The Oppo Watch is official with WearOS and ECG – but only for China

We’ve been tracking the progress of the much-leaked Oppo Watch – and now it’s been officially confirmed by the company’s Twitter account.
The company had a smartphone event on 6 March, but it was only announced for the Chinese market – and will launch on 26 March. A company spokesperson said on stage in the Western presentation that the “Oppo Watch deserved its own event, so you will have to wait.”
However, from the Chinese press conference and a little help from GSMArena, we now have the full specs.
Oppo Watch: Official specsWe’ve had a good look at the Oppo Watch with all the leaks – but now we have the detail.
Yes it’s a massive Apple Watch clone – just look at the examples above with the silicone sports bands – absolutely shameless stuff. We doubt most people would be able to tell the difference.
It has a curved AMOLED display, and ships in 1.6-inch and 1.9-inch sizes – that’s roughly 41mm and 46mm – so quite a difference between the two. It will have a decent specced 326ppi resolution, so it looks pretty smart. It’s also waterproof to 50 metres.
And the reports were correct: the Oppo Watch has a heart rate monitor and it will take electrocardiogram (ECG) readings – again, just like the Series 5.
WearOS skinLike the Xiaomi Mi Watch the Oppo Watch runs WearOS, but uses a customised ColorOS skin on top – so it’s not a vanilla Google experience.
There’s an eSIM so LTE connectivity is an option.
We’re also not sure how much the Oppo Watch will when it hits the West, but in China the larger Oppo Watch will cost CNY 1,999 (around $288) while the 41mm will be CNY 1,499 ($215).
That’s more than the Amazfit GTS (they look fairly similar) which retails at around $149.99.
February leak: First Oppo Watch pictures After renders leaked on Twitter back in January, 9to5Google has published photos (see main image) of the device that appear to back up everything we’ve already seen.The new shots have come from Chinese networking site Weibo from Digital Chat Station.
They show the Apple Watch style design, with a sleek-looking curved display and two physical buttons on t he right-hand side. And the leakster has offered some more details on what we can expect.
The poster said the Oppo smartwatch runs on an “Android system”, which we now know is a Wear OS skinned with Oppo’s own software for a more customised experience.
January leak: Early renderThe Weibo post from January – now deleted but spotted by Gizmochina – reveals two important pieces of information about the Oppo smartwatch. It’s set to feature a square watch face, much likes the Apple Watch Series 5.
And the subsequent render (above) which has also landed on Weibo backs that up 100%. It shows a similar shape and thickness, but with two buttons on the bezel rather than a Digital Crown.
Oppo smartwatch: The story so farOppo filed a patent for a folding smartwatchBack in summer 2019, Oppo’s vice president, Shen Yiren, announced via social media site Weibo that the company is hard at work on a smartwatch.
The post is pretty brief, and also details some work on noise-reducing headphones.
That Oppo has plans for smartwatches is far from shocking news. After all, even earlier in 2019 a patent for a truly bizarre foldable smartwatch was unearthed from the Chinese company.
Beyond that short post, very few firm details have emerged about the smartwatch, but we imagine speculation about hardware, operating system more will ramp up closer to a big reveal.
Yiren did offer some hints about the design of the watch, though, indicating that Oppo was debating whether to go with a circular or rectangular display, based on the best use of space.
And it seems that a rectangular screen has won the day.
Huawei, Xiaomi and Amazfit have all moved away from choosing Wear OS as an operating system (although the Xiaomi Mi Watch has used a forked version). So it will be interesting to see what Oppo chooses here.
What’s more, back in 2015, there were rumours that we would see an Oppo Watch, but it never materialised. Insiders who believed it was happening claimed the device was capable of fully charging in just five minutes.
Oppo has been working on its own proprietary quick charging tech, so maybe it has something in store for its smartwatch on the battery front.
Oppo smartwatch: Release dateSo when will we see this Oppo Watch? It’s was to be officially unveiled on 6 March 2020 but given its no-show – it could be any time. We’re following closely.