When we talk about smartwatches these days, the conversation usually revolves around Apple Watch for the most part. If you are an Android user though, the competitive options available to you shrink down -- there's the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 that is compatible with Android, and then options on Android Wear OS such as the OPPO Watch and Xiaomi's Mi Watch. Google is cognizant of the fact that Wear OS is not the best option for smartwatches, and recent updates to the platform have attempted to fix some of the pain points. Qualcomm also has a part to play in this story, with the company announcing the Snapdragon Wear 4100 SoC for better performance and battery life on Wear OS smartwatches. All of this is now seemingly coming together on the Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3, the first smartwatch with the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100 platform and Wear OS by Google.

 

TicWatch Pro 3: Specifications

The TicWatch Pro 3 is similar to the TicWatch Pro 4G and the TicWatch Pro 2020 in a fair few ways, but it is also a substantial upgrade over them. You get to witness the same Dual Display technology from Mobvoi on this one too, wherein an analog FSTN LCD is overlaid on top of a smarter AMOLED display. The Smart Mode on the smartwatch can get you up to 72 hours of battery life, while the enhanced Essential Mode can get you up to 45 days of battery life. And toggling between the two modes is as simple as flicking your wrist.

What is different is the inclusion of the newest Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100 SoC and a bigger battery. The switch over to Snapdragon Wear 4100 is big news -- it's the first Qualcomm smartwatch SoC to be made on a modern process node: 12nm FinFET, compared to the 28nm node on the Snapdragon Wear 3100. It’s also the first Qualcomm smartwatch SoC to adopt ARM Cortex-A53 cores, finally moving on from the 32-bit Cortex-A7 cores that the company had been using for many generations. The new SoC from Qualcomm is more powerful and more power-efficient, both of which have been complaint areas on previous smartwatch SoCs from the company.

Mobvoi is also bumping up the battery capacity on the smartwatch to a good 577 mAh, up from the 415 mAh on the TicWatch Pro 2020, promising up to 3 days of life as a smartwatch and 45 days of life as a dumber, regular digital watch.

The TicWatch Pro 3 is powered by Wear OS by Google, so you get access to the Google apps and third-party services that are already existing on the platform. Mobvoi also gives you access to its own apps, such as TicPulse, TicHealth, TicMotion, TicExercise, and TicSleep, which have been present on previous smartwatches too. For this smartwatch, TicWatch is presenting access to new apps, such as TicOxygen for monitoring blood oxygen saturation, TicZen for monitoring stress, TicBreathe for helping through breathing methods, and TicHearing for measuring environmental noise.

For sensors, the smartwatch comes with a barometer for measuring altitude and support for five GNSS for accurate location tracking.

Pricing and Availability

The TicWatch Pro 3 will be available from Mobvoi.com and Amazon.com from September 24, 2020. The smartwatch will cost you $299.99/£289.99/€299.99/¥35,999.

Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 Review – The Smartwatch Upgrade That Wear OS Needs