EUR393,12
Huawei Watch GT3 Pro 43mm
42.90 mm, Stainless steel, Plastic, WLAN only, One size
Quick-testing the Huawei Watch Buds: the 5 most important questions answered
24/3/2023
Translation: Jessica Johnson-Ferguson
Huawei Watch Buds are a smartwatch and earphones combined. This alleged Swiss Army knife device raises questions. Allow me to answer the five most pressing ones.
What do earphones and watches have in common? Nothing, in my opinion. Huawei begs to differ and has built both of them into one device. Or rather, added earphones to a smartwatch. The China-based manufacturer has named this hybrid Watch Buds. The idea isn’t entirely new. There have been several attempts at smartphones with integrated earphones already.
In any case, the Huawei model is now also available in Switzerland. For a long time, the earphone watch was only available on the Chinese market. To get the most important thing straight: the in-ear buds are located below the dial, where they’re attached with magnets. This is what the two-in-one smartwatch looks like in action.
Now for the five most important questions.
1. Isn’t the smartwatch waaaaay too fat?
Yes, definitely! For this reason I wouldn’t couldn’t test the Watch Buds for more than two days. With that block around my wrist, I kept getting caught. On my neighbour’s bike parked in our bike cellar, on the door frame at the office and on the counter at a bar. At least the Watch Buds watch was forgiving of these hiccups and didn’t seek revenge with scratches or a broken Amoled display.
The earphones are tucked away under the pop-up display. Huawei put them in horizontally, which probably saved quite a bit of space. But still, the smartwatch is bulky. 1.5 centimetres thick, to be precise. For comparison, the Huawei Watch GT3 Pro is just under 1.1 centimetres thick, while an Apple Watch Series 8 measures 1.07 centimetres.
Compared to my analogue watch, it really shows how mahoosive the Watch Buds is. On a man’s wrist that tends to be broader, the 1.43-inch Amoled display probably doesn’t look so bad. But I’ll get back to that in question number five.
Source: Livia Gamper
2. How bad are the earphones?
When they’re in your ear, the earphones feel like a button. And removing them from the watch makes me feel a career in the secret service is within reach. But this little boost is soon crushed by the sound quality of the earphones. It’s meagre. And that’s putting it mildly.
Surely, that’s why Huawei was quick to manage my expectations: «You’re best off switching the bass boost on right away; otherwise the sound quality’s a bit feeble,» the manager for Switzerland advises me. But with the boost, the buds sound muffled and tinny at the same time. I’m lacking balanced mids. Plus the sound quality is too cold for my taste. I like my soundscapes warm and lush.
Source: Livia Gamper
What’s surprisingly good, on the other hand, is their call quality. In a short test, I can hear the person on the other end clearly and vice versa. This is far from a tin can phone call.
US photographer Eliott Erwitt once said something poetic about cameras I’d like to apply to this case: the best earphones are the ones you have with you. Sure, if you’re wearing the Watch Buds, you’ll always have earphones with you – even with active noise cancelling. This reduces any noise going on around you. Again, I wouldn’t say the feature works very well. But hey, at least you have earphones with you.
Source: Livia Gamper
Source: Livia Gamper
*If you want more info: the ear buds are IP54 certified (protection against splashes of water). Bluetooth connection: 5.2. standard Control: tapping on or around the earpiece, i.e. also on your actual ear. Carry detection automatically stops playback when the buds are removed. The buds can be used separately; the left and right one are independent of each other. This means you can put either bud in either ear. The watch has just under 2 gigabytes for music you need to download yourself.
3. How good is the smartwatch?
Let’s not forget that there’s also a watch to talk about. Huawei did, after all, also free up some space to fit its technology. And there’s quite a lot of it: sleep analysis, heart rate monitor, SpO2 measurement (oxygen content), stress manager, accelerometer, GPS and NFC. What it doesn’t have is a compass, altimeter or fall detection. eSIM isn’t supported either. And you can’t go swimming with the watch on. It’s not waterproof because of the lid you can flip open.
The measurement data and features of the Huawei Watch Buds are roughly the same as the ones of the GT series.
Sports watches + Smartwatches
EUR393,12
Huawei Watch GT3 Pro 43mm
42.90 mm, Stainless steel, Plastic, WLAN only, One size
You connect your mobile to the watch with the Huawei Health App (in German and French). The app can be downloaded from the Huawei page. After it’s installed, the app asks for all permissions – this takes time, but you get to decide which data and permissions you want to share.
Source: Livia Gamper
4. Is the battery strong enough for both?
A two-in-one product obviously means that one battery needs to have the power to fuel two devices. Huawei specifies a total runtime of three days. That’s a lot! Too much, as it turns out. The manufacturer is quick to put things into perspective: «The actual battery life depends on how heavily and frequently the owner uses their product.» I needed to charge the watch after one day. This was after using the earphones a lot and with all sensors switched on. However, this is still within reason compared to other smartwatches.
The earphones themselves have a short battery life; with noise cancelling enabled, this means just three hours of music and two hours of calls. Not much. At least you can charge the buds on your wrist.
Source: Livia Gamper
5. Who’s the earphone watch for?
I’ve left the hardest question for last. Who’s the target audience for this hybrid gadget, anyway? My quick test soon revealed: not me. But I think I know who it could be.
Huawei Watch Buds are the perfect match for the huge wrists of businessmen. Or more precisely, the wrists of men who prefer to be on conference calls in the first-class compartments of trains travelling from Geneva and Zurich. Why? Because their focus is somewhere else entirely – on ROI that must continue to rise and workforces that need to be downsized. There’s just not enough capacity to remember those earphones. This makes the watch the perfect fit for the optimisation craze of the modern-day manager. Who wants their earphones and watch separately anyway? Synergies are the order of the day. So swapping that IWC for the Watch Buds means those earphones are always ready for that business call. The great role model Elon musk would be proud. Keep that up, and you’ll soon be talking private jet instead of first-class train.
Speaking of ROI, I asked Huawei how the price tag of around 500 Swiss francs for the hybrid product was determined. The brief answer:
- Smartwatch: 300 francs
- Earphones: 100 francs
- Development costs: 100 francs
Sounds about right.
Sports watches + Smartwatches
EUR458,82
Huawei Watch Buds
47.50 mm, Stainless steel, Fiber-reinforced polymer, One size
Testing devices and gadgets is my thing. Some experiments lead to interesting insights, others to demolished phones. I’m hooked on series and can’t imagine life without Netflix. In summer, you’ll find me soaking up the sun by the lake or at a music festival.