OnePlus has hit pause on shipments of its newest Watch 3 after an embarrassing manufacturing mistake. The back of the smartwatch mistakenly reads “Meda in China” instead of “Made in China,” with “Meda” being a non-existent word in any language (it sounds like ‘Uncle Roger’ reading out Made in China. Surprised no one spotted this before mass production).
The company acknowledged the blunder today on X, owning up to the mistake and making fun of itself, which looks to be the only way to recover from this: “Oops, we’ve meda mistake! 😅 A typo slipped through and made its way onto your shiny new OnePlus Watch 3. Don’t worry, it was totally unintentional.”
OnePlus’ typo turned its Watch 3 into a limited edition collector’s item, making it ‘meta’ in the funniest way possible. Check out the typo below. It’s really hard to spot on the back on the watch but definitely some people will care:
Customers who already received the misprinted watch have two options: keep it as a rare, one-of-a-kind edition or return it for a corrected version, no questions asked, says OnePlus.
For those waiting on a fresh batch, OnePlus says it is working to restock correctly labeled units. Pre-orders for the corrected Watch 3 will run from February 25 to April, with a promo code TIME1010 offering a discount of $30 USD / $50 CAD, bringing the price down to $299.99 USD / $399.99 CAD (instead of $449.99 CAD).
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“Meda” being a non-existent word in any language… not quite. In Serbian and Croatian, now two separate languages that used to be one, Serbo-Croatian, meda is a “child-speak” form of a noun medved, meaning bear.