When you rush to get out of the house on time, apart from annoyingly leaving your keys or wallet or phone behind, the fourth & fifth most annoying things to forget might be your earbuds & your watch.

Well Huawei has developed a revolutionary solution that gives you fewer things to worry about! They call it the Huawei Watch Buds. They've taken the truly wireless noise cancelling earbuds, and their charging case & combined them with a smartwatch.

The Common Concerns

Now, I know there's two things you probably don’t want from a new smartwatch: you probably don't want it to be thicker and for it to have worse battery life.

Here is the thickness compared to the Huawei GT2 pro and the Apple Watch Series 8…and I measure the thickness: it's 15mm that's 5 mm thicker than the Garmin Epix 2. But…I do believe the trade off is worth it. having worn the Huawei WatchBuds for a few days now. I can tell you that it doesn’t feel any more cumbersome than the Apple Watch Ultra…

and when it comes to battery life…Huawei smartwatches have always been quite legendary and usually up to 14 days. With the watch buds Huawei’s claim of 3 days battery life is real. And that is about the same amount of battery life I get from my Apple Watch series 8…so for me, I don’t find the battery life inconvenient.

Another concern that some people might have about products like this. Is what happens If you accidentally knock the watch on a wall or door frame or something. Will the earbuds fly out of the watch? So I have intentionally tried to get them to self eject and I could not do it. And even if you pop the lid and then try to get the buds of the watch…it’s difficult.

But listen here. Another big question people might have is are the earbuds any good?

I had reservations about the Huawei earbuds inside the watchbuds, especially when I first saw the size of them. My expectation of the sound quality wasn’t actually that high?... And when I listened to them. Do you know what?.... My thoughts on these might surprise you.

I'll come back to that in a moment.

Comfort of the buds

Because they're so small and sit quite deep in the ear canal, there's no weight on the outside that offsets the balance. They fit so snugly in the ear that they're perfect for running & most gym activities and they are IP54 rated. So a little light rain is no sweat for the Watch buds...buds…and they can handle sweat, So if you are a budding, gymnast or bulking body building enthusiast…

ok I took it too far. IP54 and they’re good for the gym.

The Watch Design

So let's run through and get a close look at this ingenious design. The display is 1.4" AMOLED. The protective glass is made from what is known as a lithium aluminium silicate material. Better known as 3D curved glass. On the back, you see can see the Truseen 5.0 sensor array. This is 5 years of health tracking sensor R&D right here.

So if you’re looking for heart rate monitoring, Vo2 max, Sp02, sleep tracking, calories burnt, steps, stress…there are also 6 axis inertial sensors for tracking more complex activities. And just like some of Huawei's other wristwear, the Huawei Watch Buds has a classic design with a traditional dial and single button input on its side. The crown has clous de paris details, which look classy, and the look is further enhanced by a full-grain leather watch strap with the lighter colour threads.

But, yes, you can make this more sporty by switching out the watch strap using the quick-release system & changing up the watch face. And I looked at the Huawei Health app, and there are now more than.... free watch faces to choose from & many more paid ones.

The Technology - Under the hood

Now let's talk about what's under the hood. This watch body has 21 layers of tech, including a spring-loaded hinge. And when you pop the magnetically sealed lid, which is the display, you'll see that the Huawei earbuds are magnetically attached.

What's interesting here about this connection between the buds and the watch is that there is a platinum wireless charging rings wrapped around each bud, and this allows the magnetic charging to connect on any of the sides. This means you don't have to place them back in the watch in a specific way for them to recharge. You do have to make sure the orientation of which way the silicon tip is facing is pointing in the right direction, though.

And get this for user friendly functionality. The buds are ambidextrous. That's probably not the correct terminology for it, but hopefully, you get what I’m trying to say.

Each bud can dynamically switch to the left or right channel based on how you place them back into the watch charging chamber. This means you don't need to look for the small print on buds to figure out which is which...and this will save you time. And this is good because nobody can give you your time back. Well, maybe Kang the Conqueror

The Earbud Design & Features

So listen here. These earbuds will not be competing for the crown in Huawei's earbud lineup. But when it comes to size relative to the sound quality, ANC technology, and features. I think these are the best miniaturised earbuds I've heard to date. They're 50% smaller than your average earbuds & weigh just 4 grams…and they’re comfortable.

They have BT5.2, so multipoint pairing is supported. So laptop & phone simultaneously is no problem. The Audio codecs are SBC & AAC, and the frequency response is 20Hz to 20kHz. And the good vibrations are delivered by a quad magnet amplifier and planar diaphragm drivers. I know it’s getting real technical…but stay with me here.

They do have bone conduction sensors, active wear detection & ANC. There are two mics on each earbud. One inner and one outer. And they use Huawei's intelligent EQ adjustments software to tweak the sound based on the ambient noise around you. And when it comes to voice calls they use Huawei's VPU & wind reduction software. I’ll let you be the judge of the mic quality. Watch the VIDEO for the mic test segement

Now when it comes to the earbuds battery, they have a max playback time of 4hrs with ANC off and 3hrs with ANC on. Which would have been enough for my recent flight from London to Barcelona. So for me, the buds stand-alone separate from the watch, ticking a lot of boxes. One thing to be mindful of regarding their overall design is that even though the buds are splash-proof with an IP54 rating the watch is not and that's understandable. You don’t want to be locking water into the watch.

And here's another thoughtful Earbud feature: the buds have capacitive touch sensors on the back & you can tap them, but this may force the buds into your ear canal and make them uncomfortable. So Huawei allows you to make the area of your ear around the buds the touch inputs. They recognise single & double taps, and these can be mapped using Huawei's app. And it works!

Watch Features

Alright, time is of the essence. So let's run through what the watch can do. Of course, it can play music to the buds and has just under 2GB of local storage. It's got over 80 workout modes, including my favourite, laser tag. It has a 3-day battery, which is impressive when you consider the power supply is shared with the buds. It has GPS, all the health tracking features of the GT line & it is running harmony OS. So it will integrate seamlessly into the Huawei ecosystem of laptops, phones, tablets, to name a few.

And Huawei's health app has come a long way. And actually offers beautifully presented fitness tracking stats & even scientific health advice based on your personal metrics. This is a standout feature of the app.

Sound Quality

These tiny earbuds are not just a little bitter than I expected. They are significantly better. Huawei Watch Buds sound really nice, and punch way above their weight.

The highs are clear and detailed, I think that's what impressed me the most. Vocal clarity is brilliant, and surprisingly the bass output is quite substantial on the default EQ & it can be enhanced further with the extra bass preset. And when you enable the noise cancelling, everything that already sounded good, just sounds better.

Also worth noting is that you will improve the overall noise cancelling by selecting the best silicon tips for your ears. And Huawei does provide three sizes with the watch buds. And there is a find my fit feature on the Huawei health app.

Now on the topic of noise cancelling and how good it is. If I was to score it out of 10 relative to other earbuds I’ve tested to date. I’d give these an 7 just based on my synthesised tests here in the studio…

So if you were thinking that the smartwatch, earbud hybrid idea is a gimmick… I can tell you it’s not. The Huawei WatchBuds is the real deal, I could see myself using this watch on the daily for business, leisure…gym. If I can bring myself to sign up.

If you need a watch a fitness tracker and earbuds for work or training. You could buy two seperate products…or you could streamline your life a little more. With this next step in the evolution of the smartwatch. And think about this. This is just the beginning for the category of smart wear. Ten years from now, who knows. Maybe hybrids like this will be the way.