Why You Can Trust CNET Mobvoi's New TicWatch Pro 5 Arrives With Wear OS 3, a New Chip and More
It's the first smartwatch to use the Snapdragon W5 Plus Gen 1 platform.
Mobvoi, the company behind the popular line of TicWatch smartwatches, on Wednesday launched its latest watch, the TicWatch Pro 5. It runs on Google's Wear OS 3 software and is powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon W5 Plus Gen 1 chip, which should increase speed and overall performance. A new version of the Mobvoi health app will launch alongside the watch, which costs $350 and is available now.
In addition to the new chip, the TicWatch Pro 5 includes a number of other features like a rotating crown for navigating the watch's interface and a smarter new backlight that should allow trail runners and night joggers to view the screen without illuminating their surroundings. There's also a one-tap measurement feature to provide access to five different health metrics instantly, like heart rate, blood oxygen and more, as well as stress management and advanced sleep tracking.
On the fitness side, there's continuous heart-rate monitoring, a built-in barometer, improved VO2 Max tracking and tools to help you understand the proper recovery time required after your workouts. There are over 100 different workout modes, which should make it easy to match what the watch tracks to the activity you're doing. With the redesigned app, Mobvoi is putting more focus on the health-tracking aspects of the watch to better compete with companies like Samsung, Apple and Oura.
Mobvoi has historically focused more on lower-cost, entry-level models, which the company has had some success with. It's also one of the only "smaller" companies that's producing Wear OS watches. While this watch will launch with Wear OS 3, the most current version available today, it's worth noting that Google just announced Wear OS 4 during its developer conference. When asked about that next operating system, Mobvoi did not have any announcements but said the company is working with Google on future Wear OS updates.
Still, Mobvoi's overall focus on health, with both its new app and the TicWatch Pro 5's features, further show that fitness is the major area of focus for today's wearables.