The Huawei Watch Fit 2 brings wrist smarts for less
Looking for some wallet-friendly wrist action?
Want a personal trainer for your wrist, but don’t want to break the bank to get it? Huawei’s latest affordable smartwatch might fit the bill. The Watch Fit 2 takes the original Watch Fit and supercharges it with a new user interface and built-in speaker, on top of all the fitness tracking you’d expect.
The outgoing model had a microphone, but adding a speaker lets you push calls from a paired phone to your wrist. Smart notifications let you answer and hang up directly from the watch, and frequent contacts can be set as shortcuts so you do’t need to dig around for your phone first.
The square-faced smartwatch has a 1.74in AMOLED screen that’s 18% larger than the OG model, and with skinnier bezels to boot. Huawei reckons it has a high screen-to-body ratio of 72%, and the 336×480 resolution should look pretty sharp at arms’ length.
The Watch Fit 2 recognises 97 different workouts and activities, with 7 of ’em getting dedicated ‘fitness coach’ animated instruction guides. Voiceover instructions let you know when to rest and when to blast to the max, feel the burn, or whatever other catchy slogan motivates you to shift a few pounds. It’ll reportedly manage up to 10 days per charge, depending on how fit you’re feeling.
The Huawei Watch Fit 2 is going on sale in the UK from the 15th of June. You’ll be able to pick one up from Amazon, Currys, Very or direct from the Huawei store for £130. If you get a pre-order in before the 14th, Huawei will also throw in a pair of FeeBuds 4i earphones.
Watch D gets the blood pumping
Huawei is also doubling down on healthy living with the Watch D, a new smartwatch that doubles as a blood pressure monitor. With a tiny air pump inside that can reach 40kPa (that’s kilopascals, pressure fans), the watch can create a tight enough seal to measure blood pressure up to 230mmHg – a height that’ll put you in the hospital, if you weren’t there already.
The firm reckons the Watch D is 1/6 the size of a regular blood pressure monitor. It also incorporates ECG heart rate measurement in certain countries, along with more traditional heart rate monitoring, skin temperature and SpO2 tracking.
It ticks all the other smartwatch boxes, with 70 different workout modes and up to seven days of battery life between recharges.
There’s currently no word on if the Watch D is heading to the UK. It’s on sale in Europe for €449.
Tom Morgan-Freelander
Deputy Editor