A touch of genius with a bright future

There is something about Huawei that makes you love its products. The company has evolved over the last few years into a new beast that creates and delivers quality products and genius ideas to solve problems we didn’t know we had. ‘s latest offering is Huawei Watch Buds, a new 2-in-1 solution that takes wearables to a new dimension.

Huawei Watch Buds will be announced in December 2022 and will be available globally from March 1, 2023. In fact, there is not much time on the market. Still, it’s definitely an absolute hit for anyone looking to get earbuds and a smartwatch in the same package.The Huawei Watch Buds are Huawei’s latest and most expensive smartwatch with built-in earbuds (this at the time of publication of the review).

It can be a little complicated to wrap your head around this concept, but once you start using one, it becomes easy. My first experience with the Huawei Watch Buds was weird. This is because I thought of all the things that could go wrong with this product, believing it could be another gimmick or fad that would soon be forgotten. But after using it for a few weeks, I am confident that this will be the first step towards something unique.

First impression

I received my Huawei Watch Buds review unit in Barcelona. This was very convenient considering all the walking related to MWC 2023 and all the sightseeing we planned after the event. So I got to my hotel and tried to pair my smartwatch with my Android device, but quickly realized it wasn’t as easy as I thought.

Huawei’s latest smartwatch runs HarmonyOS and requires the Huawei Health app to be installed in order to power your gear. However, Google continued to advise against installing potentially dangerous apps on your device, and you even had to fiddle with app permissions to get notifications on your Huawei Watch Buds. But after a few minutes it was working smoothly and I started enjoying everything this product has to offer.

Next, we turned our attention to the hardware, and I must admit that I was immediately pleased with the feel, design and construction of the Huawei Watch Buds. At first I was skeptical about the size of the case, but once I put this beauty on, I could hardly tell the difference. For example, we enabled always-on display even though it would also have to sacrifice battery life. I also ended up changing the watch face too, wishing there were more options to choose from. But they finally pushed the little button to reveal a pair of tiny buds with a very handy design, decent sound quality, and long-lasting battery life.

all you need to know

The Huawei Watch Buds measure 47mm x 47.5mm x 14.99mm at the thinnest part of the watch, excluding the sensor. Each earbud measures 21.8mm x 10.3mm x 10.3mm and comes with 3 different sized eartips for the best fit. Comes with medium eartips pre-installed, but you can also choose a large or small option.It fits wrist sizes from 140 to 210mm, but you can get a 3rd party 22mm strap. , can also be tailored to suit your needs and flow. The weight is about 66.5g without the strap, and about 4g for the earphones alone, but as I said earlier, I don’t feel a big difference when wearing them.

You don’t get speaker or microphone support on the smartwatch, but given the availability of these features on earbuds, it’s not necessary.You also get a 1.43-inch AMOLED color screen with a 466 x 466 resolution. , will be considerably brighter and easier to read even in direct sunlight. Several sensors are also available, including a 6-axis inertial sensor, an optical heart rate sensor (version 5.0), an ambient optical sensor, a Hall effect sensor, a capacitive sensor, and a bone conduction component used for voice pickup. Noise canceling during calls. It also has two buttons. The first supports pushing, but not rotation-based interactions. The second is a button to open the cover.

The Huawei Watch Buds arrive with an IP54 rating, but unfortunately this rating applies only to the earbuds, which was a huge disappointment considering they retail for €499. You also get long-lasting battery life that keeps you connected for up to three days. If you’re curious about the earbuds’ battery life, you’ll get up to 4 hours of music playback or 2.5 hours of calls without noise cancellation. Or, with noise cancellation enabled, you get up to 3 hours of music and 2 hours of talk time. Finally, GPS and NFC support are also available so you can pay quickly without any hassle.

earphone

I’d love to say that I love all aspects of the Huawei Watch Buds, but in this category in particular, I was a little disappointed in some ways.

Don’t get me wrong. That’s not to say the buds inside this gorgeous-looking smartwatch are bad. I’m just saying they could be better. Yes, it’s very useful and convenient when you go for a walk, go shopping or just want to get away from the world for a while. they are also comfortable. I didn’t see any drain on the batteries during this trip, but I used them a lot because they can be quickly and easily placed inside the watch and charged very quickly.

However, even with noise canceling to keep out external noises, we sometimes felt the volume wasn’t quite loud enough. We’re comparing it to Sony’s WF-1000XM3, which I think is somewhat unfair.

Still, one particular issue plagued me as my music and calls were choppy at times. Please let me explain. Sound quality and calls worked fine when the phone was on my desk or in my hand, but I usually carry the phone in my pocket and rest my hand on the device when walking around. I had this problem every time. I was able to quickly figure out what was causing the problem and it was resolved by letting go of my phone while it was in my pocket. That’s it for her 10 meter Bluetooth connection.

Other than that, you’ll absolutely love the new wide-area touch controls that allow you to tap twice on the earbuds, pinna, or the area in front of your ear to answer or decline a call and play or pause your music. Then you can turn noise cancellation on or off. Or you can manage your earbuds directly from the Huawei Watch Buds on your wrist.

fitness

This is where the whole 2-in-1 combo gets a little tricky. As we said before, Huawei’s Watch Buds have an IP54 rating, but they only offer water and dust resistance for the earbuds, not the actual watch. recommends that you unplug your smartwatch. We also recommend taking extra care when washing your hands to avoid getting water too close to your Huawei Watch Buds.

Water or sweat leaking into the earpiece cavity can damage your new watch, but don’t worry. You will receive a notification to open the lid of your Huawei Watch Buds to remove moisture to prevent future problems.

That said, I was able to walk over 17,000 steps in Barcelona in measurements that match those recorded by the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, so the watch is perfectly wearable even during long walking sessions. Any light exercise is fine. However, if you’re into hardcore training or more demanding sports, we recommend checking out other options.This is definitely not the perfect option for you.

Conclusion

Huawei has created a great wearable that conforms to everything you could possibly need. Keeps you informed of all notifications you’ve enabled in the Huawei Health app, while keeping track of your steps and basic activities that don’t sweat excessively.Also great for listening to your favorite music in a relatively quiet environment. We also offer great earphones.

Unfortunately, I believe this is still a work in progress. I would like to wait to see the second generation of this product as I feel this smartwatch is a bit pricey and does not offer a great smartwatch experience. Demanding users. Not having a secondary button to launch a specific app and adding rotation-based interactions to the primary button are two things I’d like to see. You can also make your earbuds work better. Because the active noise canceling feature is not as good as I would like. But that’s just me picky. Finally, if you’re a Huawei fan, I think you’ll love it.