Motorola Moto 360 review: beautiful smartwatch spoiled by poor battery life
The Motorola Moto 360 is the flagship Android Wear smartwatch and the first with a round screen that looks more like a traditional watch than a geeky gadget.
Like every other Android Wear watch it connects to an Android smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth and has very little functionality without that tether. It can tell the time, set alarms and timers, show steps and heart rate, or your agenda for the day. But that is about it.
When connected to a smartphone, notifications ping from the phone to the watch with a vibrating alert, allowing wearers to see who’s calling, chatting, emailing or any other notification.
Navigating via swipes is easy. Right to left opens more options like skipping tracks or sending dictated replies to Hangouts, left to right steps back through the menus and swiping upward reveals more. Swiping down mutes the notifications.
The Moto 360 comes with a small inductive charging dock for over night charges. It will also charge on any Qi wireless charger, including the Google Nexus charging pad and others.
A complete charge takes about an hour and the watch displays a night screen with the time and a charging indicator when docked. It cannot be charged with the screen off, which could be an issue at night as the watch is quite bright.
The Moto 360 is the size of a large man’s watch with a 46mm diameter and 11.5mm depth – but not as large as the super-sized watches popular with footballers and racing drivers. It has a leather strap and a smooth stainless steel back, is comfortable to wear and light on the wrist, weighing 49g. By way of comparison the Samsung Gear Live weighs 59g and the LG G Watch 63g.
Unlike the G Watch, the Moto 360 doesn’t make my wrist sweat and I soon forgot that I was wearing it. The 360 blends in with clothing, looking much more like a watch than other smartwatches: it is a smartwatch masquerading as a classic time piece rather than a piece of technology ostentatiously strapped to the arm.
Unlike the Gear Live, the Moto 360’s heart rate monitor will periodically take readings, recording patterns and telling the wearer whether they are sufficiently active.
Unfortunately the data cannot be exported for use in other apps and the heart rate monitor cannot be turned off.
The main difference with other smartwatches is the circular screen. It is a flat tyre shape, with a little squared-off section at the bottom housing an ambient light sensor for automatically adjusting the backlight. Most other Android Wear smartwatches do not have automatic brightness adjustment.
No bezel makes the watch look like it’s all screen and with a good selection of attractive watch faces making it look and feel expensive.
The Moto 360 looks great, works well and is comfortable to wear but its battery life is poor. Unlike most Android Wear watches, the screen cannot be kept on all the time, instead dimming when the wrist is moving, before switching itself off.
The “ambient display” mode can be switched off, which saves battery but also makes it harder to glance at the time, requiring a complete lift of the wrist (rather than a small movement), a tap on the screen or a press of the button on the side to light the screen.
With the ambient display on, using auto-brightness and using the watch to count steps, the 360 lasted from 7.30am till 9.30pm – 14 hours – before dying. That was not long enough to see me from my commute to bed time, which is inexcusable.
With step-counting turned off, the battery lasted from 7.30am till 11pm with 15% left. With ambient display mode turned off it lasted even longer but was much less useful as a watch: often when I tried to read the time with a quick glance it was not lit.
I really wanted to love the Moto 360 but battery life that cannot see you through a full day’s use is unacceptable. LG’s G Watch will last two days with the screen on all the time, so it can be done.
Turning some features off made it last a day – step-counting I can live without – but unless you are prepared to take a charger with you, the Moto 360 will have to stay at home on weekends away.
The rest of the watch is great. Voice recognition is significantly more accurate and less prone to interference from background noise than the G Watch or the Gear Live, the screen is bright and crisp, the watch faces are attractive and it feels like an expensive time piece rather than a chintzy gadget.
The bezel-free design is a big step forward for smartwatches and Android Wear suits a circular face. Make it last two days and they would have a winner on their hands. Instead the 360 is great until it dies prematurely.
The Moto 360 goes on sale in the UK in October, which gives Motorola half a month to improve the software to last at least a day with all features active. I will continue to use it to see if the battery life improves and update this review accordingly.
Pros: beautiful round screen, light, comfortable to wear, stainless steel case, heart rate monitor, waterproof
Cons: poor battery life, have to disable features to last a day, cannot charge the watch without the screen on
Like every other Android Wear watch it connects to an Android smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth and has very little functionality without that tether. It can tell the time, set alarms and timers, show steps and heart rate, or your agenda for the day. But that is about it.
When connected to a smartphone, notifications ping from the phone to the watch with a vibrating alert, allowing wearers to see who’s calling, chatting, emailing or any other notification.
Navigating via swipes is easy. Right to left opens more options like skipping tracks or sending dictated replies to Hangouts, left to right steps back through the menus and swiping upward reveals more. Swiping down mutes the notifications.
Wireless charging
A complete charge takes about an hour and the watch displays a night screen with the time and a charging indicator when docked. It cannot be charged with the screen off, which could be an issue at night as the watch is quite bright.
Painless wearing
Unlike the G Watch, the Moto 360 doesn’t make my wrist sweat and I soon forgot that I was wearing it. The 360 blends in with clothing, looking much more like a watch than other smartwatches: it is a smartwatch masquerading as a classic time piece rather than a piece of technology ostentatiously strapped to the arm.
Heart rate monitor
Unfortunately the data cannot be exported for use in other apps and the heart rate monitor cannot be turned off.
Flat-tyre screen
No bezel makes the watch look like it’s all screen and with a good selection of attractive watch faces making it look and feel expensive.
Woeful battery
The “ambient display” mode can be switched off, which saves battery but also makes it harder to glance at the time, requiring a complete lift of the wrist (rather than a small movement), a tap on the screen or a press of the button on the side to light the screen.
With the ambient display on, using auto-brightness and using the watch to count steps, the 360 lasted from 7.30am till 9.30pm – 14 hours – before dying. That was not long enough to see me from my commute to bed time, which is inexcusable.
With step-counting turned off, the battery lasted from 7.30am till 11pm with 15% left. With ambient display mode turned off it lasted even longer but was much less useful as a watch: often when I tried to read the time with a quick glance it was not lit.
Price
At £200 the Motorola Moto 360 is currently the most expensive Android Wear smartwatch, and will be available in the UK from early October.Verdict
Turning some features off made it last a day – step-counting I can live without – but unless you are prepared to take a charger with you, the Moto 360 will have to stay at home on weekends away.
The rest of the watch is great. Voice recognition is significantly more accurate and less prone to interference from background noise than the G Watch or the Gear Live, the screen is bright and crisp, the watch faces are attractive and it feels like an expensive time piece rather than a chintzy gadget.
The bezel-free design is a big step forward for smartwatches and Android Wear suits a circular face. Make it last two days and they would have a winner on their hands. Instead the 360 is great until it dies prematurely.
The Moto 360 goes on sale in the UK in October, which gives Motorola half a month to improve the software to last at least a day with all features active. I will continue to use it to see if the battery life improves and update this review accordingly.
Pros: beautiful round screen, light, comfortable to wear, stainless steel case, heart rate monitor, waterproof
Cons: poor battery life, have to disable features to last a day, cannot charge the watch without the screen on
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