Just Cool Tech: TicWatch Pro 5

Christopher Coke Updated: Jul 24, 2023 11:25 PM Posted: Jul 24, 2023 11:18 PM ET Category: Hardware 0

Welcome back to Just Cool Tech, our column dedicated to neat and exciting tech finds outside the world of gaming. We have some neat features coming this summer, and we’re kicking things off with the TicWatch Pro 5 from Mobvoi. It’s a smartwatch that offers true, multi-day battery life and will leave you wondering why its competitors are so far behind. Add to that accurate health and location tracking, a new and much-requested digital crown control, a brand new Snapdragon processor, and a suite of new features, and you have a compelling smartwatch that can genuinely enhance your daily life.

One of the nice parts about Android is its open ecosystem. There are no singular products; you’re not limited to one particular type of phone or, in this case, smartwatch. Though there are major players, like the Pixel Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch, there’s a wide array of products to choose from. And, as I’ve discovered over the last several years, Mobvoi is a brand worth paying close attention to.

The TicWatch Pro 5 is the company’s new flagship smartwatch, complete with a brand new Snapdragon W5+ processor, double the memory and four times the storage of its predecessor, the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS at 2GB and 32GB respectively. It also features reworked controls, including a new digital crown that can be used for scrolling, navigation, and selection by clicking. A second button just above adds secondary functions and power controls.

The screen is slightly larger at 1.43 inches and a hair higher resolution at 466x466 pixels. It’s AMOLED for deep blacks and is covered with scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass. It’s bright enough to use in direct sunlight and can look quite vibrant.

One of its most defining features is its dual-layer display. When rotated and tapped, the normal AMOLED display is activated, but when you’re not using its smart features, the watch reverts to a second ultra low power display similar to a traditional digital watch. Health details, such as step count and heart rate are still visible, and the AMOLED display can be raised with a simple tap. The watch is also designed to enter Smart Essential Mode at night, further reducing battery draw.

This design allows for dramatic power savings and lends the TicWatch Pro 5 and tremendously long battery life. Mobvoi rates its 628mAh battery as lasting 80 hours depending on usage. If you’re making heavy use of the AMOLED screen, you’ll find it lasts closer to two days, but three days is surprisingly attainable with normal usage. As I’ve lived with the watch for the last couple of weeks, using it for notifications, workouts, health tracking, and checking the weather, I typically find there’s even battery left at the end of the third day. I was not tracking by hour, mind you, but instead using the watch like a normal consumer and it’s very impressive.

If you do happen to run short, it supports fast charging. Just 30 minutes on the charger restores 60% of its battery. Unfortunately, Mobvoi has carried through its proprietary POGO pin charger, so a standard USB Type-C cable won’t work. The included cable is magnetic and pulls right into place, so it works well, but I would have preferred something standard.

The watch offers all of the usual health and exercise tracking present on its past models, but has made gains with the accuracy of its tracking. The TicExercise app offers tracking for a wide range of exercises and TicHealth provides active goal-setting and monitoring. The watch intelligently picks up on exercise and will begin a timer and track your elevated heart rate. It also supports location tracking with a built-in GPS, as well as support for GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and Beidou satellite systems for accurate tracking.

For health tracking, it’s able to assess a number of metrics and display them quickly and easily. It can determine your heart rate, blood oxygen, respiratory rate, and current stress level. It’s also able to give you an indicator of your current heart health status and can even warn you of an irregular heartbeat that can indicate arrhythmias. Mobvoi is careful to caveat that its watch isn’t intended to diagnose anything but it can provide useful insight that could lead you to visiting your healthcare provider.

There are a couple of new features with health monitoring, also. When the efficient screen is active, an RGB backlight illuminates it to indicate your current heart rate, telling you at a glance your BPM range. When using the TicExercise app, it now also displays a recovery timer, to provide you with an idea of how long you should rest and recuperate.

The watch also offers sleep tracking, including a new subscription service for advanced tracking that comes with 12 months free (though I didn’t find this worth the added cost, personally). The free monitoring is useful enough on its own, however, using motion to determine how long you spend in each sleep stage. It’s insightful.

When it comes to connectivity, it supports WiFi and Bluetooth 5.2. It’s able to connect to the Play Store to download apps and watch faces, and uses its connectivity to receive notifications from your phone. When you need to reply, there’s a built-in microphone and speaker to take calls from your wrist. The speaker is very thin, however, so I only used it in a pinch.

The watch itself is built like a tank, though doesn’t offer any options for size, color, or the wristband it comes with. It’s 50.1 x 48.0 x 12.2mm and weighs just over 44 grams. The band is silicone and thicker than last generation at 24mm. I tend not to prefer silicone as it wears over time but it’s comfortable enough and isn’t prone to actual failure. It’s US-MIL-STD 810H certified, so resistant to rain, sand, ice, droppage, and vibration, and is water resistant up to 5 atmospheres, so you can take it when you swim.

Visually, the TicWatch Pro 5 is a step up from the Pro 3 Ultra GPS. The design is cleaner and feels better to use. I like that Mobvoi has simplified the design down to a single knob and low profile button. The ring is now simply textured instead of featuring labeled minutes — a feature that for digital watch faces serves no purpose. It’s sleek, though the lack of options means that you’re stuck with this design, even if you’d prefer something smaller or more colorful.

For years, I used an analog watch. Smartwatches to me seemed superfluous. But the TicWatch series converted me and I can’t leave the house without one on my wrist. The TicWatch Pro 5 now calls my arm home, and I can’t see myself ever going back to a normal watch again.

Starting with the basics, notifications and smart features. While it seems obvious, the biggest benefits are the most basic. When a notification comes in, I don’t have to get out my phone to check it. If it’s a news headline, an email, or a text message, I can simply look at my watch and know exactly what it was. If it’s pressing, I can even respond from the watch using the voice-to-text that is surprisingly and reliable in its accuracy.

Yes, yes, any smartwatch can do this. You’re right, but it doesn’t change how nice it is or how practically useful. There are times when looking at your phone is inappropriate but no one thinks twice if you check your watch. Even a covert few taps to read beyond a headline isn’t likely to raise eyebrows. Or while driving. Texting behind the wheel is dangerous. Tapping a watchface twice and dictating a message is much safer and more convenient.

Where the TicWatch Pro 5 comes in is with how snappy and reliable all of this is. There is no lag or delay, no unexpected behavior or disconnects, no futzing around at all. The updated hardware excels beyond what’s necessary to accomplish anything you’d care to do on a smartwatch. It just works and it works very well.

It’s also very useful to be able to set a watch face that provides the information you’re interested in at a glance. Looking for the weather? There’s a watch face for that. Want to check the stock market? There’s one for that too. Want that same information displayed as a Pip-Boy from Fallout? There’s definitely one for that too.

And there are apps for just about anything you would like too, and the most common, like your calendar and email, automatically sync with your phone. After setting it up for the first time, it loaded up my current daily task list and created a custom tile for it.

Going beyond these basics, I’ve found the health features to be very useful and motivating to continue my new workout routine. The watch can be set to monitor when TicHealth is opened or to periodically take readings 24-hours a day (at the expense of some battery life). The results are then plotted and graphed. You can set goals and get simple visuals to tell you how close you are to meeting them, ala the Apple Watch.

Make no mistake: the TicWatch Pro 5 provides a wider array of functions than I can practically talk about here, but what you’re really paying for is how well-integrated they all are (and build quality, of course). The features come together naturally and, as I find myself repeating, reliably. It just works.

But that doesn’t mean it's perfect. There’s no smart assistant support even now, well after launch, which is a relatively shocking omission. There’s also no word on whether it will support Wear OS 4 and Mobvoi doesn’t have a great track record with updating its devices in a timely manner. It’s also oddly segmented with lots of apps that really feel like they should be consolidated. Why is TicExercise separate from TicHealth? TicPulse, TicZen, TicBreathe? These could all be house under TicHealth and simplified.

Despite the few shortcomings it does have and the limited color and size choices, the TicWatch Pro 5 is an excellent smartwatch. It’s a noticeable step forward from the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS and has genuinely improved my daily life in a way few pieces of tech do. It’s pricey at $349, so you may want to wait to catch it on sale, but with its outstanding battery life, health features, plentiful sensors, smart functions, sleek looks, and stellar build quality, it’s frankly excellent.

The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes. Some articles may contain affiliate links and purchases made through this will result in a small commission for the site. Commissions are not directed to the author or related to compensation in any way.

Chris cut his teeth on MMOs in the late 90s with text-based MUDs. He’s written about video games for many different sites but has made MMORPG his home since 2013. Today, he acts as Hardware and Technology Editor, lead tech reviewer, and continues to love and write about games every chance he gets. Follow him on Twitter: @GameByNight