Sports watch under 2000 SEK

Review: Huawei Watch Fit 3 - Smooth training and health monitoring at a low price

A smooth, attractive sports watch at a very competitive price. With its format and light weight, which still accommodates all the health measurements you need, the Huawei Watch Fit 3 is easy to appreciate.

Erik Mörner

Published 9 September 2024 - 15:52 Modified 24 January 2025 - 16:24

Huawei Watch Fit 3 is primarily a light, smooth watch that measures your sleep, exercise, and overall health, but it's the analysis and the useful advice I receive that really convinces me. After waking up one night with too little sleep, the sleep analysis points out that I rested for an hour in the middle of the day and that this might be the cause of the sleep problems. I also get advice to stretch to gain a bit more energy after a night of poor sleep and to go to bed earlier and avoid taking too long to get out of bed once I've woken up. Another morning when I got up without turning off sleep mode, the watch reminds me of it and points out that "it seems like you are awake?", so I can correct my mistake.

Smooth and large at the same time

Not all watches are comfortable to wear even when I sleep, but the Huawei Watch Fit 3 is. It doesn't make itself known unnecessarily. Still, I think the watch does well in providing a lot of information during the day despite its small size, when a large and clear screen is key to presenting relevant information. This means the watch is small and smooth enough when I sleep, yet large enough with a clear screen to provide information while, for example, I'm out running. It largely succeeds in this because the screen is square and not round. This allows more information to fit on the screen, and Huawei utilizes this fact well,

When I head out for the first workout, a run when the spring sun has finally started to warm just right, I start the measurement by quickly pressing the watch's lower button and then choose outdoor running. After a few seconds, the watch shows that it has found the GPS position, and I start the workout. I get relevant information during the session with a report every kilometer and ongoing information about heart rate, distance, time, and pace. Colors show which heart rate zone I am in so that I can get an indication directly from the color on the screen (red for the highest, for example) without having to read the numbers.

Limited notifications

If a notification comes from the phone during the workout (provided I have it with me), it appears over the workout reports just when it arrives, but if I miss it, I can't access the notification list without ending the workout. However, I can control music without leaving the workout mode on the watch. The music support varies depending on which phone you have connected the watch to. You can always control music playing on the phone from the watch, but only via Android can you load music files directly into the watch and play independently from the phone directly to a pair of wireless headphones. This support is missing in iPhone.

Previously, when I tested other watches from Huawei, I had problems with certain Android phones getting notifications to the watch. This time, however, Huawei seems to have overcome that problem, as I now have no issues with it on any of the phones I'm testing with.

For selected apps (Instagram and Facebook Messenger, for example), you can reply to notifications, provided you are using an Android phone

I can receive notifications from the phone directly on the watch and reply from there. During the test period, I try the watch first connected to an iPhone and then to an Android. On the Android phone, I can reply from selected apps, like SMS, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger, using pre-set phrases. With the iPhone, however, this option to reply directly from the watch is missing, and I only have the option to delete the notification, meaning I have to reply from the phone.

Trainer on the wrist

In the following days and weeks, there are more workouts, but the watch not only has pure workouts but also guidance and a type of courses, so you can get help planning your training and achieving different goals.

Directly on the watch, I can start a warm-up before the workout and see an animated figure showing what I should do and timing each exercise. There is a similar feature for stretching after completing a workout, and specifically for running, there are both general workouts and customized training plans where you get a program to train for, for example, a marathon or to be able to run ten kilometers based on your fitness level.

The watch does not have dual-band GPS like some more expensive watches are equipped with, only single, but despite that, it logs my running sessions with good precision, and when I have another watch on the other arm for comparison, they signal a new kilometer with only a few steps difference. The only times I clearly notice problems with the mapped route is if I go indoors under a roof and forget to pause my walk, as the walking path can then be drawn as a tangled ball of yarn, and the distance can thus be incorrect when the watch unsuccessfully searches for the position. GPS requires a clear view of the sky.

Share the data you want

When it comes to sharing your workout results with others, Huawei offers several ways to do so. You can have your workouts uploaded not only to Huawei's own service but also to Apple Health if you use an iPhone and to Google Fitness if you use an Android phone.

This makes the Watch Fit 3, despite its low price, a really competent challenger and competitor to the Apple Watch and other more expensive sports watches. I hear several times during the test how acquaintances think it physically resembles the Apple Watch. However, the focus of the features differs, and while the Apple Watch is broader in its range of features and has email, many third-party apps, Spotify, voice control, and e-sim, they are more comparable when it comes to training and health.

The app handles everything and is available for iPhone and Android, and of course also for Huawei's phones

For both iPhone and Android

Whether you use the Huawei Watch Fit 3 with an iPhone or an Android, you can directly share workouts to Strava and Komoot from the Huawei Health app. This way, you can see friends' workouts and encourage them whether they use a Huawei watch, Samsung, Apple, or another brand.

Directly in the Huawei Health app, you can choose to share parts of or all your training and health data in the app with a family member. This requires that the family member also has the Huawei Health app and a Huawei account. I tested this, and after a few days of use, my relative received a message that health data from the family member (me, that is) showed abnormal values. It sounds quite alarming, but when we looked, it turned out to be harmless. The warning was only that I had slept less than recommended, five hours in one night instead of the recommended amount.