As a OnePlus Watch 3 user, I’m not upgrading to the Watch 4

The OnePlus Watch 4 just made a slightly surprising debut, stepping in as the company’s latest smartwatch without much lead-up. I’ve been using the OnePlus Watch 3 for more than a year, and it’s still one of my top recommendations for anyone shopping the Wear OS market. Between its excellent battery life, consistently smooth performance, and Apple-like rotating crown, it’s an easy device to live with day to day.

Which is probably why the Watch 4’s arrival lands a bit flat. As a OnePlus Watch 3 owner, I don’t see myself upgrading this time around. There just aren’t enough reasons to replace what’s already working so well on my wrist.

Before even getting into performance or battery life, the first disappointment of the OnePlus Watch 4 launch is that OnePlus stuck with a single, oversized case again. Like the previous model, it measures around 47mm.

The lack of a smaller option was one of my biggest complaints about the OnePlus Watch 3, so I was genuinely excited when the company introduced a 43mm version months later. Since I already owned the flagship, though, I didn’t bother picking up a second model. Instead, I assumed the fourth generation would finally offer two sizes at launch.

I would have jumped at the chance to pick up the OnePlus Watch 4 in a smaller case, especially for workouts and sleep tracking, where the Watch 3 feels bulky on my wrist. The newest generation refines the hardware with a 13% lighter and 6% thinner titanium build, plus I appreciate the more premium finish. Unfortunately, it’s just not enough of a change to justify a purchase, especially when the overall size and wearability remain mostly the same.

On the flip side, my favorite thing about the OnePlus Watch 3 is its fantastic battery life. It’s one of the few smartwatches I can wear for days without thinking about charging, and that alone makes it easy to recommend over most Wear OS alternatives. On paper, the OnePlus Watch 4 specs are essentially unchanged. The battery capacity lands in the same range, and the dual-engine setup that drives its efficiency is still doing the heavy lifting.

Real-world expectations follow suit, with the same five-day endurance in smart mode and 16 days in power saver listed on the spec sheet. These are great stats, but if I already have one of the best battery experiences available on a smartwatch, there’s not much incentive to jump ship for the same thing again.

The biggest drawback of the OnePlus Watch 4 is that it sticks with the same Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 platform as the OnePlus Watch 3 (and even the Watch 2). There’s no move to newer wearable silicon, and more importantly, no jump to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear Elite platform, which is exactly where this generation should have gone.

Snapdragon Wear Elite represents a meaningful step forward for smartwatches, offering significantly faster CPU and graphics performance alongside a more advanced, efficient architecture. In practical terms, that means quicker app launches and smoother interactions across the board. It also introduces a dedicated on-device AI engine capable of handling more advanced processing directly on the watch. For users, that means smarter voice features and more adaptive, contextual insights.

I don’t have any real complaints about the OnePlus Watch 3’s performance, but it also feels a bit capped. Moving to Snapdragon Wear Elite would have given the Watch 4 more headroom for future Wear OS features and a longer runway overall. The newer platform is also designed to be more efficient, which could have pushed battery life even further beyond what the Watch 3 already delivers.

In that same vein, the OnePlus Watch 4 still doesn’t offer LTE, which feels increasingly out of step with the rest of the smartwatch market. That’s another way this model could have pulled away from its predecessor.

One area where the OnePlus Watch 4 does move ahead is software. It launches with Wear OS 6 out of the box, bringing a more polished interface, smoother animations, and deeper integration with newer Google features (such as Gemini).

The catch is that the OnePlus Watch 3 is expected to get the same update (though timing is always a guessing game). Because both watches run on the same Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 platform, the day-to-day experience is likely to feel very similar across both models once the update lands on the Watch 3. That makes this feel more like early access than a standout upgrade.

The OnePlus Watch 4 isn’t lacking features, but it doesn’t add anything meaningfully new. Most of the upgrades come down to materials, minor refinements, and software that the OnePlus Watch 3 will eventually get anyway. With the same chip, similar battery performance, and an unchanged overall experience, the OnePlus Watch 4 doesn’t give me a reason to replace what’s already on my wrist. If anything, it just reinforces how well the Watch 3 still holds up.

To be fair, the OnePlus Watch 4 does look like a great option for new buyers. It offers one of the best battery experiences on a Wear OS watch, Wear OS 6, and a design that feels more premium this time around. If you’re jumping into the ecosystem for the first time, it checks a lot of the right boxes.

But for OnePlus Watch 3 users who were hoping for a major leap forward, this isn’t it.