Motorola Moto 360 Sport review: A fitness smartwatch that’s fatally flawed

Most smartwatch manufacturers have realised by now that it’s not enough for their wearables to simply be smart. They also have to look great or offer killer extra features in order to capture the imagination and persuade consumers to part with their cash. The Motorola Moto 360 Sport falls into the latter camp: launched alongside the Moto 360 2 at the IFA technology show in September 2015, it’s an Android Wear smartwatch fitted with extra, fitness-focused features.

That shouldn’t preclude good looks, but in this case, sadly, it does. As with most sporty wearables, Motorola has gone for the silicone rubber look and, while this seems to make sense from a practical point of view, it doesn’t make for the most attractive device.

The black strap on our review sample quickly picked up unsightly dust and grime, and it can’t be replaced either, so make sure you’re happy with the look before you lay down your £219. The one positive about the design is that it’s considerably better-looking than the similarly sports-themed Sony Smartwatch 3, but that’s not saying much.

Another small disappointment is that, despite the rugged look, the Moto 360 Sport is no more water-resistant than most smartwatches. It’s rated to IP67, meaning it can be submerged in up to a metre of water for up to 30 minutes. However, while this is good enough that you don’t need to worry about leaving it on forgetfully when doing the washing up, it isn’t good enough for swimming.

Motorola Moto 360 Sport vs Moto 360 2: What’s the difference?

That’s surprising, but if you don’t need a tracker for watersports, the Moto 360 would appear to be well-enough equipped. Like many other Android Wear watches, it has an optical heart rate monitor. The difference here, though, is that this one can provide continuous pulse tracking during exercise.

The next difference is built-in GPS, which means the watch can track your pace and distance accurately without you having to take your smartphone out on your run.

The final difference is that the Moto 360 employs transflective screen technology, instead of IPS or AMOLED like most other smartwatches. This is similar to the technology used by Sony in its SmartWatch 3, and operates in two distinct modes, depending on the situation.

When “Always on” mode is engaged and the screen has powered down, the screen goes into black and white reflective mode. With no backlight, this mode is power-efficient, yet the screen is perfectly readable in most situations – and becomes more readable the brighter conditions get, which is perfect for a wearable that’s used largely outdoors.

Raise and twist your wrist, however, and it goes into normal, full-colour (transmissive) mode. The good news is that, while Sony’s smartwatch display suffered from muddy colours in this mode, Motorola’s “Anylight” screen is a big step forward. It’s much more clear and colourful, its 360 x 325 resolution is as crisp as you like, and Motorola has retained the ambient light sensor, so even in this mode, the screen adapts to your surroundings and is perfectly readable, never blinding or too dim.  

The only negative – and it’s a small one – is that you can see the slightly ragged edges of the screen if you look really close.

Motorola Moto 360 Sport: Fitness tracking and Moto Body app

From a hardware perspective, then – aside from the waterproofing issue – the Moto 360 would appear to have all the tools it needs to deliver a serious sports tracker for the discerning fitness fanatic. It’s disappointing, therefore, that the Moto Body software, watch face and watch app are so limited in scope.

The hub of it all is the 360 Sport’s Sport watch face. This shows the time in the centre, with various fitness metrics ranged around the edges in the form of gauges. Three of these indicate progress towards daily goals – “Heart activity”, steps and calories burned – while the third simply shows seconds.

If this sounds unnecessarily complex, let me assure you it’s anything but. It’s a highly elegant, almost Apple-esque, way of getting a quick overview of your daily activity. The only disappointment is that it’s the only sport-related watch face Motorola supplies with the watch.

Hit the Start button below the time display and up pops the Moto Body running app, which is where all the action happens. This allows you to track your indoor or outdoor activities, and you can choose to exercise “free” or to time/distance/calorie targets. Once you’ve picked your mode and pressed Start, up pops a series of status screens.

The default screen is a dashboard of relevant live exercise data – distance, pace per mile or kilometre and time elapsed. Swiping to the right of this screen takes you to the heart-rate zone display, and right again to the lap display screen.

It’s all very effective and easy to use. The heart-rate monitor seems reasonably accurate and responsive (it records at one-second intervals, so you can see immediately when heart rate goes up and down). I also like the fact that there’s integration with more than simply Google Fit. The Moto Body running app synchronises with Strava, Fitbit, Map My Run, and Under Armour Record.

All of which makes it frustrating that Motorola’s own app is so inflexible. Quite apart from the fact that running is the only explicitly supported activity, that there’s no facility for more advanced training options is plain madness.

Smartwatches are potentially fabulous tools for guided workouts. They have Bluetooth for wireless headphone connectivity and internal storage so apps can store motivational audio snippets, but there’s no option for this here. The Moto Body running app doesn’t even alert you when you move from one heart rate zone to another for basic interval training. It’s a major disappointment.

Motorola Moto 360 Sport review: Performance, battery life and other features

There’s also little special about when it comes to performance and battery life. Although the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor ensures smooth operation, a small 300mAh battery means the Moto 360 Sport’s stamina isn’t very impressive, despite the fancy Anylight display.

The longest I saw it last with all the sensors and Wi-Fi turned on was a little over 24 hours. During this time I went for a short, 18-minute run and used the running app to track a couple of brisk walks during my commute home in the evening. That’s a total of only 27 minutes of continuous tracking – the rest of the time it spent being a standard smartwatch.

Even with GPS and Wi-Fi switched off, though, I was able only to eke out the battery life for a handful of hours more. In short, you’ll be charging this watch overnight, every night. Without fail.

There are other issues, too, the most serious of which was a bug that affected heart-rate accuracy and data synchronisation. Initially, the heart-rate monitor worked perfectly, but after a few days of use it went haywire, indicating my heart rate had fallen after I had climbed five flights of stairs. A factory reset did fix the problem, but this is a concern.

And, while the GPS appeared to be tracking my pace and distance reasonably accurately, once the data was overlaid on the map in the Moto Body smartphone app and Strava, the trace wandered all over the place. It’s clearly not dead-on accurate.

My final niggle is with the design of the strap. Quite apart from the fact that you can’t swap it out in the event of damage, it doesn’t lie flat, meaning you can’t use the Moto 360 Sport’s wireless charging facility with flat third-party charging pads. You have to stick with the cradle included in the box.

Motorola Moto 360 Sport review: Verdict

Clearly, the Motorola Moto 360 isn’t a very good fitness watch – it simply doesn’t give you enough control for that, and neither does it provide any extra motivation or the tools to take you beyond the usual target-based steps and heart-rate activity goals. If you need to take your training to the next level, this is not the wearable for you.

The problem is that it isn’t a great smartwatch in its own right, either. It’s comfortable to wear, runs Android Wear smoothly, and it has a few nice-to-have extra features, but a series of design flaws and poor battery life mean it lags behind in this department as well.

The only good news is that, at £219, it’s not all that expensive – in fact, it’s £10 cheaper than the smaller second-generation Moto 360 2 – but, despite this, I’d still recommend considering other Android Wear smartwatches first, namely the longer-lasting LG Urbane or the LG G Watch R.