Moto 360

Smartwatches should not look like a tiny smartphone tied to your wrist but work as one. It should serve as an extension to your smartphone and deliver important and intelligent information with minimal efforts.

This is what Moto 360 tries to do and to the most part, does it well.

The classical design

Moto 360 is the best designed smartwatch with its old school type circular dial, stainless steel case and the Horween leather strap (which can be changed). It sits nicely on your wrist and does not look like a fancy piece of technology.

There is just one circular power on/off button on the right side and the watch face is protected by Corning Gorilla glass.

The wearable comes with IP67 rating and can withstand the impact of water and dust. It can handle the accidental splashes of water while washing hands or from sweat.

However, the same is not applicable for the leather strap.

The 1.56 inch circular LCD backlit display of Moto 360 offers a 320x290p resolution, which accounts to a pixel count of 205 per inch. I did not find any difficulty using it in day-light conditions, as the viewing angles are good.

However, it is not very crisp as you can make out the individual pixels in icons and texts on a closer look.

 The nifty Android Wear OS

It runs on Android Wear and can be synced with devices running Android 4.3 and up. The watch displays information in the format of Google Now cards. At first, it’s a bit confusing to operate, as everything works on swipes but once you get a hold on it, it’s a joy to interact with the watch.

The latest OTA update (5.0.1) has brought some software enhancements.

The latest OTA update 5.0 brings some new modes.

A swipe down gives you battery indicator, mute on/off, cinema mode which turns off the screen, sunlight mode that sets the screen to full brightness and the settings option.

You can swipe right to dismiss a notification card, left to open it and a tap on the watch face opens the entire list of applications - timer, settings, heart rate, steps, etc.

Some of the new watch faces of Moto 360

The update also brings the new set of watch faces which keeps you busy in tweaking. You can also edit the wallpapers on these watch faces.

I synced Moto 360 with my phone and checked my notifications from Whats app, Gmail, calendar events, text messages on the watch itself.  The option to send a reply by voice commands comes quite handy while you are driving or can't access the phone .

I found the sensors on Moto 360 fairly responsive. Unlike Samsung wearables, which need two to three attempts to check the heart rate, I found the sensor on Moto 360 delivering results on the first go.

Moto 360 turns into a nice bedside clock with its charging dock

Another cool feature is the charging dock within the package. You can rest the watch on the dock which turns it into a nice bedside clock displaying futuristic animated watch face.

The poor battery back-up

With all good things said, the biggest problem is the poor battery back-up. When connected with the phone over Bluetooth, the watch does not last for a single day, which is certainly unacceptable. Even without connecting it with the phone, it does not survive for more than 30 hours.

The recent update has brought some longevity but you still need to plug it twice a day. This is something Motorola needs to take care of in the next installment of their wearable gadgets.