Its a shame, then, that the Watch Buds have too many flaws for me to wholeheartedly recommend them, namely a limited app library, sky-high price, short earbuds battery life and the real dealbreaker an inability to connect to anything other than a phone for audio, such as a laptop or tablet.

Huawei Watch Buds Design

The watch is sleek and shiny, with a single textured side button and a flexible, hardy leather strap. I was happy to wear it with casual clothes or with a nice shirt at work.

The 1.43-inch AMOLED screen is big, bright, and colourful, and works at any viewing angle, including in direct sunlight.

You dont get a second strap in the box, which feels stingy given the high price, but you can switch the leather one for another that you own. A plastic strap will handle sweat and exercise better long-term, but for what its worth the leather didnt irritate my skin when I exercised and it felt comfy even when I sweated in it.

The back side of the watch, which sits against your skin, houses the sensor that measures your heart rate, oxygen saturation, and more. I’ll dive into the performance later, but I have no complaints on the comfort front. The smooth metallic surface never bugged me or dug into my wrist.

The watch is both thicker and heavier than most at 15mm thick and 66g its heftier than Apples biggest watch, the Apple Watch Ultra. But I didnt find it too cumbersome and never felt the weight of it on my wrist either during the day or night. Considering it stores a set of earbuds inside, Im impressed with how normal it feels and looks.

When you press the clasp just beneath the six-oclock position on its face, the whole thing pops open to reveal a hidden compartment.

Its rare to see tech companies take big swings with design, and when they connect as Huawei has done here they should be applauded. The Watch Buds feel truly unique and I enjoyed having a conversation starter on my wrist. Everyone that saw me open my watch wanted to have a go.

The open-and-shut mechanism is well built. The click-clack of the earbuds compartment sounds plastic, but feels expensive. The face of the watch locks into place when you shut it with zero wiggle and wont pop open unless you want it to.

The buds sit securely inside the face, held by strong magnets that snap them in place when you bring them near. Even if I opened the face and waved my arm wildly, they didnt budge, so you dont have to worry about accidentally dropping them when the face is open.

The only minor quibble I have with the design is that its easy for long-sleeve tops to get caught underneath the lid when you pop it open. A couple of times I went to close the watch but couldnt because of a sweater or coat worth noting if you live in colder climates.

The tiny buds are the size of small, identical bullets, a little over 2cm long and 1cm across. They didnt protrude from my ear, and from face on it was hard to tell I had them in my ears. That, to my mind, is a good thing theres no point drawing attention to expensive wearable tech that can be grabbed easily.

I found the buds comfortable to wear for hours at a time, and could even fall asleep with them in without any trouble. Out of the box they come with three sizes of earbud tips, but my review unit only had one, which thankfully fit me perfectly.

They never once fell out of my ear, even when I was running, both outside and on a treadmill. Other buds Ive used in the past, including Samsungs, begin to come loose when Im jogging which means I need to occasionally adjust them, but that didnt happen with these.

Huawei Watch Buds Connectivity and activity tracking

Let’s touch on a feature that’s notable by its absence and it’s a huge problem.

The earbuds only work with smartphones. You can’t currently connect them to a laptop, tablet, game console, or other device, and there is very little point in owning everyday earbuds that don’t work with the devices you use regularly.

For example, I connect earbuds to a laptop for work calls. I simply can’t do that with the Watch Buds, so I have to take video calls on my phone (not ideal) or bring another set of earbuds just for meetings, which defeats the whole point.

Huawei has promised this will be fixed later on, but hasn’t set a date. Hold off buying them until it’s sorted.

It’s a shame because, otherwise, the Watch Buds are a reliable, fully featured watch-and-buds combo. They connect instantly when you pull them out of the case, and the Bluetooth link between my phone, watch, and buds didnt drop once in the weeks I spent testing.

They also have two neat tech tricks that you won’t see in many devices.

The first is that they’re completely interchangeable, left and right. You can put each one in either ear and, through your head movement, they’ll automatically send the correct audio channel to each bud, which is important if you listen to music or podcasts with directional sounds. They took around 10 seconds to adjust when I swapped them, and it worked every time. Neat.

The second is that the touch controls don’t require you to actually touch them directly. You can tap on specific points on your ear and the buds will pick up the vibration. Double tapping on the top of your ear to pause a song is another bit of futuristic wizardry. Neat again.

It’s surprisingly reliable when you’re still, although when you’re bouncing around on a treadmill or running track they sometimes struggle to pick up your taps.

Unfortunately, your options to customize what happens when you double or triple tap are limited. You can’t control the volume, for example, which feels like a big omission.

For health and activity, the watch tracks everything you’d expect, from steps to heart rate and sleep patterns. It can track runs especially well thanks to a built-in GPS, programmable training programs and on-board audio storage meaning you can leave your phone at home when you run. It only has single-band GPS rather than dual-band, but it still tracked my location well.

It doesnt, however, track swimming. Because of the buds compartment the watch isnt waterproof it has a IPX7 rating, which is fine for rain, when the lid is closed, and only an IPX4 rating when the lid is open. Basically you cant use it in pools or showers, which rules it out for keen swimmers.

Its readings were uniformly accurate. Step counts mirrored other activity trackers I tested against, my sleep patterns matched times where I woke up in the night, and heart rate matched my own manual measurements, although they were slightly erratic at the top end of intense exercise and won’t match a dedicated heart rate monitor.

Huawei Watch Buds Watch OS and software

Huawei’s operating system, Harmony OS, is easy to use. The menus are intuitive and quick to navigate, and notifications are kept clean and simple, which is what I want in a smart watch.

Clicking the watch’s only button on the right of the face brings up a galaxy of circular icons, each representing an app or action. From there you can start a workout, check the weather, or monitor daily steps. It’s bright, fun, and gets you where you need to be.

That said, Huawei’s software is not as robust or sophisticated as Apple’s or Google’s. With an Apple or Android watch, your wrist is an extension of your phone here it’s an add-on.

Yes, you can issue some quick replies to messages with a few taps, but only on a limited number of apps. Combine that with a general shortage of apps (there are only 30 to download in the store, far fewer than for an Android or iOS watch) and the Watch Buds feel limited compared to high-end competitors, most of which are cheaper.

On your phone, everything is handled through the Huawei Health app. Just getting it installed on an Android device is a pain because its not on Google’s Play store. Instead, you have to download Huawei’s own App Store and grant a long list of permissions. No such problems on iPhones.