The Huawei Watch 3 is the first Huawei product to run on Harmony OS, Huawei’s proprietary operating system. The smartwatch must therefore above all be smarter than the competition. The watch has premium specifications and a hefty price tag. In this Huawei Watch 3 review you can read whether it is a good choice.
Huawei Watch 3
price From € 369,-
Colors Silver with a choice of three watch straps (metal, leather and silicone)
Display 1.43 inch OLED (466 x 466 pixels)
Weight 54 grams without strap
Operating system Harmony OS
Battery Wireless charging via Qi standard
Dimensions 46.2 x 46.2 x 12.15 millimeters
Other Waterproof (5ATM), Bluetooth 5.2, gps, heart rate monitor, blood oxygen meter, nfc,e-sim, wifi 2.4GHz, environmental sensors
Website www.huawei.com 6.5 Score 65 
- Pros
- Design
- Screen
- Opportunities
- Negatives
- Variable battery life
- HarmonyOS benefits not yet noticeable
- Usefulness of some functions is limited
- Software Limitations
The Huawei Watch 3 and Watch 3 Pro are Huawei’s latest smartwatches and will be on sale from the beginning of July. The Watch 3 starts at 369 euros, the 3 Pro at 499 euros. Models with a more luxurious strap are tens of euros more expensive. Huawei lent me the Watch 3 with leather strap and a suggested retail price of 399 euros. My experiences are based on almost three weeks of use and a comparison with, among other things, last year’s Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro, which I normally wear.
Luxurious and beautiful design
The design of the Huawei Watch 3 is great. The watch is made of ceramic and titanium, has a screen of strong sapphire glass and is water and dustproof for swimming. I test the model with a neat leather strap and you can also choose one with a silicone or stainless steel strap. It is of course also possible to attach a different, own strap to the watch. Two buttons are placed on the right side. With the bottom one you start your favorite app, for example the training app or timer. The top one activates the screen, launches the app menu and acts as a scroll wheel in menus and apps. The subtle vibration feedback while turning is nice.
The smartwatch is comfortable to wear and does not irritate after a full day of use. Personally, I think it is too big and thick to wear while sleeping, but that will differ per person. The size is a point of attention because the watch has a diameter of 46 mm and therefore belongs to the larger smartwatches. Huawei – unfortunately for those with a smaller wrist – does not offer a smaller model. With a diameter of 49mm, the Watch 3 Pro is even bigger. I was able to wear this watch for five minutes at a press presentation and find it far too big for my relatively small wrist. The Pro version wears – I think – only comfortably on a wide wrist.
Clear screen
The screen of the Watch 3 measures 1.43 inches and is therefore large enough to read text and statistics clearly. The sharp image resolution helps with this. Colors look nice and black really looks black because the watch has an OLED screen, which can turn off pixels to display them as black. This technique also contributes to a longer battery life. The screen can be bright enough to be readable in the sun.
It is possible to activate the screen when you lift your wrist. You can also opt for an always-on mode, in which the screen continuously shows the time. I find that very useful in a watch, but the always-on mode of the Watch 3 is a bit disappointing. The choice of watch faces is limited and the watch face I choose does not show. According to the app, this has to do with the theme of the software and therefore I see a different watch face in always-on mode. I find that annoying because this dial shows the time smaller and does not have the desired appearance. I simply think it’s stupid to offer a choice that turns out to be impossible.
Insight into your health
As you would expect from a premium smartwatch, the Huawei Watch 3 has many features built in that can keep track of your mental and physical health. From a heart rate monitor and a blood oxygen level meter to sensors and smart software that can measure your sleep, stress level and daily movement. This all works properly. The smartwatch also has many sports modes to record your favorite sports, including route and heart rate.
However, some functions seem less useful. This way the watch can measure your skin temperature, so the temperature of the surface of your skin. Your body cools and warms up through the skin, among other things, and that is why your skin temperature provides insight into how (well) your body regulates this. The function is disabled by default and can only be activated via the smartphone app, which indicates that the battery life of the watch decreases when you activate the measurement function. If I look at the daily course of my skin temperature after two weeks of use, I would not know what I want or can do with the data. So I turned the feature off again.
Huawei Watch 3 runs on Harmony OS
As mentioned, the Watch 3 (Pro) is the first Huawei device to run on Harmony OS out of the box. Harmony OS is Huawei’s proprietary operating system that will be installed on as many new Huawei devices as possible, from televisions and smartphones to household products and therefore smartwatches. The operating system must allow devices with the same operating system to work well together, something I haven’t been able to test because there are no other products yet.
And that is Harmony OS in a nutshell so far. Huawei promises a link with Nuki to unlock your smart door lock with your watch (which doesn’t work yet), lots of apps in the installed AppGallery store (which now only contains a handful of unknown apps) and long software support (which is still nothing sensible to say). In everyday use, HarmonyOS reminds me a lot of other operating systems on watches, but with notable flaws. Notifications from your smartphone look a bit unclear and answers are not possible, for example. You can only check your Google Calendar via notifications, not via an app itself.
Huawei advertises that you can listen to music on the watch via an internet connection, so without a connection with your smartphone. Ideal, but it turns out that this is only possible with Huawei Music. A service I’ve never heard of anyone in the Netherlands. It is not yet clear whether services such as Apple Music and Spotify will be available on Harmony OS.
At the moment, I don’t think Harmony OS is an improvement over Huawei’s previous OS and the OSes of other smartwatches. The manufacturer has promising plans for the future, but for the time being, that is of no use to you. It is good to mention that Huawei will update existing watches to Harmony OS. On the one hand, it’s nice that your older Huawei smartwatch gets access to the new operating system, but what if you don’t want that?
E-sim and nfc
What’s interesting about the Hauwei Watch 3 is the e-SIM support, which means that the Huawei Watch 3 can use a digital version of your SIM card to make calls, text and surf the web independently. Your smartphone can then stay at home. The catch is beyond Huawei’s control: not all providers offer e-sim yet. T-Mobile, Simyo, Vodafone, KPN and the lesser known Truphone and Ubigi are currently offering it.
It is a pity that the Watch 3 has a built-in NFC chip, but is not suitable for contactless pins in shops. Competitive watches like the Apple Watch and models from Fitbit can do this. Hopefully, Huawei can make this feature available at a later date – after approval from banks.
Variable battery life
Huawei promises that the battery of the Watch 3 will last three days in Smart mode and 14 days in ultra-long mode. My test watch doesn’t live up to those claims, which is because it sometimes suddenly drains for inexplicable reason(s). In recent weeks I have regularly experienced that the smartwatch in Smart mode still had about 60 percent power left after the first day and suddenly indicated on day two with lunch that there was still ten percent power left. Stranger still, the battery sometimes drained within a day in Smart mode.
I’m guessing software bugs are causing this problem, because on other days the watch lasted up to three days. The ultra-long mode – where you can use fewer functions – provides the Watch 3 with about ten days of power in my case. That is nice and long, but then you do not benefit from all the smart functions of the watch.
The Huawei Watch 3 charges via a wireless Qi charger. Huawei supplies a cable with a round, magnetic charging plate. You can also place the watch on another Qi charger (preferably with an output of 10 Watts) or on the back of a phone that supports reverse wireless charging. The charging methods are reminiscent of those of the competition.
Conclusion: buy Huawei Watch 3?
Huawei’s Watch 3 is a luxuriously designed smartwatch with a beautiful screen, good performance and many functions to register your mental and physical health. But as a big fan of the Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro, I see too few reasons to switch to the Watch 3. The new model has a less good and especially variable battery life, the Harmony OS software is not yet an improvement and the design and its health features are virtually identical to its predecessor. A nice improvement is calling via e-sim, but I see that as a handy extra and not as the reason to upgrade.
A final stumbling block is the price: the Watch 3 starts at 369 euros, which is a lot of money for a smartwatch. The (somewhat older) Watch GT 2 Pro now costs only 199 euros, for Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 3 you pay 269 euros and Apple’s fine Watch SE starts at 299 euros. I myself would not have any more money left for Huawei’s latest watch and would rather go for one of the three alternative models mentioned. One from Huawei or Samsung if you have an Android smartphone and the Watch SE if you are using an iPhone.
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