[[{“value”:”
It’s been a few years since Huawei moved out of the Indian market, replaced by its offshoot Honor. This came after the US ban on Huawei, which resulted in the company losing access to Google services, Snapdragon processors, and the Android ecosystem. Despite this, Huawei managed to thrive in China, develop its own chips, create its own smartphone operating system, and now even its own PC operating system. All this tech trickles down to Honor eventually, but if you still want the cutting-edge stuff, you need to get Huawei.
Huawei launched its Watch 5 about two weeks ago, and it is possibly one of the most tech-dense products you can buy. Here is a list of everything it packs in its tiny body: Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass, Optical Heart Rate Sensor, Barometer, Ambient Light Sensor, ECG Sensor, and Depth Sensor.
Other than Bluetooth and WiFI you can connect via eSIMs too. The watch is available in two sizes, 46 and 42mm, and both cost the same. However, there is a difference in battery capacity, with the larger watch featuring a significantly bigger battery. The screen is also slightly bigger, at 1.5 inches vs 1.38 inches on the 42mm watch. The peak brightness and resolution are the same at 3000 and 466×466 pixels, respectively. I tested the 42mm version of the watch.
Priced at Rs 32,000, the watch is available in two sizes, 46 and 42mm, and both cost the same
The price of the watch is rather steep, starting at 1399 AED, which is approximately Rs 32,000. It is still cheaper than the Apple Watch Ultra 2, the Apple Watch Series 10 and Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Ultra. The price of the Watch 5 varies depending on the version you choose. Steel versions are cheaper than the titanium ones, and composite straps on the standard watch are cheaper than the metal straps.
In the box, we only get a charging dock and a thick manual. However, in almost every country, Huawei offers free wireless earphones and an extra strap as freebies. This may be a limited offer, as the product has just launched, so it should not be considered part of the product itself. The watch itself is gorgeous. All versions of the watch come with a scratch-resistant sapphire glass screen and an all-metal body.
Huawei has also gone out of its way to copy Apple, including icon design and even the way their interface works, which is a bit disappointing because they created a whole new OS for themselves and just decided that Apple’s OS looked better. It’s also sad because the hardware on this watch rivals or even trumps Apple’s hardware.
The best innovation on this watch has to be the sensor on the right, which combines ECG, pressure sensitivity and photoplethysmography (PPG). The combination of these sensors can detect ECG, arterial stiffness and blood oxygen with a high degree of accuracy, but running this sensor cluster is expensive in terms of power, so it should be used sparingly.
The sensor on the side might seem a bit unusual at first, but this is so for a good reason. Traditional sensors at the back find it difficult to get an accurate reading of vitals, especially if you have hairy arms or deeper skin tones. Loading a more powerful sensor on the side lets you firstly access the fingertips that have a lot more blood vessels flowing through them, and secondly, the pressure-sensitive sensor could also be another way for users to interact with the phone, maybe with games or certain programs.
In standard power mode, the side sensor activates on touch, allowing the user to run a full range of scans in a matter of a few seconds, offering a glance at your health in that moment.
The Huawei health app, while easy to download, is not available on the Google Play Store and has to be manually downloaded and installed, which is not ideal for usability. Additionally, the apps on the device utilise Huawei’s own app store, rather than the version available on the Google Play Store.
The app is brilliant, tracking all metrics the watch records and optionally letting you add other connected devices to the mix, allowing tracking your weight and blood pressure.
However, my main gripe with it is that I can’t export this data other than the ECG report. Exporting it could let me leverage AI tools or even ChatGPT for more insights. Another problem I have with the watch is the battery life in standard mode, which is the only mode that runs the on-demand comprehensive one-touch health glance.
It lasts roughly 18 hours on the 42mm version of the watch. While it is easy to switch between standard and power saver mode, there is no option to let the sensor operate automatically in power saver mode. Maybe a third middle-ground power saver mode could help. In power-saver mode, it does a pretty good job while monitoring other vitals through the sensors on the back.
Where to buy? The easiest destinations to get one of these is probably Dubai. You may want to set up your account from one of the countries that allow ECG, a list of the countries is on Huawei’s website. That said, the watch is possibly one of the best premium watches out right now. Pity we will only see derivatives of it when it eventually transforms into an Honor product a few months later.
Rs 32,000
Starting price of the watch for both 46 and 42mm is the same
“}]]
