Review of Huawei Watch Buds - an interesting hybrid of smart watches and wireless headphones
Miscellaneous / / July 05, 2023
We talk about all the important and remarkable moments, and there are really a lot of them.
The idea to integrate wireless headphones into a smart watch does not belong to Huawei. Similar hybrids have long been sold on AliExpress, although they are not in great demand. Usually such devices have an awkward design, a thick body and a mediocre filling.
Huawei decided it would do better by releasing Watch Buds. How the Chinese company turned out to be a 2 in 1 gadget and who can use such an unusual device in general, we will tell in this review.
Table of contents
- Specifications
- Design and construction
- Headphones
- Screen
- Connecting and working with a smartphone
- Application
- Watch interface and functions
- autonomy
- Results
Specifications
Watch
Display | AMOLED, 1.43 inches, 466 × 466 pixels, curved glass |
Frame | Hardened steel, IP54 protection |
Strap | Genuine Leather |
Sensors | Accelerometer, gyroscope, optical heart rate sensor, ambient light sensor, pulse oximeter (SpO2) |
Interfaces | Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, NFC (Huawei Pay only) |
Control | Side button, touch screen |
OS | Harmony OS 3.0 |
Battery | 410 mAh (up to 3 days of autonomy) |
Charger | Wireless, 9V/2A |
Dimensions | 47 mm × 47.5 mm × 14.99 mm |
Weight | 66.5 g (without strap) |
Headphones
Frame | Plastic, IP54 protection |
Codecs | SBC, AAC, L2HC HD (only with Huawei smartphones) |
Noise suppression | ANC |
Control | Tapping on the body or ear |
autonomy | Up to 3 hours with noise reduction, up to 4 hours without noise reduction |
Charger | From the clock |
Dimensions | 1.8mm×10.3mm×10.3mm |
Weight | 4 g |
Design and construction
The very concept of "headphones in a watch" sounds like a sports story. She suggests that exercising in the gym or on the street will become a little more convenient, because there will be one less charging case in your pocket. However, visually Huawei Watch Buds do not cause at all associations with sports.
This is a fairly solid watch with a black steel case and a round screen, which is covered with glass curved along the edge. The strap is interchangeable, made of genuine leather with white stitching and a classic buckle.
There are no visible contacts on the inside of the watch. The device is charged wirelessly through a small dock with magnetic fixation.
There is only one round button on the side of the Watch Buds case. It has notches, but its rotation is not implemented in the system in any way - this is not a “crown”. It's a pity.
Below the display there is another button, when pressed, the screen panel folds up, giving access to miniature TWS headphones. They are fixed with magnets on the back of the screen and, when closed, are placed in special recesses inside the case.
The screen panel in this design acts as a cover. When it reclines, the display turns off, showing the animation of turning on the headphones. The lid closes - and on the hand is again a normal-looking watch.
Accidental clicks on the bottom button are quite rare, but still possible. For example, it can be hurt when changing clothes. This happened several times in the two weeks of using the device.
It is important to note that the watch cannot boast of full water resistance - only IP54, which means that it is only protected from splashes. In the shower, or even more in pool you can't take them.
In general, as a watch, Huawei Watch Buds look good. The strict design of the case, combined with a slightly glaring edge of the screen, looks spectacular and definitely not cheap.
At the same time, the thickness of the case of the device is noticeably larger than that of other flagship watches - almost 15 mm (for analogues Apple and Samsung - 10-11 mm). But it's still acceptable for everyday use. There were fears that the watch would be uncomfortable due to the volume, but they were not confirmed.
On a wide wrist, the gadget looks organic, but on a thin hand it can look awkward. In other words, if you are not a fan of massive accessories, Watch Buds are unlikely to suit you.
Headphones
Appearance and functionality
The "gags" themselves are compact, like simple earplugs or "bullets". The case is made of plastic, and the rims on it are metal, they act as contacts for charging and allow you to attach the headphones to the magnetic cover with any face.
"Adhesion" is very reliable and convenient. Removing the "gags" and returning back is easy. Moreover, the headphones are identical, so you don’t need to distinguish between the right and left, they can be swapped when charging and everything will work.
When listening to music, each earphone itself recognizes which ear it is inserted in order to accurately broadcast the right and left channels. Motion tracking technology is responsible for this. heads and changing the position of the user's body.
Headphones weigh 4 g. They have interchangeable silicone nozzles, in the kit there is a larger pair of standard, already worn, and a smaller pair. The screen-lid closes normally with any of them, although there is always a slightly noticeable gap. Apparently, this is because of her degree of protection for watches only IP54. The same, by the way, for the headphones themselves, which in theory allows you to walk in them in light rain, but nothing more.
Sound
This is the case when the device should not be judged by its appearance. For an extremely compact form factor, the sound is surprisingly decent. Hardly other babies of a similar size can surpass the Watch Buds.
Inside there are drivers with a full-frequency flat diaphragm, four magnets and a flat voice coil. All this provides good detail, balanced mids and tangible bass (yes, we were surprised too). Listening to music is really comfortable, as in any other mainstream Huawei TWS headphones.
It is also surprising that in these "bullets" a full-fledged system of active noise reduction (ANC). And taking into account the passive "silicone" insulation, the hum of the office or the noise of the road coming from the open window is muffled quite noticeably.
The sound transmission mode is also available, as well as the function of pausing the music when removing the "gags". Everything works correctly, except for one situation. If you are listening to music from your smartphone through other headphones and suddenly open the lid of the connected Watch Buds, the sound is transferred to the headphones from the watch. And music immediately starts playing in them, although you haven’t even got them yet and they remain on your hand. It's not that big problem, but still a clear jamb, because the headphones have position sensors.
Control
Yes, the headphone chips are not over yet, and it was not in vain that we made a separate part about control in the review. The bottom line is this: these babies recognize double and triple pressing, while you can touch not only their body, but also two parts of the ear itself.
That's right: you can tap your ear with your finger and thus switch the track, pause the music or activate noise reduction. And it works great, and each gesture is immediately duplicated by a short beep.
This is really a very cool solution, given the small size of the end surface of the headphones. Tap on the area in front of the ear or in the temple area (see. in the screenshots above) is even more convenient. But you can also touch the upper part of the auricle itself - it also works great.
Screen
Let's go back to the clock. The Watch Buds have a 1.43-inch round AMOLED display with a resolution of 466 × 466 pixels, which provides a decent density of 326 PPI. The screen without an air gap and with a good oleophobic coating. It is generally pleasing to the eye.
The manufacturer doesn't list peak brightness, but it feels like it's around 400 nits, which is enough to use the watch on a sunny day. There is also auto-brightness, which allows you to adjust the parameter depending on external conditions. Works quickly, although not instantly.
Connecting and working with a smartphone
Huawei Watch Buds connect to your smartphone like any other smart watch from the company - through the application Huawei Health. At the same time, the headphones are activated automatically, no additional manipulations and switching from one device to another are required.
Let's highlight several features of interaction with Watch Buds:
- After pairing, each opening of the screen cover will mean that the sound from the smartphone's speakers is transferred to the headphones. That is, everything is exactly the same as with ordinary headphones when you open their case.
- The watch itself does not have a speaker and microphone, so you can only receive incoming calls through headphones, using one or both as a headset.
- You can add up to 10 favorite contacts to make outgoing calls directly from the watch, although the call will of course go through your smartphone.
- Thanks to the presence of Multipoint technology, the headphones can connect to several gadgets, such as a smartphone and a home tablet. But you will have to select the sound source manually from the clock screen.
- You can stream music to your headphones directly from your watch by sending pre-downloaded songs from your smartphone. This will allow you to use Watch Buds as a full-fledged player even without a mobile phone. True, the tracks are transmitted very slowly.
- It is impossible to fully respond to incoming messages from the watch, but you can send emoji and prepared phrases (up to 36 characters). Their list is configured in the Huawei Health app, in the "Quick answers" section.
Application
In recent years, the Huawei Health app has changed a lot and has become much more informative. All health metrics and statistics have become very visual.
There are traditional activity rings, sleep data, stress level, pulse and the amount of oxygen in the blood (SpO2) - all on the "Health" tab. The next one - "Exercise" - allows you to start the running mode with route tracking through the watch's GPS.
In the section of a specific gadget, the dice of all available settings and the charge level are displayed - in the case of Watch Buds, both the watch itself and each earbud.
The app's settings dials are intuitive, and it's easy to find everything you need, from weather reports to headphone search. In the latter case, the "gags" will be given an audible signal, which will help to detect them in a quiet room.
There is also a separate App Gallery tab, which displays a number of mini-applications available for installation. There are several dozen of them in total, and many are clearly for show.
Really useful ones include a calculator, a camera control tool, a calendar, a pill tracker, and a scheduler client. TickTick.
But what is actually a lot is the dials, including in Russian, with animation, automatic color change in depending on the time of day, the ability to select the output data and clickable signatures (“Alarm clock”, “Music”, “Stress”, “Weather” and etc).
Of course, the most luxurious watch faces cost money (paid by card). Before buying, you can try them on the watch in trial mode with a time limit.
Here we also note the “Wallet” plate, which allows you to add a bank card for contactless NFC‑payment for hours. The function is implemented through the Huawei Pay service and works only with cards UnionPay several partner banks. Among them are Gazprombank, Rosselkhozbank, Sovcombank and Solidarity. We did not have a suitable card to check, but as far as we know, everything works. Of course, where UnionPay is accepted.
Watch interface and functions
The main menu on the watch is called up by pressing the side button and is not a list, but an area with round icons (hello, Apple!).
There is no zoom and zoom here, but it is possible, by holding the circles, to drag them to the right or left. In general, using this menu is convenient. Everything works smoothly and without jerks.
The basic interface of the pre-installed HarmonyOS 3.0 system is the same as on many other Huawei watches, so we will not dwell on it in detail. Recall the main points:
- Swipe right and left from the dial to scroll through cards of favorite functions (activity, weather, music, dream and so on). Many of them are clickable and open in the format of a scrollable list of data.
- Swiping down reveals a shutter with quick settings, date, and battery level for both the clock and headphones.
- Swipe up allows you to view notifications, which are dismissed by swiping sideways.
- By clamping, you can change or customize the dial, if any options are available for it.
- Everything else is through the main menu or the settings gear from the curtain.
The watch has a standard 100 sports modes, most of which seem to be almost never used. For water sports there is nothing, because there is no normal protection against moisture.
autonomy
As a rule, Huawei watches work autonomously for about 10 days or even a little more, but in the case of Watch Buds, only three days are claimed. This figure is based on this calculation: about 30 minutes of phone calls, 120 minutes of music, six incoming calls, 30 minutes of screen activity, and some GPS training.
You need to understand that the headphones always take the charge of the watch, so the autonomy of the Watch Buds depends very much on how long you listen to music and how many calls you receive. Three days in the declared scenario are indicated with a stretch, with intensive use it may be less. On average, we had enough for four days, but this is taking into account only an hour music and only a couple of short calls a day.
If you do not use headphones at all, then the watch will easily work for a week.
Here is an example of the charge consumption of headphones and watches:
- The headphones were removed when the charge of the watch was at around 47% (on the headphones - 100% each).
- After 1.5 hours of listening to music at 80% volume without ANC, 65% and 56% of the charge remained on the headphones.
- After 3 hours and 10 minutes, the right earpiece was completely discharged, the left had another 15%.
- We returned the headphones to the watch, which at that time had 40% energy reserve.
- After the headphones were fully recharged, the watch had only 18% left, that is, they gave up about 20% (do not forget about the charge for the watch itself).
And what is remarkable, the headset replenishes energy from scratch quite quickly - in about 35 minutes. For 10 minutes of recharge, you can get about an hour and a half of music, depending on the listening volume.
The manufacturer claims that without ANC, the headphones should work up to four hours, and with noise reduction mode - up to three. If you listen to music at 50-60% volume, then such figures are possible, and this is quite a good indicator.
The watch itself is powered by a round dock that is magnetized to the bottom of the case. Charging takes less than an hour.
Results
For several weeks of using Watch Buds, they almost did not lose connection with the smartphone and did not miss notifications, and if they “fell off” somewhere, they quickly connected back. Headphones instantly connected to the smartphone when removed from the case and also worked without any problems.
The watch captivates with the fact that there are no unpleasant surprises with it in everyday use. But all this, of course, is not the main thing.
Watch Buds are not a cheap device. The retail price is now 34,990 rubles, you can find it for 30,000, but this is still quite a lot, especially considering that there is no compass, altimeter, barometer and ECG function. Well, do not forget about moisture protection - it is almost none.
In contrast to these hardships are the built-in headphones. They are really convenient to take calls and listen quickly. voices in Telegram. No need to carry a separate headset. It is always at your fingertips, more precisely - on your hand.
The weak point of this duo is joint autonomy, when one gadget limits the other. For this reason, Watch Buds are not suitable for those who are used to listening to music often and a lot. In this case, it is better to have separate headphones and a separate watch and not constantly think about charging.
And a couple of separate gadgets, each of which will be of the same level or even higher, will cost less. For example, you can take the top FreeBuds Pro 2 behind 13 000 rubles and Huawei Watch GT 3 Active for 15 000 rubles. The first ones sound better, while the second ones work 2-3 times longer, and they are also protected from water.
If you do not take into account the price, then Watch Buds still has an audience. These are people who are accustomed to receiving calls and listening to voice messages on the go, for example, in the subway. Music for them is just an addition, a way to sometimes get distracted while walking or shopping. In this rhythm, Watch Buds is truly a universal solution that allows you to kill two birds with one stone with one handy gadget.
In conclusion, I would like to note that the experiment with Watch Buds can be called quite successful. And the very fact that at least someone else is experimenting cannot but rejoice. Although it is an expensive and niche device, we would definitely like to see the second generation. We hope it will be, and we will get to know him too.
Buy Huawei Watch Buds
The author thanks Huawei for the device provided for testing. The company had no opportunity to influence its result.
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