Motorola is adding more muscle to its smartwatch lineup. Unveiled at CES 2026, the new Moto Watch combines a polished design with Polar-backed health tracking, bringing the insights of a sports watch to to a smartwatch that looks just as much at home in the gym as it does at the office.
Instead of going all-in on a rugged sports-watch look, the Moto Watch is designed to feel like a jack of all trades, with advanced features like dual-band GPS and a battery life that lasts over a week, putting other flagships to shame.
But the Moto Watch isn’t exactly trying to go head to head with Android smartwatches either. Like recent Motorola watches, the Moto Watch doesn’t run Google’s Wear OS. Instead it relies on Motorola’s own software, with support limited to Android phones. That puts it closer in spirit to brands like Amazfit or Withings, carving out its own lane between fitness-focused wearables and full-fledged smartwatches.
The Polar partnership brings health clout
One of the biggest curveballs to come from the announcement is Motorola’s partnership with Polar, a veteran in the fitness world. Polar is known for its highly accurate heart-rate chest straps used by professional and serious athletes, as well as dedicated sports watches that compete more directly with Garmin than mainstream smartwatches.
By teaming up with Polar, Motorola is making it clear that it’s serious about health tracking and the partnership instantly brings credibility and expertise from a trusted name in the space. Motorola says the watch supports more nuanced fitness insights such as heart-rate variability, sleep stages and recovery. It’ll also support dual-frequency GPS for more accurate location tracking, a feature typically reserved for dedicated sport watches or higher-end models like the Apple Watch Ultra 3, the Pixel Watch 4 and newer Galaxy Watches.
Easy on the eyes, heavy on the battery life
The Moto Watch looks like a blend of rugged sportwatch and polished analogue, and that’s no accident. Motorola designed it to be sleek yet tough, built to transition seamlessly from sweaty gym sessions to formal evening wear.
It has an aluminum frame, stainless steel crown and a 47mm (1.43-inch) round OLED display covered in Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3. The watchbands are meant to be interchangeable, with a stainless steel, silicone and leather-like options. It’s also compatible with third-party watchbands. The watch has an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance, which means it can be submerged under a meter of water for 30 minutes.
Battery life is another major selling point for Motorola. The company says the Moto Watch can last up to 13 days on a charge in raise-to-wake mode, or up to seven days with the always-on display enabled. If those claims hold up, the Moto Watch would leave most Android smartwatches from Samsung and Google trailing behind with their typical two-day battery life. Motorola also says the Moto Watch supports fast charging, adding roughly a day’s worth of charge in just 5 minutes.
Part of a broader Motorola ecosystem
Rather than positioning the Moto Watch as a standalone product, Motorola repeatedly framed it as part of its expanding Moto Things ecosystem. The watch integrates with Smart Connect, Motorola’s app for managing experiences across phones, tablets, and accessories.
Motorola also teased future alignment with its upcoming Qira AI platform, designed to work across Lenovo PCs, Motorola phones, tablets, and wearables. While there was no mention of any watch-specific AI features, Motorola says future updates could allow notifications, reminders and tasks to flow more seamlessly between devices.
Too soon to reach a verdict
Time will tell how the Moto Watch holds up in real-world testing. Motorola hasn’t revealed any details on pricing or availability yet, but we’ll update this story once we learn more and get some hands-on time with the watch.
For now, the Moto Watch offers a glimpse of Motorola’s vision for wearables, aiming to build an ecosystem of products that work seamlessly together. It’s not trying to pick up where it left off with its Moto 360 smartwatch (discontinued in 2019), but rather carve out a new lifestyle-focused niche backed by credible fitness tracking and long battery life.
For more announcements and first looks ahead of CES 2026, check out CNET’s full CES coverage.
