Wear OS LTE smartwatches
An important smartwatch usability factor is whether the smartwatch has LTE. In early 2019, only one currently manufactured Wear OS watch had multi-carrier LTE in North America–the LG W280 Watch Sport. Watches that are locked to Verizon Wireless LTE bands are less interesting to many users because they may want to use a different prepaid LTE provider, and/or use the watch internationally.
Google Fi and Ting work with Wear OS smartwatches having LTE via the T-Mobile 2G / 3G / 4G cellular network. AT&T also works with Wear OS LTE smartwatches. The overlapping T-Mobile / AT&T LTE bands with Wear OS include bands 2, 4 and 5 depending on your watch.
Wear OS LTE smartwatch comparison
| Model | CPU | LTE Bands | Google Fi/Ting |
|---|---|---|---|
| LG Urbane 2nd Ed. LTE LG-W200A | SD 400 | 2, 5 | Yes |
| LG Urbane 2nd Ed. LTE LG-W200V | SD 400 | 13 | No (wrong bands) |
| LG Watch Sport LG-W280A | SD 2100 MSM8909W | 2,4,5,13 | Yes |
| Verizon Wear24 | SD 2100 | 13 | No (wrong bands) |
| Huawei Watch 2 | SD 2100 | 1,3,7,8,39,41 | No (wrong bands) |
Why are LTE bands important for smartwatches?
The LTE bands are important for knowing if the watch would work on a particular carrier. Sometimes a watch has LTE bands the carrier doesn’t and vice versa. As long as one or more LTE bands overlap, your watch might work–always double check before making a purchase! Carriers don’t use all their authorized LTE bands throughout their entire network. Some LTE bands are used only in urban areas.