A hands-on video of a new Huawei concept smartwatch has appeared online – and this could be one of the maddest wearables we’ve seen for years.
The scoop by Huawei Central, coming straight out of China, shows a pretty normal-looking Huawei smartwatch, with a major twist.
In the video, the smartwatch screen flips to reveal a pair of Huawei earphones inside the case.
It would be an extremely useful way to carry headphones, rather than have the charging case in your pocket all day. It would save the risk of them getting lost or forgotten, and just the physical co-joining of watch and buds could encourage listening from the wrist.
Huawei Watch Buds hands-on leak pic.twitter.com/wLuWRdUmbq
— Deng Li (@MrDengLi) November 26, 2022
However, there’s still so much we haven’t seen.
Firstly, it seems implausible that the Huawei Watch Buds are the same thickness of a normal Huawei Watch – and the videos seem carefully curated not to show the depth.
The slots inside the case reveal that they could be small cylindrical buds, but whether they match up to the comfort, sound quality, and battery life we expect is a mystery.
Then there’s the question of charging. Not many people would give away vital smartwatch charge for their headphones.
Huawei has generally offered over a week of battery life on its smartwatches, so if any brand could take up the challenge of powering two wearables in a single device, we’d bet on the Chinese behemoth.
It comes off the back of the Huawei Watch Cyber, which features a case that detaches from the band. It seems that Huawei is trying out some wild concepts, to see if it can pre-empt the next generation of smartwatches.
Tech brands regularly produce concept designs, so we’re not sure this will ever see the light of day – especially outside of China. But it’s a really interesting take on the idea of a smartwatch, and we’ll be following this closely.
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.