The OnePlus Watch gets an always-on display — at the cost of half its battery life

OnePlus has released its latest update for the OnePlus Watch, adding its promised always-on display mode that was absent on the device when it first launched in April. But being able to always see the time on OnePlus’ smartwatch comes at a big cost, with the company cautioning that the new mode will halve the expected battery life when using it. 

The release of the always-on display was surprisingly swift for OnePlus, which announced that it planned to add the feature just two weeks ago. The company says in a blog post that the B.48 update that adds the new feature will arrive for a “small percentage” of users first, with wider rollout over the coming days. 

In addition to enabling the always-on display, the B.48 update also adds the option to use the OnePlus Watch as a remote camera button, a new “Marathon” workout mode, and other improvements, optimizations, and bug fixes.

While the new always-on display option does fix one of the OnePlus Watch’s glaring absences, the fact that it comes with such a big hit in battery life makes it a tougher trade-off for users (especially given that battery life was one of the watch’s highlights.) 

The full OnePlus Watch B.48 update changelog is below:

Add Always-on Display dial*

Remote Control Camera function

Add Marathon workout

Improvements

Optimize system UI details

Fix known issues and improve system stability.

*After Always-on Display dial is turned on, the screen remains constantly on. This will lead to increased power consumption. Battery life will be reduced by about half.