Gadgets

Published on December 25th, 2021 | by Mahbub Hasan

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Honor Band 6 vs Huawei Band 6 vs Huawei Watch Fit – Basically same

Recently I reviewed and discussed the Honor Band 6 and how good it is and its two most annoying setbacks. Now, are there any alternatives that look the same, have the same basic features with similarly justified pricing. I came across two more devices by Huawei. One is the Huawei Band 6 which is the exact clone of Honor Band 6 with two extra features and additional colors, and Huawei Watch Fit, which is a bit better than Honor and Huawei Band 6 in size and features. But, is it worth spending extra for the Huawei Watch Fit? Let’s find out in this comparison.

Update: Honor has pushed a firmware update for Honor Band 6 that enabled Continuous spO2 monitoring and 85 workout modes. It is being delivered in batches and there are also small bug-fixes and design fixes here and there. After the update, there are basically no difference between Honor Band 6 and Huawei Band 6 except the physical difference.

Recap : Honor Band 6

If you are interested in a full review, please follow this link. Otherwise I will recap my review in short for better context. Honor Band 6 is quite good for the price, and it is one of the best choices for budget smart bands mainly because of the design. It rocks an 1.4 inch display which doesn’t sound like a lot, but the display is wider and sharper than most of the other smart bands in this price range. It looks more like a smartwatch and that’s why people like it. It looks better than some budget Amazfit watches, and MI bands. It has a lot of features like heart rate monitor, SPO2 test, stress monitor, activity monitor, sedentary alert, notifications, alarm, sleep trackers and more.

Now, I have discussed the ugly side of this band in the review too. One huge problem with this band is that it is platform dependent. Many of the good features do not work with smartphones other than Huawei or Honor. The remote shutter feature, start running, cycling and walking from the band itself does not work without an Honor or Huawei phone. There are other problems too, this band does not support emoji, foreign characters and many languages. Whole UI starts lagging if you receive a notification containing foreign characters. For 4 bucks, I can forgive Honor Band 6 for missing such marks, but I cannot fathom the fact that I cannot start the walk workout from the band with GPS. I have to open Huawei Health and start the workout from there.

So how is Huawei Band 6?

Honestly, nothing different or unique. Let me explain. Huawei Band 6 is the exact hardware and front-end as the Honor Band 6. The same 1.4 inch display, the same software, the same material for the build. Except for differentiating these two bands, Huawei has added more color options, number of workouts and added 24 hour monitoring for the SPO2 monitor. I thought they would bump up the battery to match up the battery consumption of the 24 hour SPO2 monitor, but they did not. But the pricing is a bit bumped up, it is priced more than 40 bucks while Honor Band 6 sits lower than 40 bucks due to offers from quite a lot of sellers. I’d say the price is still justified, if you want more colors for the smart band, it is not that high.

Unlike Honor Band 6, the color options are a bit better in Huawei Band 6. Because in addition to straps, you can choose body colors for the Huawei Band 6. Honor Band 6 only has one color option for the body, and that is black. Although I think it is better to choose black body and a different color strap because even though orange and pink white straps do not match, black and any other color straps do match. The 96 workout mode is virtually worthless because most of the workouts do not have additional tracking parameters except time and calories. The 24 hour SPO2 monitor can come handy, but that is also not very important for me.

Huawei Band 6 do not solve anything

Ok, more workout features and color is good. But does it solve anything? Nope. The battery claim is blown up and still is not fixed in Huawei Band 6, still no emoji support, still no bug fix for lagging when receiving notifications with foreign characters in them, no GPS, no call silencing or caller ID for non-huawei phones and no fix for the whole locked down fiasco. You still have to start Cycling and Walking workouts from your Health app if you are not using an iOS or Huawei / Honor device. I still hate this part of both of the devices. While Honor Band 6 is selling at a low price, Huawei Band 6 price hasn’t dropped much.

Both of the devices have the same exact annoying problems with Huawei not intending to fix any of these in the newer future. As I said, Huawei would rather release a new device with all the fixes and sell that device with increased pricing. I cannot believe Huawei with their software update even on smartphones, let alone wearables and smart bands.

Huawei Watch Fit

Huawei Watch Fit applied a similar formula of Huawei Band 6, that is to create a fitness tracker with a watch-like form factor. And it is working well for the Huawei Watch Fit. The design and looks for the Watch Fit is just chef’s kiss. The display is 1.64 inch and is bigger than Honor and Huawei Band 6. This translates to a bigger watch-like display that fits in your arm nicely and shows you more data. This bigger display is well utilized and there are more texts, data and graphs.

Huawei Watch Fit while having more workout features, has an additional personal fitness trainer with more than 20 combined courses. These are small home workout trainings with animations and timer that you can do in your home to lose weight and get in shape. There are also courses for running too. This is quite good use of the included 4GB flash storage with animations and instructions on screen. I think this is the feature that drives buyers toward Huawei Watch Fit compared to other fitness trackers.

Quick workouts in Huawei watch Fit

Huawei Watch Fit contains a personal trainer built into the watch so you can choose from 12 different courses for general courses like abs, neck and shoulder etc, and you can also choose 13 running courses. All of the quick workouts feature animated instructions that show you exact movement and tips with time and heart rate. It alerts you when a step ends with vibrations. Now, in this pandemic, outdoor exercise has been a tough thing to do. And the gym has closed down in many areas, and for people like us who spend a lot of time doing work everyday, going to the gym is hard.

This is why indoor quick workouts help. You can do most of these training sessions without gym equipment, in the comfort of your home. There are applications that help you exercise in your home without gym equipment and easy to follow animations, but having those features built into a smartwatch is even cooler. Not only that, but it checks and tracks your heart rate throughout the training session. The Huawei Watch Fit contains workouts like Exercise at Work, Full-Body Stretch, Ab ripper and includes 44 standard movement demonstrations all of which are animated. I think this is why the Huawei Watch Fit has 4 gigabytes of flash storage. Of Course it syncs all the data with Huawei Health.

Other workout features in Huawei Watch Fit

Huawei Watch Fit has built-in GPS, so it can track your cycling and walking without relying on your phone which is great. You can start working out from your watch and start jogging, running, walking and cycling. There are 96 workout modes which is plenty for covering and tracking most of the activities. Using that bigger display and more trackers, you can find extra details right on your watch such as step details, pacing, heart rate data and step intervals. Rest of the data and other records can be found on your Health app which shows your data beautifully with charts and graphs.

Similarities or dissimilarities with Honor / Huawei band 6

Huawei Watch Fit is similar to Honor or Huawei Band 6 when it comes to basic features such as watch faces, notifications, alerts and so on. Both Watch Fit and the Band 6 have hundreds of watch faces ready to be installed. Some are free, some require payment. Both have nice watch faces that go well with AMOLED displays but Huawei Watch Fit has one great advantage and that is always on display. Although it drains more battery, it helps you to quickly look at the time. But, all of these watches and bands support raise to wake, but if you keep on Do Not Disturb mode, then the always on display of the Huawei Watch Fit comes handy compared to press to wake in Honor and Huawei Band 6. Watch Fit also shows more data than Honor and Huawei Band 6. Here is the comparison table :

Update: Since Honor has pushed a new update that added Continuous spO2 monitoring and 85 more workout modes, I am going to update the table.

Huawei Fit Watch still has problems

As you can see with the table, Huawei Watch Fit still cannot do a lot of things you wish it should do. There is a small hole in the side that looks like a microphone, but it is not since this mic would be pretty useless without a speaker. It is not a barometer sensor, since Huawei Watch Fit does not have a barometer sensor. Talking about missing sensors, Huawei Watch Fit cannot measure skin temperature and it lacks a compass and altimeter which sucks for a product that is priced similar to Amazfit GTS 2 mini and GTS 2e. You cannot call or listen to music, you cannot see pictures in the notification and it cannot even render emojis. This whole fiasco makes the Huawei Watch Fit more of a Huawei not a Watch Fit(ness tracker). Even a Talkband B6 is interesting at this point.

Conclusion

Huawei Watch Fit is quite similar to Huawei Honor Band 6 or Honor Band 6 in terms of feature count with Huawei Watch Fit throwing in a few interesting extras. With quick workout animations and more workout data on the watch makes Huawei Watch Fit a pandemic friend that helps you stay healthy in any situation be it work or home. Now, I have a doubt if it can be called a watch and not a smartband, because it does not eliminate any problem Honor / Huawei Band 6 has except having a built-in GPS while costing more than double the price of Honor and Huawei Band 6.

Now, if you want any suggestions on what to buy instead, I will recommend Amazfit GTSe. Not only does this puppy work for all platforms with no feature lockdown, it also boasts altimeter and emoji support. Amazfit GTS2e is more watch-like compared to Huawei Watch Fit and it also costs less than Huawei Watch Fit. It also has some smart features like Alexa voice assistance and event reminders. And the GTS2e has more sensors including a temperature sensor! I will soon provide a review and comparison for the GTS2e. Until then, stay fit and happy. Thanks a lot for reading, and if you have any opinion, leave it down in the comment section.

Tags: honor, Honor band 6, Huawei, Huawei band 6, Huawei Watch Fit, smartbands, smartwatch, smartwatches

About the Author

Mahbub Hasan is a creative professional from Bangladesh. In Technofaq, Mahbub writes articles about design, privacy, technology and life surrounding them.

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