Watches. Good for telling the time, very bad when it comes to playing music (unless you get down to the tick and respective tock of the movement).
But not so at Huawei. The Chinese company that somehow forever finds itself in hot water with the US Government has built a smartwatch and then stuck headphones on the inside. And while such a product initially sounds like it was thought-out by a crazy person, it’s actually incredibly useful; no more forgetting to bring your buds for your next impromptu session of Reels, or the odd Zoom call on the go.
The two-in-one tech is actually pretty clever; you get a circular 1.43-inch OLED display with decent brightness. You can move around the watch’s functions via rotating crown (like the Apple Watch). Oh, and if you flip up that screen therein lies a pair of Bluetooth noise-cancelling earbuds.
Each bud is interchangeable – so you can swap ears if the need arises – with a clever sensor inside that can tell which ear the bud is in to pipe in stereo sound. Yes, they are smaller than your bog-standard pair of wireless earphones (and so, they don’t sound the best in budland) but they live inside a frickin’ watch.
Elsewhere you get a solid week’s worth of battery life when using it full whack, more than 80 data-driven exercise modes, and a wealth of different health indicators including heart rate and sleep monitoring. Are the days of wrist-mounted headphones now upon us? Only time (potentially, to the tune of some lovely jazz music via your built-in earbuds) will tell.
The Huawei Watch Buds are due to launch in May. Stay tuned for a full review.