Review: Huawei Fit 2 Watch
Quick Review: A low-cost fitness smartwatch that has many of the features you find on premium smartwatches. The battery easily lasts a week. The main negative is the Huawei App isn’t available on Google Play.
I held off from buying a smartwatch for quite some time, purely because their battery life is so poor. But in 2020, the temptation got too great, and I got a Samsung Galaxy 3 watch, which, unsurprisingly, I didn’t keep for long because it needed charging every day.
In 2022, I ventured back to the smartwatch market and after a lot of research, bought the Huawei Fit 2 watch, which has turned out to be a great smartwatch.
Huawei Health App
The Huawei health app is the companion app for the Fit 2 smartwatch. The app is where all the data (heart rate, steps etc) gathered by the watch is presented in pretty charts. The app is also where the watch settings can be configured.
The Huawei Fit 2 watch does work without the app, but to get the best from the watch, the app should be installed.
The Huawei Health app can’t be installed directly from Google Play. To install the app scan the Huawei QR code and make sure your Android smartphone is configured to allow the installation of apps from other locations. Once installed the Huawei app can easily be updated from within the app.
Huawei Fit 2 Features
The Fit 2 watch is (as the name suggests) designed as a fitness watch. This means it has all the standard fitness features, but it also has many features that you would usually only find on a fully-featured smartwatch.
Fitness Features
Below is a list of the main fitness features of the Huawei Fit2 Watch
- Workout modes & monitoring
- GPS Tracking
- Counts steps
- Monitors sleep
- Monitors heart rate
- Monitors stress
- Monitors blood oxygen levels
- Reminders to drink water, step counts
Smartwatch Features
The list below are smartwatch features that are not typically found on a fitness tracker watch.
- Bluetooth phone calls
- Standalone MP3 \ Music player
- Speak & Microphone
- Designer editions
- Message notifications and Replies (pre-written)
- Apps (limited)
- Different watch faces
All the Huawei Fit 2 Features and specifications can be found on the Huawei website
Pros: Huawei Fit 2 Watch
- Great Value For Money – The Fit 2 watch can be picked up for under £100. Considering the quality of the watch and all the functionality, it is really good value for money.
- Size – Unlike many smartwatches, the Fit 2 (all editions) isn’t ridiculously big. The dimensions for the Fit 2 are 46 x 33.5 x 10.8 mm
Huawei Fit 2 Watch – Size On Wrist - Feature Rich – The Fit 2 has many of the features that you would find in a premium smartwatch. Most of the features missing are things that most people wouldn’t use anyway.
- Long Battery Life – Huawei claims the watch has 7 to 10 days of battery life depending on use. Which, in my experience, is about right.
- Good Build Quality – The Active version of the Fit 2 watch is made entirely from tough plastic, it doesn’t feel cheaply made. The screen is a good size and the touch sensitivity works well.
Cons: Huawei Fit 2 Watch
- No NFC – The Active version of the watch (the one I have) doesn’t have NFC. According to the Huawei website the Classic and Elegant editions of the Fit 2 also don’t have NFC. However, I’ve seen several online reviews claiming that the Classic & Elegant do have NFC.
- Huawei App not On Google Play – The Huawei Health app isn’t available to install from Google Play due to a trade dispute between the US and China. This means that the app has to be installed directly from Huawei.
- Limited Apps – The Fit 2 watch uses Huawei’s operating system, called HarmonyOS. It doesn’t use the watch version of Android, called Wear OS. This means the number of apps available for the Fit 2 watch is limited. Personally, I’ve found all the functionality that comes with the Huawei Fit 2 meets all my needs.
- Fitness Tracking – The Fit 2 can automatically detect the workout you’re doing, but rather than just automatically track the workout, it requires you to manually confirm. This In my opinion is f*cking ridiculous, why not have an option to track the workout automatically? I’m usually a sweaty mess when I’m working out and pressing the watch screen with my sweaty finger doesn’t always work. It’s also pretty inconvenient when on something like the rowing machine when you have to stop growing for a few seconds to press the watch screen.
My old Fitbit watch had the option to automatically track workouts without any manual intervention.
Note: The Fit 2 does have an ‘Auto-detect Workouts’ option, however, this only enables the watch to detect the workout it doesn’t automatically record the workout
Accuracy Of The Huawei Fit Watch
Heart – I’ve checked my heart rate on both the Fit 2 watch and a Kardiamobile 6L at the same time and the results were exactly the same.
GPS – I’ve used the Fit 2 watch GPS quite a bit and found it to be very accurate.
Steps – When I’ve compared the Fit 2 step counter with my phone, I found the results to be quite different. For example, a walk I went on which was about 3 miles, showed as 5855 steps on the Fit 2 and my phone showed 6181 steps. I’m not sure if it’s my phone or the watch that is inaccurate. The fact is I’m not too bothered if the watch step counter is inaccurate, as long as it’s consistent. I’ll do the walk again someday and see if the watch shows the same number of steps.
Stress – I’m not sure how the watch works out stress levels, but for me, it’s always wildly inaccurate. The fact is I know when I’m stressed, I don’t need my watch to tell me.
Sleep – The watch is fairly accurate at detecting when I wake up in the night. I don’t know how accurate it is at detecting the type of sleep, like REM, deep and light. Again, much like the stress, I know when I’ve had a crappy night sleep, I don’t need my watch to tell me.
Should You Buy The Huawei Fit 2 Watch
Overall I’ve been very pleased with the Huawei Fit 2 watch. There are a few annoyances, especially the stupid workout tracking which requires manual input. The watch has loads of useful features, is easy to use and everything works as it should.
Considering the price I think the watch is an absolute bargain. I highly recommend the Huawei Fit 2 watch.
