Huawei has been pivoting into the weird, wonderful world of accessories in recent months, with excellent products popping up left and right. The Huawei Freebuds Pro 2 are some of the best wireless earphones you can get at the moment and the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro is a fantastic smartwatch, but what if you could combine the two? That's the idea behind the Huawei Watch Buds, and it's a combination that works really, really well.

Of course, there are some issues — if you've used a watch from Huawei before, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. The software can be limiting, and it can be tough to set up, especially if you're not too familiar with sideloading applications. On top of that, it's a bit costly, coming in at £449 in the U.K. However, if you can get past both of those complaints and want a truly unique product, then the Huawei Watch Buds should be on your radar.

About this review: I received the Huawei Watch Buds for review from Huawei. The company did not have any input into the contents of this review.

Huawei Watch Buds: Pricing and availability

The Huawei Watch Buds comes in either black or khaki models. It's on sale now in China and some parts of Europe, including the U.K. and Germany. It costs £449 in the U.K. and €499 throughout the rest of Europe.

• Europe: £449
• U.K.: €499
• China: 2,988 yuan

Design: The earphones are a hidden surprise

• Looks like any other smartwatch
• Some discomfort with the leather strap
• Earphones have an annoying design

On the surface, the Huawei Watch Buds looks like any other smartwatch, even if it is a bit bulky. It features a 1.43-inch 466 x 466 OLED display that gets pretty bright and a leather strap. Most uniquely, there's a button at the bottom of the display that pops the display open to reveal a pair of earphones.

The earphone compartment is quite soft to the touch, and the earphones lift with the watch face when you open it. They're magnetized to the underside of the watch face so they won't fall out if you open the watch while walking, which is a plus, though they are finicky to put back or take out because they're so small.

That's one major sticking point of these earphones, and it's their overall shape. They don't always sit in your ears properly and require a bit of work to twist them in to fit. They have no point of leverage to the rest of your ear like other earphones, and they can also get uncomfortable after being in your ears for too long. Because of their size, they're also a bit light on battery too, which we'll talk about later on.

However, I can excuse a lot thanks to the sheer convenience. I frequently forget to bring earphones with me when I go outside, and it's basically impossible with these to do so. My earphones are always on my wrist, so even in situations where I normally wouldn't bring my earphones but can benefit from having them, they've been perfect.

There are some weird quirks as a result of this design, including some that may be dealbreakers. First and foremost, there is a greatly reduced water resistance here, and Huawei even warns about getting the watch wet. It has an IPX7 rating with the case closed, which should be good for underwater use at 1 meter deep for 30 minutes. The earphones themselves have an IPX4 rating making them splash-proof, but the moisture warning concerned me, and I'm not sure if I can even take this out in the rain.

Plus, because the battery is shared between the watch itself and the earphones, you'll likely notice a hit to battery life. I've had to charge the watch frequently when using the earphones a lot, though the battery life has been better when I use them less. At MWC, I was able to get about a week of battery life when I was barely using these earphones, but on days when I'm using them frequently, it'll be more like two days.

Sound quality: Surprisingly good for a smaller size

• Great audio quality, particularly for the size
• Left and right channels can be easily detected

Talking early on about "sound quality" in a smartwatch review feels strange, but the audio quality is one of the key areas Huawei got right here. I was immediately skeptical of the audio quality given the form factor being used. I was expecting a mediocre pair of earphones inside a decent smartwatch, but yet again, Huawei has done an excellent job with an audio product.

First off, Huawei didn't share driver size details, but from that (and the smaller overall size), we can infer that these have a smaller driver than the company's other earphones. I'm not going to harp on Huawei too much for losing a battle to physics; it's just not physically possible to fit something like a 14mm driver in a device that's 10mm in diameter.

But these earphones are small, and they're just not as good as the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2. They're still competitive with other earphones that I've used, though. For example, I prefer the sound on the Watch Buds over the sound on the Nothing Ear (1), and I definitely prefer the sound over the default settings on the Google Pixel Buds Pro. That conversation will change when you count tuning, but out of the box, they can hold their own.

Yet again, Huawei has done an excellent job with an audio product.

The thing that Huawei has nailed repeatedly is the overall sound signature, making them pleasant to the ear without over-emphasizing one band of the frequency spectrum over another. Lows, mids, and highs are all well-balanced and easy to listen to, and I didn't feel the need to make any changes out of the box. Their soundstage is a little bit narrower than other earphones I've used and they sound a bit quieter, but that's likely due to the smaller driver size.

If you look at the earphones and wonder how you're supposed to differentiate the left channel from the right channel, well, there's a cool trick in the software. Rather than having a tiny inscription on the earphone that says which side it is, the company has opted to have each earphone be ambidextrous. You put them in your ears, tilt your head left and right, and it determines which side is left and which side is right. I've only had it randomly trigger a switch once, and I've been using these a lot. They've been perfect aside from that, and directional audio works as expected.

Software: HarmonyOS in a watch is unchanged

• Usual limited operating system
• No third-party apps
• Fitness and health tracking has been buggy, but there are software updates

As is usually the case, Huawei's HarmonyOS is limiting if you're coming from a more open-watch operating system. You get Huawei's preloaded applications and a responsive, colorful UI with smooth animations. You need the Huawei Health app to actually use the watch, but you'll need to get that from Huawei's website. You can't use the version on the Google Play Store.

Needing to install apps from a third-party source requires a few additional steps, like granting permissions in Android, so the setup process for any of Huawei's products is automatically more complicated than with products from other western brands.

The Huawei Watch Buds offers an enticing solution to a problem that I didn't know I had.

That being said, HarmonyOS does a good job as a basic smartphone assistant, but you'll never feel like it's replacing your smartphone in a way that other smartwatches like the Apple Watch or even the Galaxy Watch may. There's no voice assistant, no third-party apps, and you'll have an annoying time trying to respond to messages on your watch. You can set canned responses to reply to messages quickly, but they won't work all the time.

One thing that I did find pretty cool was that you can change some of the basic earphone effects on the watch as your earphones are paired to both the watch and your phone at any given time. You can change the noise cancelation and the EQ from your wrist, though anything more will require you to use the Huawei Health app.

Fitness and health tracking

I've been wearing the Huawei Watch Buds for a few weeks now, and in true Huawei fashion, it excels in health and movement tracking. It tracks steps and other health-related activities, including heart rate and SPO2 blood oxygen reading. There's also menstrual cycle tracking, GPS support, and workout tracking too, though that last one is inexplicably switched off by default. I found that for one or two days, it didn't seem to track any steps and had trouble syncing data to the Huawei Health app, but I've been told that I was using an early software version. I have since received an update that seems to track things fine, though.

It's always worth keeping in mind that these aren't medical devices. They serve as a decent indicator of your general physical health and activity and can assist you in your weight loss journey if that's something that you're trying to do, but they don't do the work for you, and they're not 100% accurate.

If you have ever read any of our other reviews when it comes to Huawei's smartwatches, all the same ups and downs apply. The software is limited, customization is scarce, and you need to pay for some of the cooler watch faces. You can't make your own, and there's no powerful watch face maker that you can get like on WatchOS. The free watch faces seldom have widgets that you can interact with on display, so they don't really add any functionality either. The Watch Buds isn't one of the best smartwatches out there, but it'll get the job done.

Should you buy the Huawei Watch Buds?

You should buy the Huawei Watch Buds if:

• You frequently forget your earphones
• You want a cool trick to show off on your wrist
• You want your earphones and watch to be linked at all times

You shouldn't buy the Huawei Watch Buds if:

• Price is an issue
• You care about a wide range of functionality
• You want more than just basic tracking

The Huawei Watch Buds offers an enticing solution to a problem that I didn't know I had, and the price tag that it commands means that for some people, it will merely stay a problem. Starting at £449 is a tall ask for a smartwatch, even if it does have a pair of earphones effectively built-in for that price. I love both the watch and the earphones, but I think plenty of people would see the utility in merely buying a cheaper smartwatch instead and then a more expensive pair of earphones.

However, that's not to say that it's a product you shouldn't buy. The Galaxy Watch 5 started at £269, and you can consider the earphones (plus the unique form factor) as costing £180 extra. It's still a lot of money, but it makes more sense when you break it down like that. Other smartwatches have a significant edge over the Huawei Watch Buds, such as better software, but using one of those also means that I'm occasionally not going to have a pair of great earphones when I'm out and about, which for some people, is a fate worse than death.