Huawei’s Watch GT 2 Pro features a bold design and is full of features

Smartwatches provide useful information when you don’t want to take out your phone. I typically use my smartwatch to check the time, monitor my heart rate, track my workouts and tell me how I’m sleeping.

Huawei’s latest wearable, the Watch GT 2 Pro, can do all of the above and more.

Earlier this year, I took a look at the Huawei Watch GT 2, a reliable wearable that lacked what it needed to match Samsung’s and Apple’s respective smartwatches. Huawei’s successor still lacks an app store, but the watch makes up for it with a wide range of different features.

Bold design

The Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro feels large on my wrist, and I’m typically someone who prefers smaller watches. Weighing 52g, the GT 2 Pro is noticeably heavier than the 41g Huawei Watch GT 2. Compared to other devices on the market, the Galaxy Watch 3 has a slightly larger display and weighs in at 53.8g. In contrast, the larger 1.78-inch Apple Watch Series 6 weighs 47.1g.

Additionally, the GT 2 Pro is slightly bigger than the standard 46mm GT 2, despite featuring the same 1.39-inch screen size. The Watch GT 2 Pro measures 46.7 mm x 46.7 mm x 11.4mm compared to the standard GT 2’s 45.9 x 45.9 x 10.7 mm, and I wish Huawei kept the device slimmer. It’s worth noting that there’s a market for those who like larger smartwatches; I’m not part of it.

The GT 2 Pro sports a 454 x 454 pixel resolution display. While the screen looks good, most people likely aren’t doing anything too intensive on their smartwatch. Huawei designed the watch with a titanium body and scratch-resistant sapphire glass. Given I’m a clumsy guy who often bumps into walls, I definitely appreciate the durability upgrade. There were at least two occasions where I thought I scratched the watch, but it was completely fine.

Huawei sent me the ‘Nebula Gray’ Watch GT 2 Pro with the ‘Gray Brown’ Leather strap. I thought the design looked stellar. It also comes in ‘Night Black’ with a Black Fluoroelastomer strap.

“Work, work, work, work, work” out

The Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro is a personal coach on your wrist with 15 original professional workout modes and the ability to detect a total of 100+ workouts. It can even guide you through several types of running courses.

Since COVID, I haven’t had the chance to use a treadmill or an elliptical, but I purchased a rowing machine and occasionally go on bike rides when the weather permits. After rowing for a bit over five minutes, the watch will ask you if you’ve started your specific workout. I noticed this a lot when I was rowing, but after I finished my workout, the watch took a few minutes to realize that I completed my exercise.

Once it realizes, it’ll ask you to stop the workout, but if you don’t tap the stop button, the watch continues the workout despite you not working out. It once said I spent two hours on the rowing machine when it was more like 30 minutes. However, the Watch GT 2 Pro can tell you how many calories you’ve burned, your stroke average per minute, how many strokes you did throughout the complete workout, your heart rate throughout the whole exercise, how long it took you to recover from your workout and more.

The Watch GT can only automatically detect outdoor running, indoor walking, indoor running, an elliptical or a rowing machine. So when I’m biking, I have to turn on that specific workout manually.

It’s pretty sweet that the Watch GT 2 Pro can also monitor activities like skiing and golf, and I plan to test it out next month when I get on the slopes.

Heart, blood, sleep and more

The Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro features tons of sensors and can detect blood-oxygen levels (SpO2), monitor heart rate, stress and sleep quality.

Users can set their watch so that it’s always monitoring their heart rate. That said, I have no way of knowing how accurate it is. It’ll also alert the user if their heart rate is too high or too low.

I’ve used the SpO2 monitoring a couple of times, but I find it quite finicky and that it doesn’t always work. It’s possible I’m not holding my hands still enough for it to get an accurate reading, but when SpO2 does work, my blood oxygen level is at 99 percent. I like how informative the Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro is. If you tap the top corner of the watch, you can learn a lot more about blood oxygen, including a regular percentage.

There’s also stress monitoring on the GT 2 Pro, which users can activate and monitor with their smartphones. The feature tells you if your stress level is regular, relaxed, medium or high –and if it’s high, it’ll suggest a short break or do some breathing exercises. The watch has a breathing exercise feature that you can do with it, instructing users to inhale and exhale. I didn’t find this very useful because I’m not always all that stressed out, but this might be very useful if you are.

The watch also monitors your sleep. While Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 3 also does this, I found that the Watch GT 2 Pro offered more details about your sleep. The Huawei Health app rates your sleep with a score out of 100 and offers detailed data about your sleep patterns. It looks at the user’s deep sleep, light sleep, REM sleep, how many times they woke up during the night and the user’s breathing quality while they sleep. This is beneficial information for someone who suffers from sleep apnea.

A battery that keeps chugging

The battery life on the Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro is superb. Huawei’s Watch GT 2 Pro has better battery life than the Samsung Galaxy watches I’ve used. I find that the watch can easily survive about 12 days, and with smart power-saving, it can last even longer. It was difficult to monitor the battery life on the device because of how long it could last.

The watch also includes reverse wireless charging, so I could place it on my Pixel 5 and let the phone charge it.

Huawei’s Watch GT 2 Pro can take calls, allowing users to talk through it like a communicator in Power Rangers. The Watch GT 2 Pro also has other cool features like checking when the sun sets and when the moon rises. You can also check which phase the moon is in and use a ‘Find My Phone’ feature even when your handset is on silent mode.

Packed with features

The device’s Lite OS doesn’t offer an app store of any kind, but it’s straightforward to use, streamlined and jam-packed with tons of features. The Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro is too big for my liking, but if you’re okay with a smartwatch that’s a bit larger, this one might be for you.

You’ll need to download an updated version of the Huawei Health app from the Play Store. When I first used the Watch GT 2 Pro, I had issues with the Play Store version of the Huawei Health app, but it has been updated; therefore, you shouldn’t have any issues. If you have any concerns, you can download the App Gallery’s variant of the Huawei Health app as I did.

The Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro is now available on Amazon, Staples, Canada Computers and more for $348.99, making it more affordable than the $500+ Apple Watch Series 6 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 3.