Huawei says its new extreme sports smartwatch, the Huawei Watch Ultimate, can be worn as a diver’s watch up to 110 meters.
This makes the watch comply with a host of international diving standards in a movement that seems designed to outperform other high-end smartwatches such as the Apple Watch Ultra.
The high-end laptop’s chassis is made from “liquid metal,” which Huawei says is an amorphous zirconium-based alloy. It is a type of titanium that is apparently two and a half times harder than stainless steel. Take that, aluminum.
On the side of the fancy case is a rotating crown for navigating the software, a function button, and an “ultimate mode” button that opens the watch’s built-in dive or expedition apps.
What is the release date of the Huawei Watch Ultimate?
The Huawei Watch Ultimate will go on sale in the UK and Europe on April 3. There is no American version.
How much does the Huawei Watch Ultimate cost?
There is no pricing information for the Watch Ultimate yet. We expect it to be expensive, however.
What are the features and specifications of the Huawei Watch Ultimate?
Whichever you choose, you get a ceramic bezel with a tachometer design encircling a 1.5-inch round AMOLED display that can allegedly reach 1,000 nits of brightness. The sapphire crystal on the display is 2.35mm thick, adding to a relatively bulky case height of 13mm in total.
Despite the speaker holes and general fragility of a smartwatch, the Watch Ultimate has an ISO 22810 water resistance rating and EN13319 diving equipment standard.
There’s also an EKG sensor, all-day heart rate tracking, all-day blood oxygen (SpO2) monitoring, and stress measurement.
Huawei
If you can bear to wear the chonky to bed, it will also track your sleep.
The software offers four recreational, technical, freediving and gauge diving modes, while for firmer ground activities there is access to five satellite systems, including GPS, for near-global coverage.
The watch supports tracking tons of the usual sports and activities and adds a few more such as off-roading in the desert – but realistically the watch’s sensors still track your location, heart rate and your cadence.
Having so many specific sports on the device is really so you can track your specific sports and differentiate between activities in the Huawei Health app, and the watch works with Android phones or iPhones.
When I reviewed previous Huawei Watches, I had to download the Huawei AppGallery app store to get them working, as the latest version of Huawei Health in the Google Play Store would not work well with the devices.
I asked Huawei if this would be needed for the Watch Ultimate but they haven’t responded yet. I will update this article if they do.
Regarding iOS compatibility, a Huawei spokesperson told me that: “iOS does not support some functions such as SMS reply, voice assistant and Huawei Share OneHop”.
Even with all these features in a (rather) small device, Huawei claims that the Huawei Watch Ultimate can last two weeks on a charge. Using the watch more than casually will surely eat away at that, but it’s better than most Apple Watches’ day.
Fast charging is said to fully recharge the watch in 60 minutes, with 25 per cent achieved in just 10 minutes.
Although Huawei phones are all but DOA for Western buyers these days thanks to a lack of Google, this watch could help put Huawei back on people’s wearable radar.
Check out our roundup of the best smartwatches to see what they’re up against.
