Review Huawei WATCH FIT smartwatch

The Huawei Watch Fit is one of Huawei’s new gadgets that sits between more expensive smartwatches and cheaper health trackers. Huawei had previously launched the Watch Gadget 2 and Watch Gadget 2e smartwatches, which, like other Huawei smartwatches and wristbands, lacked third-party support. The Watch Fit has the same drawback, but instead uses the same health tracking capabilities as the WatchGit 2e, yet is more compact and cheaper.

The WatchFit features an OLED-quality display and, thanks to GPS, the ability to monitor sports activities more accurately. For this reason, you can start and register a sports activity without a mobile phone and only with a watch fit.

Huawei Watch Fit specifications:

• 1.64-inch Void AMOLED display with a resolution of 456 by 280 pixels
• Light OS – Compatible with Android 5.0 and later and iOS 9.0 and later
• Battery charge with normal use for up to 10 days
• Equipped with built-in GPS
• 4 GB internal memory
• Track 96 sports activities and automatically detect and record 6 activities including 2, ‌ walking and elliptical
• Resistance to a depth of 50 meters of water
• The weight of the watch with the strap is 34 grams
• Dimensions 46 by 30 by 10.7 mm

Other features: Sleep monitoring, measurement of blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), maximum oxygen uptake (VO2Max) and heart rate, equipped with accelerometer sensors, ‌ gyroscope and light meter

Available in body colors and black strap, rose gold body and orange strap, rose gold body and pink strap, silver body and green strap

Design and hardware

The model of Huawei Watch Fit that we received has a black body and strap and is covered with a titanium frame around the case. At first glance, you will notice that it is very similar to the Apple Watch and its beauty and high build quality. The glass has a very small arc on the watch and reaches the frame with a slight arc at the edges. The surrounding frame, although it has a metal appearance, is originally made of plastic. On the right side of the frame there is a physical key and next to it there is a strange hole that is not clear what it is used for.

Below the watch is a heart rate monitor as well as two thin pins for connecting a magnetic charger. The thickness of the watch is 10.7 mm and the weight of the watch with the strap is only about 34 grams and it feels narrow and very comfortable on the hand. The watch strap is made of silicone and looks quality and durable, but you can not replace it with standard models on the market. The Huawei Watch Fit also withstands up to 50 meters of water. Of course, according to Huawei, its use is not recommended for diving and in conditions of strong water spraying, but you can safely swim with the watch.

Huawei Watch Fit Smart Watch

Quality display is another strength of Huawei Watch Fit. The display measures 1.64 inches and is relatively elongated. The dimensions of the display and its ratio are such that it displays the required information well and at the same time it is easy to work with. The screen resolution is 280 by 456 pixels and the density is 326 pixels per inch, and it looks very high quality and good color and color. However, one of the downsides of the design is that the display is not in the middle of the device, and like some of the economical phones on the market these days, it has a wider bottom margin and the display is slightly tilted towards the top of the device. Of course, since most parts of the user interface are black, the margins are not visible to many users and you can only notice them in bright light.

The Huawei smartwatch is also equipped with a display light sensor, but you can adjust the brightness manually in 5 levels if you wish. The brightness of the display is very good even in bright light and the light sensor works well. Another thing that makes working with the watch very comfortable and enjoyable is the material of the display glass, which makes the finger move very smoothly and slide on it.

The Huawei Watch Fit connects to a mobile phone via Bluetooth 5.0. The watch also does not have a speaker or microphone, so you can not talk to it. All in all, the Huawei WatchFit’s sleek, high-quality design is one of its strengths, and it sits so comfortably in your hand that you can count on it for all-day use. The watery and colorful display is also an important advantage of this smartwatch. The WatchFit also lacks a pressure gauge sensor (for measuring altitude) and a compass.

User experience
The Huawei Watch Fit, similar to the Huawei Watch Series watches, uses the “Light OS” operating system. The simplicity of this operating system leads to a very good charging of the watch, and at the same time, unlike the Gadget Watch series watches, all parts of the user interface run very smoothly and almost without lag. However, there are some limitations to the Huawei operating system, which does not allow you to install third-party apps, unlike watches based on Samsung’s Tizen operating system or Android version. Of course, the watch takes advantage of the basic features of other watches and gives you even more features.The

Huawei Watch Fit is able to monitor sleep, heart rate, blood oxygen saturation and stress, and records GPS activities with high accuracy. Of course, one of the basic features of all smartwatches, namely weather display, like some other Huawei watches in WatchFit does not work properly and apparently only works in some other countries. I do not know why, even after years, Huawei does not try to solve this problem for a large number of Iranian users.

The first setup of the Huawei Watch Fit on Android is simple, but on the iPhone it sometimes fails and you have to go through the process of pairing the watch with the phone again. All you have to do is turn on the clock, install the Huawei Health app, and finally select HUAWEI WATCH FIT in the Add New Gadget section. Of course, to track activities more accurately, you must also enter specifications such as height, weight, date of birth and gender in the application. I have worked with the Huawei Health app for many years and I am familiar with its features and capabilities, and I believe that the Huawei Health app is one of the best for health-oriented gadgets in terms of design.

The Huawei Health app has a simple design and is very easy to work with. You have access to 4 main pages from the bottom menu of the application. The first page (called Health) displays information such as the number of daily steps, distance traveled, calories burned, heart rate, sleep patterns last night, stress levels and blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), and of course you can see the cards at the bottom of the page. Delete or add as you wish. Touching any of these options will also show daily, weekly, monthly and yearly charts. You should go to the second page (Exercise) to see information about registered sports activities. I will deal with this section in more detail later.

On the third page (Devices), the health gadgets connected to the phone are shown and by clicking on each of them, you can access the settings page of each gadget. The Huawei WatchFit settings screen displays ‌ battery level and some health information. In this section you can also choose which app notification is displayed on the watch. It is also possible to return to the factory settings and update the firmware from here. Finally, on the last page (Me), the possibility of setting personal details (height, age, weight, etc.), connecting to other health tracking services such as Google Fit and MyFitnessPal (works only in some countries) and of course the important functionality of the range.

Heart rate is considered permissible. With the latter feature, you can set your maximum heart rate to alert you if the heart rate increases for a certain period of time.
The counting steps of the Huawei Watch Fit are very good and it seldom goes wrong. However, the app combines the number of steps of the clock and the mobile phone and shows a reasonable average of them, and you can not select only the clock to count the steps.

After initial setup, the home clock screen is displayed and you can select and hold from only 12 watches by touching and holding this screen. Some watchfaces give you the ability to customize, and you can choose to display items (including weather, distance traveled, calories burned, current heart rate, stress level, etc.). In addition, in the clock settings menu, 6 face watches are provided for the always-on display; Of course, using this feature significantly reduces the battery charge. Other pages of the clock or widgets are available via swipe left or right, and from the settings page it is possible to add or remove widgets or change their order. Widgets include:

• 24-hour heart rate chart and current, minimum and maximum heart rate
• Measurement of blood oxygen saturation (spO2)
• 24-hour stress chart and current value, minimum and maximum
• Current weather conditions
• The amount of sleep last night
• Diagram of daily sports activities
• Control the music of the mobile phone from the clock

On the Home screen, you can swipe down to access features such as Do not disturb, increase display time to 5 minutes, find mobile phones, alarms and settings, or date, clock battery level and connection status. View the phone’s Bluetooth. To return to the previous page, just swipe from the left edge of the screen to the right. The physical key in the right frame is used to return to the home screen, and when you are on the home screen and press this key, the clock app screen is displayed, including starting a sport activity, heart rate and stress measurement, and clock settings. Of course, I should mention that if you run apps such as heart rate monitoring, stress and sleep from this menu, you can see more complete information compared to widgets.
Notifications are displayed by swiping from bottom to top (on the home clock screen). In total, the Huawei Watch Fit can display the last 10 notifications and you will not be able to reply to messages. The font size of the notifications is very convenient and they are easy to read even while walking. The clock also supports Persian notifications, but if there is a half space in Persian notifications, it will confuse the sentences.

In the watch settings menu, there are options that I have not seen before in Huawei and Honor smartwatches and watches; Of course, some of these may have been added to older Huawei and Honor devices with firmware updates. One of the useful options is to set the clock to sleep automatically, which also works very well. However, as I said, you can still set this time manually between 10 and 20 seconds. Like many other watches, it is possible to adjust the vibration intensity, but in my opinion, the maximum vibration intensity could have been stronger.

The Huawei Watch Fit also includes the ability to monitor 96 sports activities, including swimming, walking, yoga, Pilates, and many special and sometimes bizarre sports, including darts and fishing. To start a sport activity, you have to go to the clock menu and select an activity from the Workout section. But one of the useful features of the watch is 12 exercise groups, including to relax the shoulders and neck, fast fat burning, leg exercises and …. By selecting any of these 12 items, a number of sports activities are displayed in animated form on the clock, each of which you must do at a specific time. This group of activities usually takes 20 minutes or less and works for people who do not have much time to go to the gym and exercise regularly. In the following, you will see the result of registering a walk in the Health application.

In the application, for a walking activity, information such as route map recorded by GPS, calories burned, heart rate charts, maximum oxygen uptake (VO2Max), average speed and time spent warming up, fat burning and … is shown. Many of these pieces of information are visible on the clock, but the Health app gives you more details.

One of the weird problems I encountered was the difference in information displayed on the watch compared to the app. If you compare the heart rate range chart with the chart displayed in the app, you will notice that sometimes the clock shows the entire heart rate range at the highest (Extreme), ie between 171 and 190 times per minute; The information in the application is correct. This problem seems to be solvable with a firmware update.

When you enable monitoring of a sports activity, you lose access to the home screen from the clock and can only control the music playback on the phone.

The Huawei Watch Fit heart rate monitor is very accurate. Regarding the TruSleep 2.0 sleep monitoring feature, Huawei claims to have partnered with leading health organizations to identify several types of sleep disorders. By activating the TruSleep 2.0 feature, sleep stages are detected, including deep, light, REM, naps, and mid-sleep awakenings. Finally, the app offers up to 200 suggestions for improving sleep, depending on sleep conditions; For example, shortening the nap or darkening the sleeping area. One of the problems I had before with sleep monitoring wristwatches and other smartwatches from Huawei and Honor was the misdiagnosis of wakefulness. The Huawei Watch Fit also faces this problem, but the accuracy of this model has improved compared to previous watches, including the Huawei Watch G2 and Honor 5.

Another interesting and practical feature of the watch that I should mention is the reminder of the mobility caused by sitting too much. Many watches and smartwatches on the market offer this feature, but Huawei has gone a step further and added practical features to this feature. When you are sitting too much, 5 o’clock offers a 20-second workout and, more importantly, shows you how to do the activity with simple and understandable animations.

Huawei Watch Fit also has the ability to control the music played on the phone and you can pause or resume the song, turn the volume up and down, go to the previous and next song and see the song name information on the watch. .

One of the problems with watches is the low accuracy of the blood oxygen saturation sensor. The sensor error is such that it sometimes shows 91% in two consecutive measurements, 99% once and once again. Of course, Huawei emphasizes that you should not count on the information of this sensor for medical purposes, and I also suggest that you limit its use due to this amount of error.

Overall, the Huawei WatchFit UI has a very simple and understandable design and runs almost without any delay. Although operating system personalization has improved over Huawei’s previous smartwatches, it still lags behind more expensive competitors based on Tizen or Android, due to the inability to install third-party applications. However, the capabilities that this watch offers are sufficient for most users. Also, if you pair the watch with an iPhone, some features like music control are unusable.

Battery and charger
Huawei’s previous watches, including the Gadget Watch 2, suffer from UI latency despite being overcharged. However, the Watch Fit has a smoother user interface and less charge instead. According to Huawei, with one charge and with the usual use of the Watch Fit watch, you can use it for up to 10 days, and if you use it a lot, this amount will be reduced to 7 days, which is still very good. Also, according to Huawei, if you constantly monitor a sport activity with GPS, it will accompany you for up to 12 hours on a single charge. I used the clock to measure the charge in the following conditions:
Keep an hour on average 20 hours a day (including when sleeping)

• TruSleep 2.0 enabled and continuous heart rate monitoring
  
• A total of one hour of monitoring sports activities with GPS (walking)
  
• Enable the ability to turn the screen by turning the hand
  
• Set the clock brightness to automatic mode
  
• Disable the display always
  
• Turn off the screen in automatic mode
  
• Maximum vibration power
  
• Connect the watch to the phone via Bluetooth for about 18 hours a day
  
• A total of 15 measurements of blood oxygen saturation
  
• View phone notifications about 20 times an hour

In this mode, with one charge per day, Huawei Watch Fit lasted about 7.5 days, which is a very good amount considering the capabilities of the watch.
To charge the watch, you have to connect the magnetic base under the watch, and of course, like most other smart watches, there is no charge in the watch box. According to Huawei, by charging the watch for 5 minutes, you can use it for a day. In practice, the watch charges very quickly and it only takes 10 minutes for the battery to reach 30% charge. Charging up to 50% takes a quarter of an hour, and a full charge only takes an hour.

As I said, the Huawei Watch Fit is somewhere between watches and Huawei smartwatches, but due to the many features of the company’s more expensive watches and of course the relatively large quality display, it is closer to smartwatches. Although WatchFit is not compatible with the more advanced watches of brands such as Garmin, it is one of the most complete and best in the price range and even higher categories.
If you are looking for a well-made, stylish, comfortable and quality smartwatch that has the ability to monitor sports activities more accurately thanks to GPS, I recommend the Huawei Watch Fit, one of the best and most economical choices. One of the advantages of this watch, which can be seen in less models in this price range, is the moving instructions of activities. This feature is especially useful for people who do not want to go to the gym and want to exercise at home for a relatively short time without the need for exercise equipment.

In this case, with one charge, the Huawei Watch Fit lasted about 7.5 days, which is a very good amount considering the capabilities of the watch.
To charge the watch, you have to connect the magnetic base under the watch, and of course, like most other smart watches, there is no mention of the charger in the watch box. According to Huawei, by charging the watch for 5 minutes, you can use it for a day. In practice, the watch is charged very quickly and it only takes 10 minutes for the battery to reach 30% charge. Charging up to 50% takes a quarter of an hour and only takes one hour to fully charge.

Concluding remarks

As I said, the Huawei Watch Fit is somewhere between wristwatches and Huawei smartwatches, but due to the many features of the company’s more expensive watches and of course the relatively large quality display, it is closer to smartwatches. Although WatchFit does not keep up with the more advanced watches of brands such as Garmin for monitoring the activities of professional athletes, it is one of the most complete and best in its price range and even higher categories.