TicWatch Pro 5 brings Wear OS 3, rotating crown, 80-hour battery for $349

Ben Schoon | May 24 2023 - 9:00 am PT

Mobvoi is today launching the TicWatch Pro 5, its first Wear OS 3 smartwatch and also the first to run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1. Here’s what you need to know.

Launching today, the TicWatch Pro 5 is a first in many ways for Mobvoi. That starts, of course, with the operating system. As mentioned, this is Mobvoi’s first smartwatch running on top of Wear OS 3, despite the fact that the company has had capable hardware in the wild for over a year now. The updated interface works with Wear OS 3-exclusive apps and is essentially the same thing you’ll find on Google’s Pixel Watch – Mobvoi hasn’t changed much.

Under the hood, this new watch is also running on Qualcomm’s 4nm Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1. It’s the first smartwatch to do so, and it contributes to both solid performance as well as battery life. Mobvoi says this watch will last 80 hours on a charge with its 628 mAh battery – you can also charge that battery quicker, to 65% in just 30 minutes.

Of course, much of that endurance comes from the TicWatch Pro line’s signature trick, a dual-layer display. When using Wear OS, you’ll get a 1.43-inch OLED display that’s sharp at 466×466. But when the display is “off,” a second layer takes over to constantly display the time. And this year, Mobvoi is supporting new features on the “ultra-low-power” mode that can last weeks, as well as adding support for the always-on mode to change the color of the backlight based on your heart rate zone.

Health and fitness are handled by the Mobvoi Health app, which is also now used to pair the TicWatch 5 Pro since the Wear OS app is no longer being used. You’ll find typical stats, such as steps, heart rate, and sleep, as well as workouts. The TicWatch 5 Pro also supports showing your estimated recovery time from activity, automatic workout tracking, and a compass; it also has GPS and a barometer built-in.

The other “first” here is the power button, which finally has a rotating crown. That’s been a standard feature on most Wear OS watches for several years now, but Mobvoi has long skipped it. The entire watch is also 5ATM water resistant and MIL-STD-810H rated for durability. It has an aluminum case that measures roughly 48mm, and the watch weighs 44.35g.

The TicWatch Pro 5 has been a long-awaited option for Wear OS users and comes in at the same price as Google’s Pixel Watch – $349. Orders are open today from Mobvoi.com and Amazon.

Stay tuned for our full TicWatch 5 Pro review, coming up later this week.