesn’t show VO2 max option for running.
It has an independent GPS module with dual-frequency GPS to enable route tracking without the need for a paired smartphone. The GPS lock worked only occasionally for the outdoor run, and I couldn’t get the GPS to work always, and it just showed “GNSS is connecting” for several minutes and went back to the home screen.
The other day, after starting the walk, it took about 10 minutes to connect. If this is an issue, it should be fixed with an update. Compared to tracking apps like Strava running on mobile, or other GPS watches like Amazfit Active 2 that has 5 satellite single-band GNSS, tracking is accurate when it works.
There is no option to share the workout data as an image, so you will only have to share a screenshot. Other than Google Health Connect, the watch doesn’t have an option to sync to Strava, Runkeeper, or any other popular apps.
Sleep Tracking
Sleep tracking is also powered by Polar. It shows sleep quality that gives data about long interruptions, continuity, actual sleep, REM and deep sleep. It shows heart rate and blood oxygen details for sleep. It doesn’t track daytime naps that is available in some smartwatches in the price range.
There is a Nightly Recharge Status that shows how the body was able to recover from training and stretss during the night. This shows Automatic Nervous System (ANS) charge with heart rate, SpO2, and breathing rate, giving data on how your system calmed during the night. There is also sleep charge status that summarizes a sleep with a score compared to usual score.
Heart rate, SpO2, stress monitoring
The smartwatch uses LED lights and photo-diodes to illuminate the blood vessel for a while and monitors the heart rate via the change of green light absorbed, and it uses red light for SpO2 or blood oxygen monitoring. You can’t say this is 100% accurate. Heart rate recordings — both resting and active—and SpO2 readings are good compared to oximeter. It also shows stress data.
Battery life
The moto watch promises up to 13 days of battery life with normal use and up to 7 days with the always-on display enabled. The watch also supports fast charging, promising up to a full day of usage with five minutes of charging.
During my use for 5 days, it reached from 61% to 12%. I used it for daily run tracking, set auto brightness, and took one or two calls over Bluetooth, and have enabled 24×7 heart rate, SpO2, and stress tracking. Battery life might vary depending on frequent use of the display with increased brightness, use of the heart rate monitor during workouts, calling, and all the notifications turned on.
Conclusion
The moto watch is a solid comeback from Motorola, focusing on a “less is more” philosophy. By partnering with Polar, Motorola has brought meaningful, science-backed health insights like Nightly Recharge and Vitality scores to a price segment often saturated with generic tracking. Its standout feature is undoubtedly the premium design—the stainless steel and leather variants feel like traditional luxury timepieces rather than just another tech gadget.
However, it isn’t without its growing pains. The inconsistent GPS lock and the current lack of iOS support are significant hurdles. Furthermore, the absence of Strava sync might be a dealbreaker for serious athletes who want to export their data to a larger community.
If you are an Android user looking for a stylish, “watch-first” wearable with exceptional battery life and reliable sleep insights, the moto watch is one of the best-looking options under Rs. 7,000. It bridges the gap between a basic fitness tracker and a high-end smartwatch beautifully. However, if you require a robust app ecosystem or use an iPhone, you might want to wait for future updates or look at alternatives like the Amazfit series and the CMF models.
Pricing
The moto watch silicone strap variants are priced at Rs. 5,999, while the stainless steel and leather variants are priced at Rs. 6,999. It is available for purchase via motorola.in and on Flipkart.com.
Pros
- Large 1.5″ AMOLED display
- Premium build quality
- Accurate Sleep tracking
- Bluetooth calling
- Long battery life
Cons
- GPS lock takes a lot of time
- No strava sync
- No iPhone support at launch