The CMF (by Nothing), Watch Pro.
A Review:
Hello, so I have had the Watch Pro on my wrist since the London Drop on Saturday 30th September 2023. Today officially marks my fourteenth day with the product. As it has been two weeks, I now feel ready to share my thoughts…
Form Factor:
As we have all seen from images shared by Nothing and from others who have been fortunate to obtain the Watch Pro so far, it is a large squared off watch that is entering the smart watch space. As a size, I feel like this is on the limit for my wrists, any larger and the body of the watch would spill over my arm and just look clunky. However, the size doesn’t make it heavy, nor does this watch feel bulky or awkward in my day to day.
As part of my work, I often find my hands needing to squeeze into tight gaps, and the watch hasn’t hampered any of this. Neither has the watch sustained any damage from these tasks, I only have two little dings on the bottom of the metal frame, which are only noticeable if you are looking for them. The screen is excellent in dark and light scenarios and, despite a large bezel, it is a great screen for reading the time, notifications and tracking your activities.
Features:
As previously mentioned, the smartwatch comes with a host of features for tracking fitness. The Heart Rate monitor seems to be accurate enough and having the option for 24/7 monitoring is a plus. Along with blood oxygen and in-built GPS, the watch is equipped for solo fitness workouts. All of these fitness trackers also apply themselves to be used in the sleep tracking feature, also.
The screen has 5 levels of brightness, which help for the brightest of days, and it also helps for those early mornings where the sun hasn’t quite risen. Either way, my retinas are approving of the screen and its brightness levels. The watch also allows for notifications, from a large variety of apps (except GMail, which is a rather large omission?) and you can route calls from your phone via Bluetooth to the watch. If anyone wished to live out their spy thriller dreams, whilst everyone else around can listen into your conversation…
Other features are a suite of watch faces, including one customisable watch face and a rather good battery life. Which is helped by the Software teams excellent application of putting the NothingOS touch onto this new form factor for the company.
The Good:
So, here we go, what does the watch do well? Well…a lot of things actually! Considering its rather cheap price tag at £69 (British Sterling)! Let’s start with the most impressive, the battery life! In my extended battery test, I took the watch off the charger at 100% on Thursday 5th October @ 10:12 AM, skip ahead 8.5 days later and I placed it back onto the charger at 16% on Saturday 14th October @ 00:12 AM. Arguably I could have lasted another day, but I wasn’t quite prepared to take the chances, so this is something I shall revisit in the future, going from 100% to 0% and seeing how long I can squeeze out of the cells.
For this battery test I utilised the following features: My watch face is the custom variant, with a deep black background and purple coloured font for the time and date, in a 24hr format, of course! I do not opt for an Always On Display, but I had wrist raise functions enabled outside of my Do Not Disturb timer, which fell from 22:00 to 09:00 daily. I had 24/7 heart rate monitoring, GPS was always available, sleep tracking was on and my watch and phone were almost always paired together. This battery test also came during a long haul flight from the UK to Qatar for the most recent F1 Grand Prix out there in Lusail.
For the most part, the heart rate and sleep tracking seem to be accurate. That being said, I have had no control for these measurements, but the heart rates measured seem to mimic that of what my old Smart Watch said. Then the sleep tracking is accurate for when I believe myself to have gone to bed and when the alarm has gone off in the morning. Also, the watch says I am not overly stressed, which has to be a good thing, right?!
The wrist raise to wake has been responsive and has activated when required, the button is clicky and the screen is also responsive and the UI/UX is zippy and hasn’t slowed or lagged at any point. The suite of fitness activities have also been varied and useful, despite myself not using them frequently. The only tracked workouts I have done have been some jovial games of volleyball at work, hardly a marathon, but enough to raise the heart rate a little bit!
Finally, the haptics are strong, yet not overpowering, with myself having them set to “Normal”, not “Strong”. The included 22mm silicone strap is nice and fitting with the overall package and having the strap tucked away under itself helps keep everything together.
The Bad and Desired:
These are mainly items I have found I have missed since switching from a WearOS watch, in the TicWatch Pro 3, to the CMF Watch Pro. Which is to be expected with this newer watch not having the capabilities of WatchOS. So I shall claim these as “Desired” features.
However, before all of that, my biggest gripe is the connectivity between Watch and Phone. Prior to the latest update, which has improved the situation, I found myself needing to check that my Bluetooth still had the Watch Pro as “Connected” and I had to keep re-launching the CMF Watch app to ensure the two were talking. But, as previously mentioned, the recent update has improved this massively, with the need to do the before mentioned steps of re-connecting, drastically reduced. So bravo to the team for this update!
Then, the need for an internet connection, just to re-establish this link between watch and phone is a real pain when I was flying through timezones and couldn’t change my watch time to match my new location’s local timezone! A recipe for much confusion and time-related anxiety!
Secondly, my step tracking seems to be inaccurate. I have my phone also tracking my steps and there always seem to be a disparity of around 3000/4000 steps per day. With my watch always showing the lower number, which is a shock, especially since my phone isn’t always in my pocket for certain walks around work. Not sure if this is something that can be fine-tuned via software updates, or if my model just doesn’t track the movement of my steps as well?
Whilst the screen is great and the brightness allows for easily readable information outdoors in bright sunlight, the lack of auto-brightness is a shame. To have this sensor omitted from the product takes away from some of the joy of just glancing at information easily. Instead, I have to prepare my watch for upcoming scenarios. Right, I am going outside, don’t forget to turn the brightness up! This is equally annoying with my job, which mostly revolves around being a dark room constantly…if I have forgotten to turn the brightness down…well RIP to my eyes!
Other desired features are the ability to connect the watch to a WiFi network, so I do not need to be tethered to my phone all of the time, as well as having the ability to use the full size of the screen to read notifications. Only having half of the text of a notification available to me is a bummer, and to have it due to half the screen not being used, feels like a waste.
Not sure how feasible features such as Notification Actioning could be? - In terms of replying to messages with pre-determined quick responses, or when I clear a notification on my watch it clears from my phone or vica verca?
Overall, these above desired changes are all WatchOS features I have enjoyed in the past…but I do not wish for them to come at the detriment of the excellent battery life a bespoke OS gives the watch. It is a tough trade off, but if the team are able to implement these without WatchOS, then hats off to them!
In Summary:
The CMF Watch Pro is a stunning watch. It is a great first attempt in the wearable space by Nothing. The price is super competitive and you get everything you pay for and more in this smart watch.
They say never buy a product based on what software additions are promised to you, but I know that with “Nothing”'s track record, the improvements that shall come to this watch after its already stellar and stable launch, shall make your purchase even more worth while. I highly recommend the product!
I have had the Dark Grey Watch Pro for two weeks already and I shall be keeping it on my wrist for many more weeks to come! Thanks to the CMF and Nothing teams, very excited for what comes next!
