I’ve tested my fair share of Huawei smartwatches, and while they come in all different price ranges, the one common trait among them was that they all resembled classic wristwatches with a circular design and raised bezel. Not the Huawei Watch Fit 3, which from afar (and maybe even up close), looks like an Apple Watch.
Now, I usually push back against the narrative that every tech product that remotely resembles an Apple product is a clone — I find that narrative lazy, and doesn’t take into account that there are only so many ways to do, say, a tablet. But if the detractors were to call this an Apple Watch clone, I can’t argue back this time. I mean, look at it. And, oh yeah, this watch also works with iPhones too, which many other wearables from Android phonemakers do not.
Despite the lack of original look, the watch has all the strengths of Huawei’s wearables. It’s got extremely good battery life, able to go 11 days on a single charge from my testing (one day more than advertised). The 1.8-inch OLED screen looks great even under direct sunlight thanks to the 1,500 nits of maximum brightness (which is about on par with modern flagship phone screens).
The rotatable crown provides solid haptic feedback when twisted to scroll through the operating system, and animations are smooth.
The watch, which runs HarmonyOS, can receive incoming notifications in a timely manner, though it still suffers from the usual Chinese smartwatch problem of only being able to show me static text messages, not letting me respond with my own text (I can respond using a series of pre-selected canned replies, but I cannot type a message on the spot like I can with smartwatches from Google, Samsung, or Apple).
The watch is also comfortable to wear, measuring only 9.9mm thick (thinner than the Apple Watch’s 10.3mm) and weighing just 26g. I do not wear smartwatches often because I find them bulky and get in the way of daily tasks, but this one does not nearly as much.
As the name suggests, this watch is aimed at fitness. The watch can track over 100 different sports modes. I have visited Huawei’s health and fitness lab in Dongguan, and have seen first hand the number of high-tech equipment Huawei uses to track and analyze sports movements to build better algorithm, but I remain skeptical about a wristworn device really being able to identify the difference between, say, weightlifting or bodyweight exercises, cycling or skating.
But the watch can track heartrate, blood-oxygen levels, and sleep very well from my testing. The information is displayed in a coordinated and organized manner on the watch UI or the Huawei Health app.
But Huawei’s Health app is in need of a redesign as it has an aesthetic that feels very mid 2010s. Likewise, every time I start a workout, the Huawei watch will play a stiff human voice telling me workout is starting. The voice will chime in every 10 minute telling me my heart rate. I suppose this is useful for people who are cycling or rock climbing and may not have a freehand, but for typical workouts a the gym, the loud voiceover is jarring and drew stares from nearby gymgoers. You can turn it off, but the voice is on by default, and it is loud.
Overall, the Huawei Watch Fit 3 is an excellent performer with industry best battery life, at a relatively good price too. In Europe, it’s priced at €159, and in Asia, slightly lower than that. I can’t stress enough how great it is to have a smartwatch that I don’t have to charge every 24 hours.
