Saying smartwatches have significantly changed our lives would be an overstatement but the increasing number of shipments every year confirms that we are heading towards a wearable era. Although with its limited display size, it’s not suitable for complicated scenarios but as the technology matures, we are able to squeeze out more features from the compact smartwatch.

One of our most anticipated smart wearables this year has finally arrived, the HUAWEI Watch 3. And we think it’s an excellent example to showcase how a smartwatch can be much more than a fitness tracker. 

The Huawei Watch 3 is the company’s first smart wearable running Harmony OS, a brand new platform for all kinds of smart devices including smartwatches. This is actually the main reason why we’re so curious about this new watch. 

And we finally have it in our hands!

In addition to Huawei’s excellent fitness tracking features, the Huawei Watch 3 brings smartwatch-centric features including running apps and eSIM support for mobile data and independent calls. 

In this review, we will tell you a couple of good reasons why you should consider getting this new watch. And of course, as usual, we’ll highlight its drawbacks too.

Anyway, after wearing it for a few days, we have to admit that it’s one of the most versatile smartwatches we have had and it could be one of the best alternatives to the Apple Watch. 

Huawei Watch 3 Review: Design

The model in our hand is a standard version that features a 1.43-inch round 60Hz AMOLED display with a peak brightness of 1000nits. The display is slightly bigger and brighter as well while retaining the same 326PPI resolution.

The dial body is made of stainless steel, while the skin-friendly silicone strap is removable. In terms of hardware, the Watch 3 has few upgrades over the GT2. The operating memory gets a solid boost up to 2GB and internal storage is 16GB for both models. 

On the right side of the dial, we can see a very familiar button combination, including a crown button for page scrolling and another down button for feature shortcuts. When rolling the crown button, the animation of the interface is very smooth with similar vibration feedback to the Apple watches.  When compared to its predecessor, the dial is a bit thicker and heavier. But considering the increase of functions, it’s still acceptable. 

The watch has a typical classic watch box containing the usual set of user manuals, a wireless magnetic wireless charger, and the device itself. 

An interesting detail we accidently came across was that the watch supports wireless charging using third-party chargers. This wasn’t clearly mentioned in its product description. However, we found that when charging with a third-party wireless charger, the watch easily heated up and shut down after a short time. So we’re still unsure if it’s safe to charge the watch using a regular Qi wireless charger. 

Given the fact that the watch did charge up, we really hope that Huawei can fix the heating issue via a future firmware update and make it an officially supported feature.

The Watch 3 comes with a 5ATM waterproof rating, which means that it can be used for shallow-water activities such as pool swimming. But it is not suitable for underwater activities like diving. 

As for its connectivity and audio features, it is just like a mini-smartphone, supporting Bluetooth, NFC, WiFi, mobile data, and independent calling powered by the eSIM. To independently work like a smartphone, it also features a microphone and speaker for calls, text speech, and voice assistants. As for NFC, it seems that most NFC features are restricted to China. 

Huawei Watch 3 Review: Fitness Features

As with Huawei Watch GT 2 Series and other wearables from the brand, reliable fitness tracking has always been one of our favorite features on Huawei watches — including step count, all-day heart rate, caloric burn, and other exercise statics. In addition to the existing fitness tracking features, the Watch 3 offers continuous blood oxygen monitoring, new body temperature detection features, a breathing tracker, as well as AI-based health diagnosis. But note that specific health diagnosis features may only be available in China, such as the heart health reports.  

As for exercise tracking, the Huawei Watch 3 offers over 100 sports modes and provides plenty of extra courses for running. In every sports mode, you are able to set up a goal in terms of distance, calories, time, and so on. And after using it for tracking a run and other exercises, we felt that the new Harmony OS didn’t bring any major changes when compared to its predecessor. But we believe that the GPS and statistics are more accurate on the new model.  

When tracking a run, it can give you an accurate route, pace frequency and length, training stress, recovery time, and more. And all this data will immediately sync to the connected smartphone, which is even more detailed. Further, using this data, the app can generate a short video about the dynamic route on the map. 

Now, let’s talk about its new fitness tracking features. You can turn on the continuous blood oxygen monitoring, and set up an alert to remind you of any potential risks when the figure drops below a risk value. And another new feature, the body temperature detection, is extremely useful considering the covid pandemic. With the watch, you can immediately detect your skin temperature and a rough body temperature anytime and anywhere, and then set up alerts for informing about a fever or hypothermia. 

Also in our experience, Huawei’s TruSleep™ technology feels more accurate and detailed in sleep tracking. It can detect the user’s breathing patterns, and diagnose 6 types of sleeping problems. And you can check the quality assessments and view some suggestions for your sleep in the official Health app.   

Except for the Apple Watch, most smartwatches have to run the Google’s Wear OS platform if they want to support a lot of third party apps. But since Google’s Wear OS platform has failed to deliver a satisfying user experience, most of these watches don’t perform well. And now thanks to the latest Harmony OS, the Huawei Watch 3 is a Brand-new option for users. 

Huawei Watch 3 Review: HarmonyOS for smartwatches

Let’s take a deeper look at the watch OS. The Harmony OS at this point is not really about a revolution, but it’s focused on helping Huawei get rid of the limits of Google’s Android with a complete alternative. It’s pretty amazing that Huawei is able to develop its OS in such a short time, though it remains to be seen whether it’s more innovative and better than the Android platform. To be honest, initially it’s not really important if it’s better than Android. What really matters is that we have a viable alternative. And after seeing the Huawei Watch 3 and the Harmony OS Beta version on smartphones, we think it’s very much possible for Huawei to become a major market player with its HarmonyOS in the near future. 

Coming back to the Huawei Watch 3, the software experience is pretty delightful, which is also partly attributed to the 60Hz display. But anyway, it ran so smoothly that we didn’t really find any obvious lags or glitches on the Watch 3. Huawei has also optimized the animation of the watch interface to better fit the round display. 

Running apps is a new feature for the series. So far, there aren’t many apps on the watch’s apps gallery, and the apps available vary depending on your region. But Huawei claims more apps will be added to this list.  

We also found that most apps still play a role of reminder or controller for the smartphone, which usually needs to interact with the phone apps. As for LTE network and native calling, you have to make sure that your carrier supports the e-SIM function. It’s extremely useful for those who wanna stay online when exercising, without carrying a bulky phone.  

With most features turned on, the watch didn’t last very long on a single charge. In the smart mode it ran out of charge after 3 days. But when compared to other smartwatches that come with similar features, like the Apple watch, you may find the battery is already long enough. 

Besides the normal mode that runs with most features on Harmony OS, the watch offers an ultra-long battery life mode to extend the usage time. And under the long battery life mode, you can still get a well-performed fitness tracker and enjoy almost all the fitness tracking features. In this mode, the watch can last over 10 days. 

So that’s the new Huawei Watch 3. We think it’s one of the best alternatives to Apple Watch. And if you are a Huawei phone user, no doubt it’s the best smart wearable product that you can buy in the market. Although Harmony OS is new, we do see great possibilities in this platform.