Huawei Watch D2 Review: Excellent Health Tracking, Good Everyday Smartwatch?

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The Huawei Watch D2 isn’t any old smartwatch. Of course, you get your fitness tracking, sleep monitoring and all the other things we’ve come to expect from smartwatches these days, but there’s something else that sets it apart from competitors.

The Huawei Watch D2 has a bag attached to the strap which can self-inflate to read your blood pressure. Did you already know that? Because when I first took the Huawei Watch D2 out of the box, I had no idea! Therefore, I was immediately impressed and intrigued in equal measure.

I’ve been wearing the Watch D2 for two weeks now and have some mixed but mostly positive thoughts about its functionality and wearability. Is the Huawei Watch D2 built around a gimmick, or is it actually a good all-rounder? Let’s find out.

Price

The Huawei Watch D2 costs £349. In terms of Android smartwatches, that is towards to top-end of pricing. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 retails for £289 as a comparison and the Aluminium entry-level Apple Watch Series 10 costs £399.

So for that price, you better be getting something not only high-quality but also highly functional. It has to match or exceed what competitors offer.

Does the Huawei Watch D2 achieve that? Well, yes and no…

Blood Pressure Monitoring

Let’s get straight into the Huawei Watch D2’s standout feature and unique selling point. Yes, it has an inflatable bag attached to the strap to measure blood pressure.

Like a normal blood pressure monitor (you know, the ones where you slide a bag up your arm and it gets tighter and tighter), the D2’s strap will slowly inflate to, well, measure the pressure inside your arteries as blood is pumped around your body.

It then gives you a systolic/diastolic reading within a minute. As Huawei will remind you repeatedly when first using their watch, these cannot be considered substitutes for medically accurate readings.

But purely from a user perspective, it’s a very impressive function. It’s very intuitive to use from a software point of view; the watch’s shortcut button comes pre-programmed to bring up the blood pressure app. Then it’s one tap to measure and you’re away.

I found it to be fairly consistent in the numbers it pumps out. It feels slightly odd giving out my blood pressure readings to the internet but, for the love of buying guidance, I was measured at around 110/62 as an average over two weeks.

The only slight problem is making sure the strap tightness and positioning of the watch is correct. Huawei includes a paper watch strap ruler to determine the right strap tightness but this was a very fiddly process (more on that later), and the watch is quite fussy about where it sits on your arm in order to read accurately.

Of course, that is all very important, but there were at least six times when the Huawei Watch D2 had a moan at me for having the watch placed incorrectly, therefore invalidating the reading.

If the eventual target is for these types of devices to be worn by people who need regular blood pressure readings, that is mostly, but not exclusively limited to, people above 65, then making sure it is as easy as possible to take a reading should be the priority.

But, it works well! On to the design.

Design and display

The first thing you notice when you get the Huawei Watch D2 on your wrist is the size and weight; it’s chunky. Some people like that, some people don’t. I personally think it’s a bit too cumbersome for everyday wear.

The Huawei Watch D2 is 48mm tall, 38mm wide, 13.3mm thick and weighs 40g. For reference, the entry-level Apple Watch Series 10 is 42mm x 36mm x 9.7mm and 34.4g.

That’s a substantial difference and it’s noticeable when you put the Watch D2 on. It looks big, but not necessarily in the way you want it to. The actual display area is the same as the largest Apple Watch 10 (1.82 inches) but the metal bezels are much larger on the Huawei Watch D2.

That coincides with the significant thickness of the D2. There’s just a lot more casing compared to something like an Apple Watch. 

All of these measurements are likely higher due to the need to accommodate a pump to inflate the blood pressure bag. So there is a reason for it. Just beware, it means the Huawei Watch D2 is on the bigger and heavier side.

As for the display, it has a peak brightness of 1500 nits which is more than enough for any conditions I encountered, including direct sunlight. Any more nits than this and you honestly hardly notice it.

Although it is slightly on the large side (which again, some people like), you’ve got to remember that Huawei has managed to cram a heck of a lot of functionality into something the size of a normal wristwatch. Add to that it looks the part with an attractive aluminium alloy frame, and you soon realise how good the job done by Huawei is here.

Features and apps

In many ways, the Huawei Watch D2 offers more value than many other top-of-the-range smartwatches out there. It has more accurate blood pressure monitoring and most of the other features you could ever want.

You can track workouts from runs and weightlifitng to darts and e-sports. And in my use, the Huawei Watch D2 has been as accurate as any other watch I’ve used. The GPS is particularly good at not straying off into random detours on outdoors runs.

However, you can’t use the Huawei Watch D2 for swimming which is a bit of a let down when compared to most competitors that can. The Xiaomi Smart Band 9, which only costs $40/£35, can.

It does have an IP68 rating making it resistant to water and dust though, so the watch is fine to wear in the rain.

Similar to Apple’s ‘Rings’ system of tracking your activity, Huawei uses rings too to show how many steps you’ve taken, calories you’ve burned and time you’ve been stood up.

You also get ECG capability and arterial stiffness measuring, the latter being something no other watch on the market offers at the time of writing.

The Huawei Health App on your phone is excellent too. All the key information is summarised in easy to read visual representations and you can track a million different things for any length of time depending on how fitness-obsessed you are. You can also upgrade to VIP and gain access to things like sleep music and yoga courses.

Most people won’t find the Huawei Watch D2 lacking in features, in fact it has some features you won’t find elsewhere. If you want to track swimming though, it’s not for you!

Battery life

Here’s where the Huawei Watch D2 picks up some more brownie points.

I wore the Huawei Watch D2, tracking a fitness activity every day and my sleep every night with message notifications turned on, and the battery lasted for seven days. It then received a full charge in less than an hour via magnetic charging.

This exceeds Huawei’s claim that the battery can last up to six days with ‘normal use’. That’s because Huawei defines normal use as six blood pressure measurements, five ECGs and continuous heart rate monitoring per day, amongst many other variables.

If that doesn’t tell you how focused Huawei is on making the Watch D2 a real force in health monitoring then I don’t know what will. Just for reference, the Apple Watch 10’s battery lasts about 20 hours at an absolute maximum.

If you cough on that thing, it loses a percentage point of battery.

All that remains to say is the Huawei Watch D2 has a seriously impressive battery life considering what it is doing in the background all day. 

Why is Apple so bad at battery life? Answers in the comments, please.

User experience

I’ve got some gripes with the Huawei Watch D2’s usability. For the most part its fine and works like any other smartwatch.

First off, its an Apple Watch clone in terms of design. It is square-faced, uses a scroll-wheel and has that floaty app menu thing that the Apple Watch uses. And these are good things.

I like the scroll wheel, which Huawei calls the Rotating Crown, as it offers a tactile and precise way to navigate through menus, especially if you can’t use the touchscreen due to water. The Function button also works as a shortcut to an app of your choice.

That’s what I like. But I do have some issues with the Huawei Watch D2. The biggest one is the strap.

I really don’t like the fastening mechanism. It’s a folding hinge system that is just very fiddly to use efficiently. The notch of metal that you press into the strap holes to get the right length is also hard to line, especially when you’re trying to do all of this on your wrist.

I’m not sure why this is the chosen method but a more basic buckle mechanism would be much more appropriate. Especially, as I said earlier, considering the demographic that this watch will be most useful for. Simple is best.

The strap itself is actually remarkably pretty slim at 26.5mm considering it has to accommodate the inflatable bag. But that inflatable bag is irritating during periods of wear that generate a lot of sweat.

When working out or going for a run, I could feel the bag on my skin. It got a bit sticky and it reminded me that I was wearing a watch, which isn’t exactly what you want from a watch.

But I think this gets to the bottom of my Huawei Watch D2 review…

Conclusion: Who should buy the Huawei Watch D2?

Most of my problems with the Huawei Watch D2 are related to its functionality as a specialised health monitoring device. The capability of being able to read your blood pressure with an inflatable bag has trade-offs.

But that’s like complaining that the ambulance you called doesn’t come with cup holders. You should buy this specific watch for a reason; because you want the most accurate way to read your blood pressure (and some other vitals) on the go.

In that sense, this is a revolutionary bit of tech in the medical world and could save lives.

Beyond that, the Huawei Watch D2 is still a very good everyday smartwatch with lots of other functionality. But the fact it doesn’t have a higher IP rating than 68 makes it unsuitable for comprehensive fitness tracking.

For those needs, if you want Huawei, I’d just buy the Huawei Watch Fit 3 or go elsewhere with the OnePlus Watch 2R.