Huawei, a company few had heard of as recently as two years ago, continues to release new products. One of their more interesting recent products is the Huawei Fit, a fitness tracker in watch form. This is a pretty daring move.
Why? Because right now we’re seeing a fitness industry basically ruled by FitBit and a smartwatch scene that isn’t entirely sure what it wants to be when it grows up. The fight for your wrist is intense already.
Huawei makes some interesting choices for the Fit. First of all, they go with a monochrome, touch-enabled screen. This reminds me of my late, lamented Basis Peak, a great tracker taken down by recalls. I would argue the Fit is actually better designed, with a simple, slick circle that looks a bit more grown up. It also looks better than the typical FitBit “bracelet”. The watch band is also very comfortable compared to several, and replaceable.
Source: Huawei.
Another choice they make is to have their own app. Have to admit, I’m not a fan. There’s a little too much going on, and it’s not laid out great. I prefer it to the Google Fit app, but Apple Health is better designed. Thankfully, if you’re already married to one of those two apps, the Huawei Wear app will sync data there. I’d be more likely to use their app if they let me “drill down” to see my heart rate by the minute, something neither Apple or Google let.
One area where the watch and app both fall short is sleep tracking. A must feature for any fitness tracker in 2017, the Fit doesn’t seem to register my sleep. Despite being in bed for six hours, it sometimes registers me for two, max. Not two deep sleep, two light. It’s possible that I move too much in my sleep for it or something, but it does not compare to other sleep trackers I have used, like the one built into my itbed.
This may be due to the heart sensor, which is sensitive., but I don’t know. I do want to take a minute to give Huawei props for making it water proof, and for giving it an insanely long lasting battery. But that’s about as much as I can do.
All-in-all, in the few weeks that I had the Fit, it felt very much like an Alpha release. There are other trackers that do things better and smartwatches that have more functionality, so why bother?
It would make a lot more sense for Huawei to focus on Android Wear, and leave the stand-alone trackers to others. The Android Wear 2 Sport by Huawei is everything this wishes it was.
Note: Huawei sent me the Fit for a few weeks.
