At CES, Motorola announced its latest smartwatch, the Moto Watch. According to Motorola, the Android watch offers up to 13 days of battery life, alongside Polar-powered health tracking, open-source software, and dual-frequency GPS — a combination that helps set it apart from Apple’s and Google’s flagship wearables.
Battery life is easily its most notable feature. Motorola says the 47mm watch can last up to 13 days on a single charge, or around seven days with the always-on OLED display enabled. If those claims hold up, it would put the Moto Watch well ahead of rivals like the Apple Watch Series 11, Google Pixel Watch 4, and even Fitbit’s Charge 6, which typically last a day or two with always-on displays turned on.
Motorola is also taking a different approach to health and fitness by partnering with Polar, the company behind the world’s first wireless heart rate monitor. Through Polar, the Moto Watch offers dual-frequency GPS, which should result in more accurate location and distance tracking outdoors — a feature more commonly found on sport-focused watches. While Google recently added it to the Pixel Watch 4, it’s still missing from the Apple Watch Series 11.
On the tracking front, the Moto Watch covers familiar fitness basics like steps, distance, continuous heart rate, and sleep tracking, while adding extra context around those metrics. Features like Nightly Recharge look at how your body handled stress overnight and suggest whether you should take it easy the next day or push harder. Activity Score shows how intense or effective a workout was compared to your goals, while Smart Calories break down how much energy you burned during workouts and across the day — including the types of energy your body relied on. You also get wellness tools like hydration and medication reminders.
Software is another key differentiator. Unlike most Android-compatible smartwatches, the Moto Watch doesn’t run Wear OS. Instead, it relies on open-source software, though Motorola hasn’t yet shared many details about what that experience looks like in practice.
Durability is another area where the Moto Watch stands out: it carries an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance, putting it on par with the Pixel Watch 4 and giving it an edge over the Apple Watch Series 11 for outdoor use.
The Moto Watch also offers all the smartwatch essentials. You can take calls directly from your wrist thanks to a built-in microphone and speaker, receive notifications over Bluetooth, and store music offline.
The wearable is set to arrive on January 22nd. Motorola hasn’t shared pricing yet, but we’ve reached out and will update when we hear more.
Correction, January 6th: An earlier version of this story misstated that this is Motorola’s first smartwatch. It is its latest smartwatch, not first.
