It looks like the type of device you’d stumble across while shopping for gadgets from an aeroplane magazine, but the Huawei Watch Buds are very real, turning a smartwatch into a charging case for wireless earbuds that are accessible by lifting up the screen.
According to The Register, Huawei first revealed its Swiss Army Knife of wearables with a teaser video shared through the Chinese social media platform Weibo on November 29, with the promise of a full reveal today. However, just a day later, the company followed up with another post on Weibo stating that, “Huawei’s winter full-scene new product launch conference originally scheduled for December 2 will be postponed,” but with no explanation as to why, and no details about a new release date. Some have speculated the delays could be Covid-related, but it could also be that Huawei simply didn’t want to steal the spotlight from the first trailer for Cocaine Bear, released earlier this week.
As a result, we don’t have any technical details on the Huawei Watch Buds, which is unfortunate because we have a lot of questions about battery life (given smartwatches already struggle in that department), and a pair of wireless buds charging inside is another source of power drain.
We also have no idea what these will cost, but a video on YouTube does provide a brief hands-on with the device, which is reminiscent of last year’s Huawei Watch 3, but a bit thicker to accommodate the earbuds inside. We hope it’ll also come with a larger battery, as the Watch 3 mustered just a couple of days’ use between charges. It’s not a bad idea for a smartwatch, especially given how easy it is to lose wireless earbuds and their charging cases, but usually when a device tries to do too many things at the same time, it ends up doing none of them well.