The Huawei Watch Buds solves an issue we did not understand we had: by no means having to recollect our headphones, due to having them saved, on cost, inside our smartwatch.
Speak of Huawei bringing watches and buds nearer collectively emerged in 2018 and now quick ahead to 2023 it’s the actual deal.
However if you need the Huawei Watch Buds you’re going to must spend greater than the price of a Huawei Watch GT 3 or perhaps a GT 3 Pro.
There’s no US pricing, however at £449 (499 Euros) the Watch Buds sits across the worth of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro and the Apple Watch Series 8.
Granted, these smartwatches don’t include earbuds packed into them, however does that make the Huawei Watch Buds the smarter purchase?
Design and construct
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Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of the Huawei Watch Buds, which is the design, and the way in which the 2 wearables have been mixed.
This isn’t the primary time buds have packed right into a watch. A number of would possibly bear in mind the WearBuds Watch, which raised over $100,000 by way of crowdfunding and plugged the earbuds into the aspect of the watch case. Huawei has determined to do issues in a different way.
On the backside fringe of the watch case lies a button that when pressed lifts the watch case from its physique. Inside you will discover a set of actually wi-fi earbuds.
When the lid is closed, the watch measures 14.99mm, so it’s thicker than different Huawei watches.
Is it a noticeably chunky watch to dwell with? Truly, no.
Is it heavier and thicker than different Huawei smartwatches? Sure, however you continue to wouldn’t assume there’s a set of earbuds hiding inside them.
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It nonetheless appears like a reasonably common smartwatch, with its chrome steel case and comfy 22mm leather-based strap.
In typical Huawei style, there’s a unbelievable 1.43-inch AMOLED show, which matches the decision on the most important model of the Watch GT 3.
Like Samsung, Huawei makes brilliant, vibrant, and colourful smartwatch shows and that doesn’t change right here.
Then we get to the earbuds themselves, that are unsurprisingly very small in stature to assist maintain that case thickness down.
Huawei consists of three different-sized silicone ear suggestions within the field and people buds are magnetically locked into the watch compartment when not in use.
We’d given them an excellent shake with the buds in place and the lid open and so they haven’t budged.
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Getting creative with the design has sadly meant that issues have modified on the sturdiness entrance.
Whereas different Huawei watches are match for swimming and being submerged in water, that isn’t the case for the Watch Buds.
They carry an IPX7 score to guard towards sweat and rain if the watch lid is closed.
When the watch is open and also you’re utilizing the buds, you’re getting one thing that’s IPX4 protected towards splashes.
So no showering – not to mention swimming.
Utilizing the headphones
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Huawei has carried out a reasonably good job of guaranteeing that housing these earbuds doesn’t fully compromise on the design.
That is nonetheless a watch that’s primarily based on HarmonyOS, so should you’ve used a Huawei Watch GT 3 or GT Runner, then issues will really feel acquainted.
It’s a greater expertise pairing it up with an Android cellphone over an iPhone, however options like viewing notifications, controlling music, and usually getting round this watch are a reasonably slick expertise.
Huawei ditches the microphone and speaker however after all, you should utilize the accompanying buds to nonetheless deal with your calls.
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While you add the earbuds into the equation it nonetheless appears like a reasonably seamless watch to make use of.
You do have to guarantee that the Watch Buds are paired to the Huawei Well being app if you wish to use the buds to take heed to music in your cellphone.
When you’ve carried out that, you whip the earbuds out and begin taking part in one thing in your cellphone, they’ll spring into life.
Utilizing the earbuds provides some further menus you possibly can entry from the watch settings menu. These provide the capacity to change between a small number of EQ settings and change between energetic noise cancellation and consciousness modes relying on if you wish to block out the world or not.
Huawei does show particular person earbud battery life and affords devoted watch faces to ensure you at all times know the way a lot battery you’ve obtained to play with.
Sound high quality
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Although these buds are tiny, they do set free a shocking roar, and Huawei doesn’t shortchange on audio efficiency.
There’s energy, bass, and a balanced sound profile general.
It takes quite a lot of the traits of Huawei’s FreeBuds earphones and manages to ship related ranges of sound high quality.
On runs and fitness center exercises there we obtained a brilliant pleasurable sound, when listening to podcasts or dealing with calls there’s a lovely stage of element and readability there as nicely.
Having some EQ settings provides you scope to tinker with that sound profile right here as nicely.
There are additionally consciousness and energetic noise cancellation modes, which could be chosen from the watch display screen or by way of the built-in, touch-based controls on the buds themselves.
The ANC carried out adequately in louder environments like practice commutes or battling the music within the fitness center, however you do have to ensure you get an optimum match.
And by way of match, they did keep put, even in additional rigorous exercise use.
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Huawei affords each faucet and gesture controls, with the latter letting you faucet areas simply on and close to the ear to manage audio playback, reply calls, and toggle between ANC and consciousness modes from double and triple faucets.
The responsiveness of the controls was fantastic when stationary however a contact more difficult making an attempt to triple faucet when understanding. You may modify these controls within the companion app, however that doesn’t lengthen to utilizing them to alter the quantity.
Huawei does additionally embody multipoint sharing right here too to rapidly change between utilizing the buds on totally different gadgets and does additionally embody a discover my earbuds mode, which is at all times a helpful characteristic to have.
It’s a pleasant contact that you should utilize each earbuds in both ear and should you change that in a listening session, it can routinely acknowledge that and modify to ensure you’re getting the optimum sound from them.
Sports activities monitoring
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Most of what you get on the well being and health monitoring entrance on the Huawei Watch GT 3 and GT Runner sequence are additionally right here on the Watch Buds, however some issues do miss out.
There’s no swim monitoring after all on account of that downgrade in waterproofing.
Huawei doesn’t seem to incorporate a temperature sensor right here both, which isn’t essentially an enormous loss.
It additionally leaves out the dual-band GPS help to enhance the accuracy of outside monitoring, although it didn’t massively impress us on the Huawei watches that do embody it.
The power to add routes to observe appears to be lacking in motion right here too.
So when you’re not getting the entire Huawei monitoring expertise, it’s nonetheless very feature-packed.
We used it for outside runs and indoor exercises, common step monitoring, repeatedly monitoring coronary heart charge, and maintaining tabs on sleep. We’d say the efficiency fell largely according to different Huawei watches on most of these fronts.
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For outside GPS monitoring, we used it alongside the spectacular multi-band mode on the costlier Garmin Epix Gen 2.
Digging into the core metrics and plotted routes we had been happy to see it held up nicely towards the Garmin even with out that dual-band mode onboard.
Monitoring was equally strong for indoor exercises for modes that provide metrics past coronary heart charge and length and it didn’t really feel like a cumbersome watch to put on throughout that exercise time both.
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Switching into health and well being monitoring mode and we had been fairly happy with the every day step counts the Watch Buds served up on most days when pitted towards Apple’s every day monitoring whereas Huawei does an excellent job of letting you regulate your progress from the watch through the day.
While you take the Watch Buds to mattress you possibly can anticipate it to seize a breakdown of sleep phases together with that all-important REM together with producing a sleep rating and recording your sleep length.
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We used it alongside the Oura Ring Gen 3, which is likely one of the greatest and most dependable sleep trackers we’ve used and we had been glad to see that core information like sleep phases, length, and scores instructed the same story about our night time’s sleep.
When you’re utilizing the Watch Buds to regulate your coronary heart charge, then we’d say it’s a greater match for steady monitoring than utilizing it throughout train.
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We used it alongside Apple’s steady HR monitoring help and located it delivered related resting coronary heart charge information, although coronary heart charge ranges felt a bit of off for us on the Huawei.
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Throughout train, we used it towards Garmin’s HRM-Professional coronary heart charge monitor chest strap however in typical Huawei style, the utmost coronary heart charge can typically ship increased spikes in coronary heart charge in comparison with the chest strap.
Battery life
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It’s maybe not all that shocking that with two wearables needing to be powered, we do see a drop in battery efficiency right here.
The underside line is you’re not getting Huawei’s ordinary promise of two-week battery life.
As a substitute, you possibly can anticipate to get 3 days and that’s while you think about utilizing each the smartwatch and the earbuds.
While you drop the earbuds again within the case after utilizing them, the watch will cost them up to ensure they’re at all times topped up. Inevitably meaning a drop in smartwatch battery general.
When you’re simply utilizing the earbuds, then the battery is quoted as being as much as 4 hours when ANC will not be in use. That drops to three hours while you’re utilizing ANC.
When you’re utilizing each the watch and buds usually, then you’ll get round 3 days out of them primarily based on our testing. When utilizing the buds with ANC in use, we noticed the battery final round 2 hours versus 3 hours.
To get an extended smartwatch battery life (as a lot as 7 days), you possibly can activate a power-saving mode, which stops the watch from charging the buds each time they’re put away. Huawei does provide fairly fast charging for the buds as nicely when they’re operating low, so it has considered options to make up for the truth that you’re not going to get the standard 14 days.
Put it up towards equally priced rival watches just like the Galaxy Watch 5 Professional and the Apple Watch Sequence 8, and it’s not such a foul displaying.