KOSPET TANK T3 Special Edition Smartwatch review – premium features at a midrange price

REVIEW – My first smartwatch was the Pebble, which I found to be instantly invaluable by displaying my notifications right on my wrist and then letting me decide if they were important enough to pull my phone out. For me, this has been the primary function of my smartwatches to this day. Other functions and abilities range from mildly useful to aggravating, but in general the more functions the better, right? Another crucial factor for me is battery life: if a smartwatch can’t even make it through a day with moderate usage (cough … early Apple Watches … cough), then I consider it unacceptable. Finally, while I’ve used watches with button-only controls, I do prefer a touchscreen for some interactions. The KOSPET TANK T3 Special Edition Smartwatch seemed like it could be a good model for my needs, so I agreed to take it for a spin!

What is it?

The KOSPET TANK T3 Special Edition Smartwatch is a smartwatch boasting many of the features of premium smartwatches at a fraction of the cost. It displays notifications, has workout and health tracking, and can even take and receive calls through a microphone and speaker on the watch. It also boasts robust weather and shock protection with a variety of testing standards. We have previously reviewed the ULTRA version of this watch as well here, which adds GPS tracking, a stainless steel unibody design, and a fourth button.

What’s included?

• KOSPET TANK T3 Special Edition Smartwatch
• Watchbands (both a stainless steel and a soft flexible silicone band were both included the Special Edition Tank T3 model that KOSPET sent)
• USB-C charging cable
• Extra stainless steel band links and link remover tool
• Watchface protector
• Manual

Tech specs

Design and features

For many people, build quality and polish are crucial for their wristwear. The zinc alloy body and silicone strap on the KOSPET Tank T3 are well made with zero production flaws that I could find. The style will be subjective, this model is a rugged looking outdoorsy model with ridges and visible screws on the bezel. There are three buttons (two on the right, one on the left) that are easy to find by feel. The back button can even be mapped to a specific app or function. 

The Sport button launches the workout tracking app on the watch, from which you can pick from over 170 workout types to track. There are six workouts you can set to automatically track including walking, running, cycling, rowing machine, and elliptical trainer workouts.

On the right side of the watch are the Back and Power buttons. The power button has a texture that’s easy to feel. 

On the back of the watch, we have the health sensors in the center, and the charging pins on the bottom.  Text reminds you of the 5 ATM/IP69K water resistance rating and the MIL-STD-810H shock rating. 

The strap and clasp do their job nicely and are easy to put on and remove. 

An optional Always On Display shows the time at the cost of a bit of battery life. 

The app interface has quite a few settings that can be changed. From here you can turn on various always-on health monitoring functions, decide which notifications you want to sync to the watch, and perform watch updates. 

One odd thing I found in the notifications sections was that it didn’t match my installed notifications on my phone (a Pixel 9 Pro). There were a dozen or so preset applications (many of which I don’t have), and then you can manually add other apps to the notifications list, but the selection of apps to manually add was not complete, I had quite a few missing (such as Google Messages, Etsy Seller app, and others). 

You can choose from a pretty wide selection of watch faces, but I didn’t see any customization options (like user selectable complications on other Google Wear or Apple watches).  I found a couple of watch faces that matched my style and showed me the relevant information I like to have on my wrist though, so this wasn’t a big deal for me. 

Assembly, Installation, Setup

Assembly of the KOSPET Tank T3 smartwatch starts with attaching the watch band to the watch body. There were two watch bands in the box, a handsome-looking stainless steel link band (which I avoided since those always pull my arm hairs out), and a sports band made of silicone. This has a bit of elasticity to it, allowing for a snug fit that doesn’t feel too tight, but allows the health sensors to work well. Attaching either band involves pushing the pin into the watchband and inserting it into the watch body. The stainless-steel link band feels very well made and has a clasp-style mechanism to stay closed. KOSPET also includes extra links and a tool for removing links in the Special Edition box.

Next up, charging. The proprietary USB charger took me from empty to full in around 2 hours. I do wish that the watch supported wireless charging (or even a USB-C port), losing a proprietary cable means sourcing a replacement – though it looks like KOSPET has them available on their website. 

The software setup was relatively painless, and a firmware update after installing also went smoothly. 

Performance

When I first strapped the KOSPET TANK T3 Smartwatch to my wrist, it felt comfortable if a bit heavier than my previous daily driver (the OnePlus Watch 2). I quickly got used to the increased weight, and it’s not the heaviest watch I’ve owned so far, but it is something to be aware of. It is also thicker than the OnePlus Watch 2, so I did bang it into doorframes and other objects, apparently those few extra millimeters matter. The watch shows no signs of abuse after a few weeks of this though, it seems to live up to its “Tank” branding. 

The screen is bright and colorful, the bright AMOLED display is easy to read even in sunny conditions. I only had a hard time seeing the watch from certain angles with my polarized sunglasses. 

The OS and interface are pretty good, with only a bit of lag here and there. Most menus and interactions are what you’d expect, with the occasional hiccup or brief lag. It doesn’t feel as fluid as the (much more expensive) OnePlus Watch 2, but I’ve used far worse. If you’ve used a Google WearOS watch, the OS here is pretty similar in many ways, with swipe from directions to get to notifications or apps from the home screen. You can even change the default app layout to mimic Apple Watch’s app cloud interface. 

As I mentioned up top, notifications are probably the main reason I wear a smartwatch (besides telling the time – but if I only needed the time, I’d wear a dumb watch). For the most part, the KOSPET TANK T3 delivered notifications as expected. The exception was probably the worst part it could fail me though: text messages. I use default Google Messages on my Pixel 9 Pro, and noticed a pattern quickly in which message notifications were delivered and which ones were not: RCS messages. Direct RCS messages to friends and family failed to ever deliver to the watch. Group messages with all-RCS Android users also never hit my watch screen, despite following KOSPET’s FAQ’s and guide to address notification problems. Direct SMS messages and group texts where RCS was disabled were delivered to the watch, though not every time. Other apps were pretty consistent though, if I added them in the settings area of the KOSPET app as manual notifications.  However, even for the notifications that were delivered to the watch successfully, the haptic motor often didn’t buzz hard enough for me to feel it so I ended up missing many. 

Even with all-day health monitoring turned on, battery life was excellent. I drained it in about 4 days with multiple workouts, notifications throughout the day, and health tracking. 

Finally, the health tracking was better than most. Sleep tracking, heart rate monitoring, and workout tracking all were pretty close to what my OnePlus Watch 2 reported. Blood pressure readings were as accurate as my standalone blood pressure cuff (though who knows how accurate my unit is). If I measured blood pressure right in the middle of a workout, it was elevated as I’d expect.

What I like about the KOSPET TANK T3 Special Edition Smartwatch

• Price is great for a feature-rich watch
• Robust health and workout tracking
• Excellent weather protection
• Intuitive interface and controls

What needs to be improved?

• SMS/RCS message issues meant text message notifications were unreliable
• Haptic motor feels a bit weaker than other watches I’ve tested, sometimes I missed notifications even after following KOSPET’s instructions to increase the vibration motor in the settings menu

Final thoughts

I had high hopes that the KOSPET TANK T3 Special Edition Smartwatch could be my new daily driver (especially with the blood pressure monitoring as that’s something I’m tracking closely). Unfortunately, at the time of this review, it’s going back into the box due to the unreliable text messaging notifications. I love having my phone always silenced (I don’t know how people live with loud beeps and dings going off all day long), but if I miss notifications due to software bugs or weak haptic motors then it defeats the purpose for me. If you don’t use RCS messaging, you may get more out of this watch than me, it has a strong feature set for the price!

Price: $139.99
Where to buy: KOSPET and Amazon (non-Special Edition version)
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by KOSPET. KOSPET did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.