I don’t like Wear OS as a platform; other than the Pixel Watch, every other Wear OS smartwatch has been frustrating to use. That’s why I’m glad Motorola decided to go stick with its own software and team up with Polar for the Moto Watch.
The Moto Watch isn’t quite a reincarnation of the Moto 360, but it looks great in its own right. The smartwatch has an elegant design, has a steel crown along with an aluminum chassis. As with all Motorola wearables, it’s available with a variety of bands, and I like the overall design — it looks like a regular watch.
The 47mm case is on the bigger side, and it houses a 1.43-inch OLED panel with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 coating to provide a layer of resistance against tumbles and scratches. The case is available in white and black, and you can easily switch out the bands if you want to use your own. There are two buttons on the side, and even though it is a pretty big smartwatch, it’s light.
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As it uses Motorola’s custom software, the brand is touting 13 days of battery life between charges. That’s with raise-to-wake enabled; with an always-on mode, you’ll need to plug it in once a week. And yes, fast charging is intact, with the smartwatch delivering a day’s worth of use with a 10-minute charge. There’s IP68 ingress protection, and you also get dual-band GPS, so there isn’t much the Moto Watch is missing out on when it comes to features.
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Instead of Wear OS, there’s a lightweight UI with the basics covered, and honestly, I don’t have any issues with that — the interface is fluid, you get all the features you need, and it pairs with Android phones and delivers notifications to your wrist.
The missing piece of the puzzle was health monitoring, and Motorola is addressing that with the Polar partnership. Polar does a standout job with its dedicated smartwatches, and Motorola is leveraging the brand’s fitness insights on the Moto Watch, so you get heart rate variability, workout recovery details, and detailed fitness and health metrics.
The Moto Watch will retail at under $150, and it could prove to be quite the bargain. The smartwatch will go on sale later in the year, and alongside the Razr Fold and Signature, there’s clearly a lot to like about what Motorola is doing in 2026.
