Here is the review of the Huawei Watch 3 (Active) which is the very first smartwatch that runs on the HarmonyOS, the new OS is suitable for different types of devices, so HarmonyOS smartphones and PCs are also expected in the long run. Ideal when you want to connect different devices, this can also be a big advantage for app developers priced at £349.99 (Huawei, Amazon UK)

The Huawei Watch 3 is a stylish watch to see, and it’s inspired by the sporty Watch GT series, the Watch 3, however, the focus is on smart functions, rather than sports functions, but it still has a lot of sports functions on the watch.

The waterproof smartwatch is equipped with around a 1.43-inch AMOLED display, it is a 46mm model. There is a stainless steel frame with a crown and two buttons. The back of the watch case is made of ceramic and a layer of sapphire glass.

The Watch 3 has one of the best smartwatch screens on the market. The panel has beautiful colours, the resolution is high and the brightness is always the way you want it. The watch has an automatic brightness function, which makes the screen easy to read in all circumstances.”

Furthermore, the Watch 3 from Huawei is equipped with a TruSeen heart rate sensor and a new sensor with which your skin temperature can be determined. The Health app offers everything to work on your health, here you will find more than 100 sports activities. There are also a large number of watch faces available to customize the interface to your liking.

HarmonyOS 2.0

The Huawei Watch 3 is equipped with a speaker and a microphone, so you can also use this watch for making phone calls. Thanks to the built-in eSIM functionality which I didn’t use in this review as this was a sample I need to send back afterwards.

The big upgrade Huawei made to the Watch 3 series over the Watch GT 2 Pro is the operating system. This is where the new HarmonyOS 2.0 comes into play and brings depth and added value to the existing functions and lots of new things right from the start.

Huawei users are already familiar with many of the preinstalled apps, but have been further improved and made faster and more convenient in many areas: heart rate, sleep tracking, SpO2 measurements, breathing exercises and much more. Another new feature is the ability to continuously measure your body temperature, for which a further sensor has been integrated, which now also helps to track all health data even more accurately and faster. Furthermore, there is now integrated automatic case detection and functions for stress measurement. And of course, the watch can also automatically recognize and track sporting activities: it currently supports 17 professional workout modes, including eight outdoor sports such as running, walking, biking, hiking, trail running, cycling, swimming and triathlon – as well as seven Indoor sports – walking, running, cycling, swimming, free training, cross trainer, rowing ergometer. In addition to the modes, 85 other sports can be tracked. GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou are on board for outdoor tracking.

The Watch 3 also has “QZSS”, the first dual-frequency GPS in a smartwatch. What use is that? Now the tracking is so precise that you can later see on the map in your smartphone exactly which side of the street you were walking on. Another cool function called “Drying” plays a high-frequency noise to expel any liquid from the speaker cavity, such as after swimming. The Watch 3 also has “QZSS”, the first dual-frequency GPS in a smartwatch. What use is that? Now the tracking is so precise that you can later see on the map in your smartphone exactly which side of the street you were walking on. Another cool function called “Drying” plays a high-frequency noise to expel any liquid from the speaker cavity, such as after swimming.

The round 1.43-inch display with 60 Hertz refresh rate, which is slightly curved with 2.5 D glass, is a real eye-catcher and is rounded off on the Huawei Watch 3 and therefore at first glance borderless and from one Molding. The screen itself has a resolution of 466 x 466 pixels. Not only is this a high resolution, I never had any problems reading the AMOLED display. The brightness sensor worked very precisely at all times and reliably adapts to the lighting conditions. Of course, the watch face can be individually adapted, in addition to a selection of pre-installed and free dials, you can also choose from a large number of chargeable designs for little money. If nothing really is there, you can easily put together your own watch face design with your own video or photo.

Huawei is also installing a 22 mm standard bracelet on the Series 3, this has the great advantage that you can find an unmanageable number of bracelets for every purse and every taste on the market.

Finally, the built-in crown button works both as a scroll and a button! There’s also a secondary button that can be assigned, the default option is Workout, but it can also be Music, Settings, Contacts, or even the now built-in App Gallery.

Battery Life

The Watch 3 can go up to 14 days. This is considerable and more than the predecessor, but you also have to put a big asterisk here. When Wi-Fi is on, the eSIM is connected, notifications pop up left and right, and the AOD is on, the battery life is a little over 2.5-3 days. That is still more than decent and, above all, it must be mentioned here that Huawei delivered an update during our test period that squeezed out a few hours more runtime without any loss of comfort. There is a 10W magnetic wireless charger in the box, but the Huawei Watch 3 can be charged with pretty much any Qi charger. Granted, charging the watch every three days isn’t that great compared to the Huawei watches of the past. But you now get a significantly higher quality smartwatch experience and compared to other full-fledged smartwatches it is actually decent.

And you also get the option to have the best of both worlds. The “ultra-long battery life” mode transforms the Huawei Watch 3 into a classic Huawei smartwatch – no independent calls or WLAN, but Bluetooth and GPS continue to work. This means that the battery can last significantly longer, depending on use. I also tried a mix of both and we got almost 5 days of battery life which is very respectable. If you don’t need an Always On Display because the Watch 3 has an extremely fast and reliable wake-up function, you can optimize even more battery. In the HarmonyOS settings, there is now also a breakdown of what drains the battery the most, dividing it into two categories – hardware and software.

Conclusion

Huawei is taking a big step. HarmonyOS 2.0 means more freedom and, thanks to the ability to install apps, many exciting new functions in the future. Listening to podcasts, reading the news and much more will soon be possible here. All the things that made the Watch GT 2 (Pro) so great have been integrated here and a standalone mode has been added that allows us to leave our smartphone at home.

The updates installed in the last few days have already brought some improvements.

The Huawei Watch 3 looks amazing with its sleek and rounded design, does a great job, and brings long-awaited upgrades to the Huawei ecosystem. We would definitely not want to miss many of the new functions and the past has shown that Huawei is working quickly on improvements and new functions. The Huawei Watch 3 looks amazing with its sleek and rounded design, does a great job, and brings long-awaited upgrades to the Huawei ecosystem. We would definitely not want to miss many of the new functions and the past has shown that Huawei is working quickly on improvements and new functions. This is a great start for using Harmony OS from Huawei it can only get better over time.

TNC Score

4.4 / 5.0