Review: Huawei Watch GT 5 and Watch GT 5 Pro

There are different schools when it comes to smart and sports watches and many different needs and ways to get there. Huawei stands out by working with both Android phones and iPhones and by combining long battery life, sports and health focus with appearances that do not reveal that this is a smartwatch but rather bring to mind everything from delicate watch-like jewelry to more sporty or luxurious creations.

We have tested both the Huawei GT 5 and Huawei GT 5 Pro and they obviously have some things in common. The first thing I notice and appreciate is the interface in the watches which responds quickly and works smoothly. I have a watch face where I can directly see some of my health metrics for the day and this can of course be replaced with one of many others that are either downloaded or selected from those already available.

Then, as usual, the watches keep track of your health both day and night. They can continuously measure pulse and activity and, of course, have GPS and a wide range of sports you can choose from when it's time to register a proper workout.

Guides and measures training

For example, I take the opportunity to run a half marathon and load maps and the route into the Watch GT 5 Pro to ensure I follow the official course even if I'm not running the official race. Huawei has a collaboration with the app Komoot for this purpose, to get ready-made routes, but I find few routes there, the app fails to load them into the watch, so I end up downloading a so-called gfx file directly instead and bypass the app support.

Then, on the watch's screen, in addition to the route I need to follow and the path I've run drawn, I also get instructions for each turn, which direction I should run. It is, of course, difficult to get an overview on the watch's small screen, and on two occasions, I missed a turn and had to correct my mistake. At that moment, finding my way back to the route when deviating from it is a bit tricky, but it worked out. It was more difficult, however, when I started running and was supposed to run to my drawn route. Then the watch was not of much help at all in taking the right path.

The watch, as mentioned, measures workouts and continuously provides me with information on the screen about how I am performing during the session. Some messages I receive during workouts are brief and disjointed exclamations that are difficult to interpret, but mainly the information is still helpful and complete. The precision of the measurements also seems good and keeps pace with other smartwatches I test during the same period. So the Huawei Watch GT 5 neither deviates positively nor negatively.

When I start a new running session, it takes a few seconds for the watch to find the GPS position, so I can either wait and hold off until it has done so or choose on the screen to start the workout anyway, and the watch will signal when it has found its location. After the workout, I am then asked if I want the watch to measure how the heart rate recovery goes, and if I agree to that, I can see in a real-time curve on the screen how my heart rate (hopefully quickly) decreases after the session.

For sharing training and health data with others, Huawei has a limited feature where you can invite others who also use the app, but it seems primarily tailored for instances like if you want alerts when a senior family member has declining health. Workouts can at least be shared to Strava, Adidas Running, and Komoot, so you can be encouraged and compare yourself with other friends who don't have a Huawei watch.

Closing the rings, monitoring sleep

During the day, I can follow my activity, as is common in many smartwatches, through three rings that should be filled every day. Here it's calories, activity, and standing. I can get reminders to stand every hour, and in the longer term, I think the Health app on the phone is particularly good at seeing longer trends. I get to know, for example, that the daily number of steps has increased during the period and can follow trends on a range of different metrics in the app in a good way.

The watch also measures sleep, and since I am testing several of the watches in the series, I try sleeping with both of the different models I am testing. The reporting is similar with a curve and specified sleep stages that I think seem to match approximately, even though there are some discrepancies. As with almost every smart watch, I don't always agree with the watch on when I fell asleep, how much I was awake during the night, and so on, but they still provide a rough picture of how much and how well I slept. If you use the app on your phone, it can, during the night, if I place the phone on the nightstand, record any snoring or if I talk in my sleep and add it to the sleep report that comes when I wake up in the morning.

The watches I am testing, Huawei Watch GT 5 and Huawei Watch GT 5 Pro, as mentioned, provide similar measurement results, but given the different size, design, and weight, the GT 5 is significantly more comfortable to wear when I sleep than the larger and heavier GT 5 Pro. I would say that a smaller and more comfortable watch is an advantage even during tougher, longer training sessions, provided that you don't need the specific features the Pro offers, which we will discuss in more detail later.

Function and Interface

Practically speaking, the two watches function similarly. A press on the large round button takes me to the home screen with icons, which can be displayed either in a grid or in a list, your choice. If you choose the list, you can use the round button to scroll through the app list and other functions easily. The interface has been updated and is sleek and responds quickly. Among the icons gathered on the home screen are alarm, workout, heart rate, blood oxygen measurement, calendar, weather, and music, to name the most important. The music app allows you to play music directly from the watch's speaker or to a pair of connected wireless headphones without having your phone with you, but loading your own music is only possible via Android. The iOS app does not have access to this.

Notifications from apps on the phone can be received directly on the watch, regardless of which phone you use, as long as it is nearby, and I can choose which apps are allowed to send notifications to the watch. The ability to reply from the watch is limited, however. Connected to an Android phone, I can reply to incoming SMS but not messages from my chat app. However, Instagram messages, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and a few others, as well as SMS, can be replied to from the watch with either an emoji or a small keyboard, but neither the keyboard nor the word recognition is available in Swedish, making it complicated and åäö are missing.

To clearly go through the differences between the base and Pro models, the GT 5 Pro has titanium while the GT 5 uses stainless steel. Both watch models use Huawei's sensor system Trusense with sensors for health measurement, positioning, and guidance. For those specifically engaged in freediving, golf, or trail running, the Pro model has specialized modes for what is missing in the base model of Watch GT 5. Pro is also the only one that can measure ECG and the elasticity of blood vessels, known as arterial stiffness. The watches come in several sizes and with a variety of bands, giving the impression that there are rather a dozen models than just two.

At the same time as the watches are released, Huawei is also introducing its health service Huawei Health Plus in Sweden. Three months free are included when you purchase any of the watches, and the subscription, which then costs 99 kronor per month, gives you a range of training plans and fitness courses with video instructions, breathing exercises, and sleep music.

The main advantages of the watches are the ability to use them with either iPhone or Android, thus not locking you into any ecosystem, the long battery life, and the features for training and health, with the analyses in the app.