Motorola showed up to CES with a twin set of practicality: a round, long‑lasting smartwatch and a tracking tag that you can mostly forget about. Neither device is trying to win an awards show for bells and whistles. Instead, both lean hard into battery life, durable hardware, and partnerships that borrow expertise from specialists.
Big battery, different tradeoffs
The headline grabber is the new Moto Watch. Motorola claims up to 13 days of battery life from the 47mm circular model, and about seven days if you insist on using its always‑on OLED. That kind of endurance positions the watch more like a dedicated fitness device than a daily charging companion — and it’s the same play that separates it from the one‑day norm on high‑end smartwatches.
Under the hood the watch is not a Wear OS device. Motorola built a lean, watch‑first operating system that borrows familiar navigation cues — tiles, quick settings and a compact app grid — without the Google Play Store ecosystem. That choice helps explain how Motorola squeezes so much runtime out of the hardware, but it also means you won’t get third‑party Wear OS apps or tight Gemini voice integration.
The hardware reads sporty and sensible: a 47mm aluminum case with a stainless crown, IP68 water and dust resistance, Gorilla Glass 3, and support for 22mm bands. There’s a mic and speaker for calls, and Motorola says the software is open source — a nod to developers and tinkerers who like to poke under the hood.
Polar inside: fitness that leans scientific
Rather than build its own physiology stack, Motorola struck a long‑term partnership with Polar to supply the watch’s health and fitness algorithms. Polar brings decades of sports science to the table — dual‑frequency GPS for more accurate outdoors tracking, robust heart‑rate analytics and sleep and recovery insights like Nightly Recharge‑style recommendations.
That’s a smart move if Motorola wants the watch to appeal to runners and cyclists who want reliable metrics without paying premium prices for a Polar Vantage. Polar benefits too: licensing its software to a mainstream brand widens access to features that were previously trapped behind higher price tags.
A tracker you’ll almost never change the battery on
The Moto Tag 2 looks modest but solves a real annoyance: battery lifespan. Motorola says the second‑gen tag can run for more than 500 days on a single cell — nearly a year and a half — thanks to efficiency gains over the first model. For perspective, that’s a noticeable improvement over the one‑year promise of many competing tags.
The Tag 2 plugs into Google’s Find network for locating lost items and adds UWB sensing for precise, directional locating when you’re nearby. Motorola also upgraded durability to IP68 and kept the little button that can make your phone ring or act as a shutter release for the camera — a surprisingly handy double duty.
Motorola hasn’t announced final pricing for either device. The Moto Watch is slated to go on sale January 22 in the US; the Tag 2 will arrive in North America "in the coming months," according to the company.
Why these choices matter
Motorola’s approach is pragmatic: instead of chasing the fully featured smartwatch throne occupied by the Apple Watch and Pixel Watch, it’s building devices that do a few important things well. Long battery life, accurate fitness tracking (thanks to Polar), and useful location tools (UWB + Google's network) can be a better fit for many buyers than an app‑rich platform they’ll charge nightly.
That strategy also reflects a broader Motorola hardware push. The company hasn’t limited its efforts to wearables — recent phones like the Motorola Edge 70 and the refreshed midrange Moto G57 show the brand trying to cover multiple price tiers while emphasizing battery and durability.
How they stack up to familiar names
If you’re sizing these up against mainstream options, remember what you trade for endurance. A Moto Watch that lasts nearly two weeks won’t run the Play Store, and it won’t have the same third‑party ecosystem as an Apple Watch or a Wear OS flagship. If you care about apps, payments and an app‑rich wrist experience, a Apple Watch will still be the safer bet. But if you want multi‑day use and Polar‑grade fitness features without the premium sticker, Motorola’s new watch looks compelling.
Similarly, the Moto Tag 2’s battery life puts it ahead of many competitors — even the popular AirTag — if you’d rather not swap cells every year. For comparison shopping, check the AirTag if tightly integrated iPhone tracking matters to you: the AirTag remains a simple option for Apple users.
Motorola’s CES play isn’t flashy. It’s deliberate: make devices that solve everyday friction, partner with experts where depth matters, and accept a few tradeoffs to deliver more of what most people actually want—longer runtime and reliable basics. Whether that will sway buyers who crave app ecosystems remains to be seen, but for users fed up with nightly charging, these two products could be exactly what they were waiting for.