Mobvoi launches a new rugged adventure watch to take on the likes of Apple, Samsung and Garmin

Google is one of the few major smartwatch brands that doesn’t offer a rugged outdoor adventure watch. Apple has the Watch Ultra 2 and Samsung has the Galaxy Watch Ultra. All of the best Garmin watches are designed for outdoor workouts, and the same goes for Coros with devices like the Vertix 2S.

And now smartwatch maker Mobvoi is entering the fray with the launch of the TicWatch Atlas, a stainless steel watch with up to 45 days of battery life and Google’s Wear OS software. And since it’s 2024, it also has plenty of built-in AI features.

But it’s also significantly cheaper than the big tech brands’ outdoor watches, costing $349 / £329 on Amazon, less than half the price of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 ($799). The Atlas also keeps Apple Watch on its toes, with fall detection and new heatmaps that show the places where you’re most active.

This is an interesting addition for athletes and athletes as it allows you to create heatmaps while training outdoors in American football, soccer, tennis, basketball and a handful of other sports. Although Mobvoi says that if you’re wearing the Atlas during contact sports, you’ll need to pack the watch securely to avoid injuring other players.

And as you’d expect from a fitness watch, the Atlas can track your heart rate, monitor your blood oxygen levels, analyze your sleep and assess your Vo2max. Plus, it offers stress management tools like you’ll find on the best Fitbits or the Oura Ring 4.

Although the difference between one of the best sports watches and an outdoor watch is a bit blurry, these rugged adventure watches are generally optimized for long distances outdoors and have longer battery life, even when using GPS location tracking.

In this sense, the new TicWatch Atlas is similar to the Amazfit T-Rex 3, which launched in September 2024 for $279. However, the biggest difference between these two adventure watches is that the Atlas runs Google’s software, while the T-Rex 3 runs Amazfit’s Zepp operating system.

(Image credit: Mobvoi)

Both devices also come with AI-powered features. When testing the T-Rex 3, I didn’t find the AI-generated insights particularly helpful, but the TicWatch Atlas uses the technology to inform its fall detection feature instead.

If the watch detects that the wearer has fallen, it will send an alert to an emergency contact or call 911. It’s a potentially life-saving feature, but it seems a little out of place on a watch so aimed at fitness enthusiasts and athletes.

Still, the TicWatch Atlas is packed with features for its price and could be a cheaper way to get a sturdy, durable, and long-lasting smartwatch for outdoor adventures. It’s just a shame that it ships with Wear OS 4, even though Wear OS 5 has been available since July.

Then again, this could be a blessing in disguise, as Google began rolling out the Wear OS 5 update to Pixel Watch and Pixel Watch 2 owners in late September, but abruptly paused the release when it started killing people’s smartwatches.

According to a post on the Google Pixel Watch help forum, the latest software updates will not be available again until the company resolves these issues. So it might have been the right decision that Mobvoi launched the TicWatch Atlas with older software.

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