Huawei Watch Fit 2 Review: As good as it gets (for now)

Since the Android debacle back in 2019, Huawei has pivoted (hard) towards the wearable market. In this time the manufacturer has created some excellent time-pieces from a hardware perspective, and while the software element has made big improvements, this looks like it is the best it’s going to get for a while.

The Huawei Watch Fit 2 is one among the latest slew of Huawei’s 2022 wearable releases. It is by no means the most interesting fitness tracker from the collection – that would be the Huawei Watch D that can take your blood pressure - but it is well-priced and packs an obscene amount of features into the slim-line design. It’s too bad that it is still missing streaming platform compatibility on iOS and NFC payment options – two elements I would love, but I doubt we’ll see from Huawei any time soon.

It is good...

Before focusing on what is missing from the Huawei Watch Fit 2 let’s take a look at what the device does well.

Battery life is a standout feature, even if it does fall short of the ten-day promise. I managed just around seven days of battery, with all my notifications enabled, no battery saving mode used, and around six hours of exercise tracking. This all corresponds with what the manufacturer deems as ‘Heavy Use’, and a weeklong battery on a smart watch is nothing to scoff at.

According to Huawei’s testing, to get ten days out of the device you’ll need to limit yourself to 30 minutes of exercise tracking, music playback, and Bluetooth calls, 350 notifications, 42 phone calls, 21 alarms, and consistent heart rate and sleep monitoring each week.

Huawei calls this ‘Typical Use’, but half an hour of exercise per week isn’t exactly cohesive branding for a fitness tracker. Let’s just call the ten-day battery life a vanity metric. You’ll likely get seven and that is still impressive endurance.

Performance is all around excellent. The gorgeous display showcases 97 different workout modes, sleep tracking, SPO2 monitoring, stress monitoring, and a wellbeing platform called The Healthy Living Shamrock. It takes a holistic look at health and fitness through all the available focus areas, but I’ve found the calorie tracking to consistently sit lower than other smart watches. In my testing both the Huawei Watch Fit 2, and older Huawei watches report around 20-30% less calories burned than others for the same workout.

Designed primarily as a fitness tool, the look and feel of the watch is entirely consistent with its goals. It has a slimline display that doesn’t inhibit too much wrist space while you exercise, and the silicon strap is surprisingly soft and comfortable for long-term wear. The charger however isn't ideal. While the magnetic charger should snap into place, it can be quite finnicky and doesn’t hold true as well as previous iterations have. You wouldn’t want to be struggling with the charging cord in the dark.

At under $300 the Huawei Watch Fit 2 delivers premium features with a gorgeous screen, and form factor cohesive with it’s branding. It is a good watch, a great watch even, but it is still missing two features we’ve grown accustomed to seeing on even the most budget smart watches.

... but

After being banned from using Google-powered software, Huawei has had to fight to keep relevant, and fought it has. For quite a while you couldn’t download Huawei software to either Android or iPhone, and the official advice was to side-load it instead. Apps powered by things like Google Maps wouldn’t work on newer phones, and while you technically could use the manufacturer’s wearables with iPhones and Android devices, you’d be stuck with stripped-down compatibility.

Not all, but many of these issues have been worked through – especially on the wearables front - and I finally feel comfortable enough to recommend Huawei devices again. But there are remnants of these problems that persist, and NFC payment and music streaming just happen to be the two main features in the overflow that irk me.

Smart watches, among any other tech, is the one device that has made the most difference to my day-to-day life. When I was younger they encouraged me to get up and move, but now for the most part they keep me off my phone unless absolutely necessary. Most smart watches allow you to monitor notifications and control a range of your phone features that would otherwise require you to pull the rectangle from your pocket.

While the Watch Fit 2 does still let you discern which notifications deem your immediate attention, needing to pull out my phone to pay, or to check/change songs on streaming services has pulled my screen time back up. Note that the streaming compatibility is only an issue when paired with iOS devices, and the manufacturer says it is already working on making this feature available on iOS as well.

Plus, it isn’t Huawei’s fault that I can’t take out my phone without having a five minute browse, but the lack of compatibility does give me the chance to do it more often.

As for NFC payment, we're probably not going to see this feature on Huawei wearables any time soon. Although all Huawei wearables have the hardware neccessary to make payments, neither Google nor Apple are likely to give the manufacturer software access to Google Pay or Apple Pay. According to Huawei, there are considerations and plans to make NFC payment available, but even if Huawei comes out with it’s own payment solution in Australia it will take some time to implement.

Huawei Fit 2- Final Thoughts

I'd wager that Huawei wearables are as good as they're going to get for some time, and luckily that plateua is a high one.

Fundamentally, for $299 the Huawei Watch Fit 2 offers a more premium package than others do at this price point. The battery life is excellent despite being below the advertised specs, the display and animations are stunning, and it has a large amount of fitness features than other comparable devices. It is the same story for the other Huawei wearables i've tested this year.

Unfortunately, there is only so much that the manufacturer can do with the compatibility limitiations as the third player in an iOS vs. Android world. NFC payments are still a while away, and maybe iOS streaming comptability will be here sooner than we think, but even though the Huawei Watch Fit 2 has added to my screen time - it is good enough that it isn't a deal breaker.

Anula Wiwatowska

Offsite Editorial Lead | Instagram

Anula is the Off-Site Editorial Lead for WhistleOut Australia, and an award winning tech journalist. She has been writing about the Australian telco industry, and consumer technology for over five years, and has been known to tell her Uber driver which phone they should upgrade to next.

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