It’s time for a new Moto 360

Ben Schoon | Apr 27 2025 - 9:00 am PT

Alongside its new Razr devices this week, Motorola also announced a new smartwatch, and it just serves as a reminder that it’s well past time for a new Moto 360.

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The Moto 360 was the standout fan favorite of the first generation of Google’s Wear OS platform, at the time called Android Wear. That’s despite the fact that, objectively, it was a pretty bad product. The circular display was broken by a “flat tire” cutout, the performance was abysmal, bands were a pain to connect and threatened to physically damage the housing of the watch, and the battery life was terrible. But the futuristic, borderless design was just so enticing that it didn’t matter.

Motorola released a handful of sequels to that original release, but design changes and superior devices from other brands ultimately led to the company throwing in the towel. But hearing “Moto 360” still invokes the giddy joy that looking at that original smartwatch brought, and at least feels worth a look. That’s why many were excited about the 2019/2020 reboot of the Moto 360 even though Motorola wasn’t involved in it. Rather, that device simply licensed the name and logo. It was a good smartwatch, but was held back by a handful of poor choices and the underbaked state of both Wear OS and Qualcomm chips of the time.

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In the time since, Motorola has been releasing its own fitness-focused smartwatches both in the US and internationally, but those products run on an RTOS instead of Wear OS, and the Moto 360 name has been essentially left behind.

It’s time to change that.

With the recent advancements that have come in Wear OS and the underlying chips from Qualcomm and other chipmakers, as well as the resurgence that Motorola’s brand has seen recently, another Moto 360 reboot just makes sense. A premium Wear OS smartwatch that takes that 2014 design and modernizes it with 2025 hardware could be a truly killer product. Everything that was wrong with the original could easily be fixed at this point. Even the raised glass design that had questionable durability should be better with what’s available in 2025.

So what’s the holdup? I can see two reasons Motorola hasn’t pulled the trigger yet.

Firstly, there’s the simple fact that while Motorola is growing, most of that action is happening in the more affordable market. When most of your customers are buying your phones because they’re affordable, a $300+ smartwatch doesn’t appeal to that core base. Alternatively, a watch that’s $150 or less (presumably) is much more enticing to those customers.

Secondly, there’s the question of whether or not Motorola could even put out a product under that name right now. eBuyNow is the company that licensed the “Moto 360” name years ago, and they’re sort of still using it. A series of Moto Watch products are still sold by eBuyNow today using names such as “Moto Watch 120” and others, clearly playing on the “Moto 360” name. Motorola sells some of these devices directly, but the Watch Fit appears to be separate from those.

But that’s all speculation. If Motorola does have the rights, though, I think the time has arrived. The Wear OS market needs a few more options and there’s still nothing that looks like that first Moto 360 did. Even the 2020 reboot delivered one of my favorite smartwatch designs in years, so a proper release could be even better.

What do you think? Would you buy a new Moto 360? Let’s discuss!

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