To make matters worse Motorola didn

To make matters worse Motorola didn’t ship any 360 with metal bands for months. The company warned its customers that switching to non-Motorola metal watch bands might impact the Bluetooth functionality of the watch, but considering the noble look of the watch, many owners decided to switch the stock leather bands with third party metal ones anyway. While enhancing the overall appearance, the metal bands weren’t able to absorb any of the force implied by the odd backside shape, leading to various cracks in the plastic material. Depending on wrist size, how and where the watch is worn, these cracks could vary in size and count. Some users didn’t have any issues at all while others even reported that parts of the back had to be secured by tape to prevent them from falling off completely. The picture below shows two pretty severe cracks in the backside of the Moto 360 (Thanks to XDA Senior Member osmosizzz for the original image).

Motorola did somewhat admit to the problem by replacing watches with cracked backs with new ones, but later on, when Motorola started to sell their own metal bands, there was another hint that the manufacturer was aware of the problem the whole time. Their proprietary bands include a plastic connector piece which fits right into the groove where usually the watch band belongs. This piece of plastic acts as fixed anchor for the actual metal band. The connector spreads the force applied via the watch band and therefore lessens the stress on the plastic lips.

Even though this might seem like a good idea, it doesn’t completely fix the problem. There are still reports of cracked backs with the original metal band and some users also complain about the look of the attached band (since it doesn’t directly connect to the watch, it creates an “unfinished” look, some users say).

Motorola should have spotted this flaw when stress testing their devices and should have fixed it with a permanent solution (such as a different design or a stronger material for the backside). But as always in the modern tech world, early adopters (especially of a first generation device) are paying the price for being the first to have the newest and greatest gadgets.