Huawei is still clinging to life despite constant trade war bombing from the US government, and its latest project suggests that perhaps all the stress is starting to fall on the company. Huawei’s latest product, Huawei “Watch Buds”, is now going international. As it says on the tin, it’s a smartwatch that also… headphones? Imagine sticking a smartwatch display to the lid of a wireless headphone case and then tying the whole contraption to your wrist. The smartwatch’s display sits on a hinge that lifts up to reveal two large chasms inside the watch case that hold and charge the earbuds. I think your headphones are always ready.
How many ways is this a bad idea? Smartwatches are primarily limited by their size, so anything that makes smartwatches bigger is probably not the best design choice. Having a smartwatch that opens up to something else, like a 1990s fanny pack on your wrist, is definitely a fun way to spend your limited budget. Generally, you want your space-constrained smartwatch to have 100 percent smartwatch parts, but this one is about 50 percent smartwatch parts and 50 percent headphone parts. The watch case officially measures “47mm × 47.5mm × 14.99mm”, a huge size that is even larger than the Apple Watch Ultra (49mm × 44mm × 14.4mm), which is already too large for some people.
Generally, the size of smart watches is limited in size, which means that the battery capacity is quite difficult. Huawei provides you with a 410mAh battery to both start the watch and charge the earbuds while they are in the headphone or smartwatch case. The Apple Watch Ultra, which again has a smaller body, has a 542 mAh battery., and this is only for smartwatches. This device also has GPS, a 24/7 heart rate monitor, and sleep tracking. The only battery life saver is that it doesn’t run Android – instead it uses Huawei’s “Harmony OS”. The name “Harmony OS”means next to nothing in terms of software. On phones, “Harmony OS”means it’s a fork of Android, but on watches, “Harmony OS”is a completely different OS based on Huawei’s LiteOS. Huawei claims you’ll get three days of “whole device”battery life, while the company’s more conventional LiteOS watch gets a claimed “14 days”of “typical use.”
Naturally, the water resistance drops dramatically when the entire watch case is opened. You won’t find any IP rating for the watch case (the earphones are IP54), and Huawei’s fine print clearly says “Avoid the device from coming into contact with water.”It’s a tricky question if you ever, you know, need to wash your hands. Huawei doesn’t say much about any other specs, only listing a 1.43-inch 466×466 OLED panel, and nothing about the SoC, RAM, or other components.
Headphones with 30 mAh batteries last for four hours of playback, or three hours with additional noise reduction turned on. Both measurements are taken at 50% volume, so the actual run time is probably less than this value. One of the nice features of the tiny earbuds is “ear touch control,”which means you can perform normal touch commands right on your ears, instead of having to touch some small button or touchpad on the earbuds themselves. To charge the earphones, they are magnetically attached to the inner cover of the watch. When the watch is closed, the earbuds are inserted into large cutouts in the watch case where the charging clips come into contact with the silver rings around the earbuds. Huawei notes that the charging clips “may scratch the earbuds slightly, when they are taken out and put back in. This is normal.”
It’s just not clear who this product is intended for. If you wear wireless headphones so often that you need easy access to them through a wrist case, you probably won’t be happy with the headphones’ three to four hour battery life. If you don’t like wearing headphones all the time, you probably don’t want to wear them on your wrist all day. If you somehow like the idea of a non-waterproof watch, the Watch Buds are already available for pre-order in Europe for £449.99, or around $542. Dispatched March 1st.