Moto Watch 100 is an Android watch that does not run on Wear OS

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The Moto Watch 100 is a budget alternative to the expensive Wear OS smartwatch. Photo: Moto Watch

Samsung may finally have some competition in the Android wearables department — although it’s pretty easy at this point because the Galaxy Watch 4 is one of the few smartwatches worth buying. The competition comes from an unexpected brand.

Do you remember the Moto 360? No, the smartwatch is not made by Motorola. I mean this is the Moto 360, which was a Wear OS smartwatch made by eBuyNow, a company that billed itself as “the most ubiquitous consumer electronics segment you’ve ever heard of.” Under CE Brands, the company announced a new smartwatch, the Moto Watch 100. And while it’s compatible with Android, it’s not a Wear OS device.

The $100 Moto Watch appears to be a budget-friendly alternative for people who want a smartwatch without spending hundreds of dollars. The device has a 42mm aluminum case and a 20mm quick-release strap, making it easy to add a pop of color to the cute watch case shown in the press photos. It has a circular 1.3-inch LCD screen and offers some basic health tracking features, including heart rate and blood oxygen level monitoring, which have become standard on the latest smartwatches. The Moto Watch 100 is also splash and sweat resistant and designed to withstand 50 meters of atmospheric pressure. Provides water resistance of up to 5ATM.

Oddly enough, unlike its predecessors, the Moto Watch 100 isn’t running Google and Samsung’s new version of Wear OS, or even the old version of Google’s Wear OS. Instead, it runs a so-called Moto Watch OS, which appears to be based entirely on a mobile app to track your movement and serve notifications. Screenshots in the official listing show a companion Android app, although the iOS app was launched in December.

Perhaps Moto Watch OS is what helps the watch deliver incredible battery life, the press release claims. The Moto Watch 100 promises up to two weeks of full-time battery use from a single 60-minute charge on its 355mAh battery.

The majority of the Moto Watch 100 specs surfaced less than a day ago at 91Mobile, following earlier reports that there are likely to be more Moto Watch versions on the horizon. Now that it’s officially available for pre-order, it will be interesting to see if the Moto Watch 100 resonates with buyers. Google is fixing its wearable software with Samsung on board, but few watches are actually running the new Wear OS. At this point, all most people might want is a cheap cross-platform watch with some solid health essentials.

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