CEO, Richard Yu, set out Huawei’s vision to become the world’s most loved brand today at MWC in Barcelona with the announcement of three new wearable devices, the Huawei Watch, the TalkBand B2, and the TalkBand N1.
The Huawei Watch is an Android Wear device with a classic circular timepiece design inspired by Swiss watches. It features a stainless steel unibody with a sapphire crystal display. The diameter is 42mm, and there are traditional watch elements like a crown, frame, and lugs. It has a 1.4-inch AMOLED display with a 400 x 400 pixel resolution which is a sharp 286ppi (pixels per inch).
It runs Android Wear so it supports notifications, there’s extended app support, and there’s Google Now for voice commands. There’s a six-axis motion sensor inside and a barometric sensor. It can determine activities, such as walking, cycling, or climbing. It also calculates steps, caloreis burned, and tracks your sleep. There’s also a heart rate sensor. It’s compatible with a number of third-party health apps.
But wait, there’s more. It also comes with interchangeable straps, including stainless steel and genuine leather, and it supports a standard 18mm lug width. There are more than 40 different customizable watch faces to choose fro and you can get it in gold, silver or black. The Huawei Watch will be available this summer, but there’s no word on pricing yet.
Huawei’s new TalkBand has a premium aluminum design with a matching metal dock and it combines Bluetooth headset functionality with a smart band for tracking your activity. You can unclip the device from your wrist and pop it in your ear to make or receive calls. There’s a 0.73-inch PMOLED touch screen and it has a gyroscope and a six-axis motion sensor inside. Huawei’s algorithm can apparently tell the difference between walking and brushing your teeth, for greater accuracy. It also connects to your smartphone to relay notifications and the dual mic offers background noise suppression for making calls.
You can use it to locate your phone and it will alert you if you leave somewhere without it. Battery life is five days. It’s compatible with iOS and Android. It comes with a choice of straps in TPU or genuine leather in three colors (it fits standard watch straps too). It’s only 11.5mm thick and there are three different sizes.
The Huawei TalkBand B2 will be available for 170 euros and there will be a premium version for 200 euros that comes with two straps. It goes on sale in April in the US, Europe, and Asia.
This is a necklace style wearable that’s a wireless headset and fitness tracker. It offers high quality sound and has 4GB of storage, enough space for over 1,000 songs. The battery lasts for 7 hours between charges. There’s also a microphone with noise cancellation for making and taking calls. It tracks your steps and calories burned and you can set targets and receive voice notifications about your progress. It’s very light at just 18g and it comes with a range of different ear tips for the perfect fit. It is water and dust resistant with an IP54 rating.
The TalkBand N1 costs 120 euros and will be available from May in the US, Europe, and Asia.
Huawei shipped 75 million units in 2014, the Honor 6 sold more than 3 million in three months, we’ll have to wait and see how well the new wearables sell.
The OnePlus Buds Clip are a new pair of open-ear earbuds built around a simple convenience. They join Sony’s LinkBuds Clip in the growing ear-cuff category, but either OnePlus bud can go on either ear.
Sensors recognize how the earbuds are being worn and route the audio channels accordingly. There’s no label to check before putting them on, and the feature also works when only one bud is used.
We buy fitness bands and activity trackers to keep tabs on our exercise, but it is easy to forget to start tracking or switch modes when moving between different activities. For Fitbit and Pixel Watch users, that could soon become a lot less annoying, as Google is rolling out a major upgrade to automatic activity tracking that can recognize more than 100 types of exercise, up from just 10 before.
Google first showed off the improved tracking earlier this month alongside the Fitbit Edge. It is now coming to Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5, and Google claims the added context behind the system makes workout detection nearly twice as accurate while cutting missed activities by more than half. Fitbit Edge will support it too.