TicWatch has always been a staple in the market of Wear OS smartwatches, and the new Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS smartwatch continues to offer flagship features at an affordable price. As of Feb 2022, the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra still comes with Wear OS 2.26, despite Wear OS 3 being available. However, TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra is expected to be updated with the new Wear OS 3 in the coming months. The TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra retails for S$499.
Unboxing
In the box, you will receieve the following items:
- TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra smartwatch
- USB magnetic contact charger
- Quick guide
Build quality and design
At first glance, the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra is designed to be rugged smartwatch. The smartwatch is 12.3mm thick and wrapped inn a 47mm stainless steel case, giving it a total weight of 41 grams, putting it under the chunky smartwatch category. And it is especially this tough build quality the allows the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra to have a Military Standard 810G certification. The smartwatch is also rated at IP68 water and dust resistance which makes it suitable for use for any workouts.
The design of the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra features a chronograph ring of 5-min increments, giving it more sporty look. There is a slight bezel that rounds the OLED display, but I find it to be rather minimal especially when you compare it to that of a Suunto 7. There are two buttons on the right side of the smartwatch. The top button opens Wear OS’ app drawer, while the bottom button brings up Mobvoi’s TicExercise app.
The strap used on the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra is made from fluoro rubber, and it feels comfortable on the skin. The 22mm rubber strap is soft and offers a smooth contact on my skin. It is not say as flexible as the Sport Band on the Apple Watch but it doesn’t overly structured. I like how the loop has a little knob to lock into the last hole of the strap so that the strap does not dislodge easily.
Screen
TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra features a 1.4-inch AMOLED screen with resolution of 454 x 454 pixels, and is protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass. A unique feature of the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra is that apart from its AMOLED display, there is also a FSTN display which can be used as an option for always-on display if you want to preserve battery life. The FSTN always-on screen still displays useful stats like step count, battery level, and second counter. You can change the backlight colour (via Essential Mode app) of the FSTN display if you don’t like the default grey.
If you choose to use the always-on display of the AMOLED screen, it will be a minimal version of your watch face. Generally, the display gets plenty bright and easily usable in daylight. By default, the “tilt-to-wake” functionality is disabled. This means that the screen will remain its always-on display mode unless you tap to wake it. I found that I sometimes need to tap twice for the screen to wake.
Wear OS and performance
As aforementioned, it is a pity that the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra still comes loaded with Wear OS 2.26 and not the new Wear OS 3. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 4100 chipset in the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra is certainly capable of running Wear OS, but this is unfortunately something that is out of Mobvoi’s control with Google’s plans.
Having said that, while waiting for the Wear OS 3 update to drop, you are still able to enjoy Wear OS features of getting notifications, using Google Pay, and downloading other apps on the Play Store. For example, Spotify on the Play Store allows offline downloads of selected playlist so you can simply bring your earbuds with you when going for a run.
User experience of the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra is positive. Despite considerable older software, the UI navigation remains smooth and apps launch fast. Wear OS also brings about Google Fit’s suite of health and fitness apps, but we will be looking at the the Tic-series of apps made by Mobvoi in this review. To get the best use of TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra, you’d have to download two apps when setting up the smartwatch – (1) Wear OS for basic settings, and (2) Mobvoi for in-depth look into health and fitness data.
Mobvoi app
You can use the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra without installing the Mobvoi app on your phone, but you’d be missing out on the fitness and health tracking that the Mobvoi offers. Right on the home screen of the app you will find a dashboard page with quick view on all the key health & fitness metrics. You can re-arrange the tabs in any way that you like.
The ‘Activity’ tab is very similar in concept to Apple’s Fitness app, where by it categories your daily activities into three – (1) Active Hours [ie. Stand], (2) Exercise, and (3) Steps [ie. Move]. You can adjust the goals in the settings of the app.
Fitness and health tracking
TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra is equipped with many sensors such as an accelerometer, gyro Sensor, HD PPG heart rate sensor, SpO2 sensor, low latency off-body sensor, and barometer. These sensors are used to measure all sorts of data in Mobvoi’s suite of apps such as “TicExercise”, “TicPulse”, “TicOxygen”, and “TicSleep”.
TicExercise
There are a wide variety of exercises that the TicExercise app can track. I mainly tested the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra‘s tracking with workouts that involves GPS such as an outdoor run. When staring an outdoor run, TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra can sometimes take a while to lock on to a GPS position. This can be a slight annoyance as you are ready to run but yet need to stand around waiting for the GPS to lock on.
I did a leisure 2.4km run on my usual route to test out the GPS and heart rate measurement of the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra. I compared the results of the testing with my Apple Watch Series 6. GPS on the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra seemed a little off, as it recorded a total distance of 2.34km compared to my expected 2.4km on my Apple Watch. Heart rate measurement on the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra provided very similar results to what the Apple Watch recorded, though the average heart rate figure seemed to be on the low side after taking a look at the in-depth stats in the app.
When you end the run on the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra, you see can see a quick summary of the key statistics of the run as shown below:
If you want more in-depth data, you can review them in the Mobvoi app are shown below:
vs HeartWatch’s heart rate recordings on Apple Watch
TicPulse – Active heart rate monitoring
TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra will be able to do 24-hours heart monitoring if you enable that setting. Once you do that, you can get an insightful chart of your heart rate as shown below. The heart rate measurements are pretty close to what was captured on the Apple Watch Series 6. Note that gaps at the end was because I forgot to wear the watch after my shower.
TicSleep – Sleep tracking
Like many other sleep tracking app, the Mobvoi app helps to segment the sleep into the 4 key stages of sleep – (1) Awake, (2) REM, (3) Light, and (4) Deep sleep. Apart from heart rate, blood oxygen is also tracked. I found the categorization of the sleep stages to be close enough to AutoSleep app’s performance, and the recognition of the duration of sleep is accurate as well. Of course, this is still a comparison with just an Apple Watch which will not be as accurate compared to an actual sleep tracker.
vs AutoSleep’s sleep tracking on Apple Watch
TicOxygen – Blood oxygen monitoring (SpO2)
SpO2 tracking is considered a premium feature which is only available on premium smartwatches, so it is good to see it on the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra. Unfortunately, I can’t test for sure the accuracy of the SpO2 on a all-day measurement basis vs an actual pulse oximeter.
TicZen – Physical & Mental wellness monitoring
Again, there is another feature by TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra that is hard to say for sure if it is accurate or not, but it might be a useful insight to have. This feature is housed in TicZen, which measures your physical and mental wellness as your day progresses. It uses the data and computes a stress level. I would take the data with a pinch of salt as it does seem a little weird that I am encountering high stress during the hours I am resting. Though the spike before noon did probably accurately capture the high stress when I was competitively gaming.
Battery life
Mobvoi claims the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra‘s 577mAh battery can last up to 72 hours in smart mode and 45 days in Essential mode. I am more interested in testing the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra in real-world active use where I turn on continuous tracking of all health features but keep the always-on display off as I can rely on the FSTN display.
In my time of testing, it took about 2 full days before the battery level started to hit 20%. This is rather impressive for a Wear OS smartwatch as they are typically known to have rather short battery life compared to the likes Garmin for example.
Conclusion
At this time of writing, the lack of Wear OS 3 on the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra does tarnish the overall glamour of the smartwatch, but the good news is that it will get updated soon in 2022. The fitness tracking may not be its strength but its durability and comfort does make up for it to be a great everyday smartwatch. Also, the wide array sensors and the surprisingly long battery life for a Wear OS smartwatch helps to make that S$499 well worth your money.