While most manufacturers are trying to find a way of slimming down their smartwatches without nuking the battery life, Huawei has decided to take a different approach: adding weight and another source of battery drain.
The extra chunk, it turns out, will not be for beefing up the battery, but as a place to put your wireless earbuds to charge when not in use.
Huawei teased the reveal itself in a short video on Weibo, but others beat the Chinese firm to the punch. Huawei Central got a couple of stills of the smartwatch (above), but even before that, QSQTechnology got a hands-on video showing exactly how it’ll work.
Is it a good idea? Well, yes and no. On one hand, I quite like the idea of having my earbuds strapped to my wrist at all times, like those mittens with straps for forgetful children. It would make walking out the door without headphones a thing of the past.
It also means that if you’re low on power for your earbuds, you can whack them into the watch for a bit more charge as shown in the lead image. So, in theory, you’ll never be caught out again.
But then smartwatches aren’t known for their long lifespans either, so the idea of having something other than the screen and its internal sensors draining the battery isn’t hugely appealing. Add to that my generally horrible experience with true wireless earbuds and the chunkiness that built-in earbuds require, and I’m unlikely to be looking to import this particular timepiece any time soon.
Huawei isn’t the first company to try putting earbuds inside other products. The Nokia 5170 XpressAudio does the same thing, where it makes a bit more sense — or it would have done about 20 years ago when people bought feature phones in large quantities. In 2022, it’s just an expensive curiosity — something I suspect it will have in common with this upcoming Huawei wearable.
