Huawei GT Owners discussion thread

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#2245709 25-May-2019 23:21

Anyone noticed the watch stays connected on Bluetooth even when you leave it behind at home? My phone (mate 20 pro) shows Bluetooth is connected to the watch even when I am long way from home?

ledzep01

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#2245773 26-May-2019 09:21

Re the watch faces, it is the absence of date (month/day and day of week) on most of the faces that annoys me. I often look to my watch for the date because I can never remember it. I like lots of the watch faces, just want the date added.

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#2245774 26-May-2019 09:24

Ideally we should have a face designer publicly available. That would allow you to design your own and create a marketplace for it.

I read that you can install/remove the faces you add but can't remove the faces the watch ships with. Also it's pretty limited in memory available.

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#2246221 26-May-2019 22:24

My GT has just had a system update BTW.
1.0.8.30

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ledzep01

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#2246647 27-May-2019 19:39

I received the update to 1.0.8.30(C03) as well, but that doesn't provide watch face updates. I did contact the Huawei support centre and they did say that the functionality was coming to NZ - it is just being "thoroughly tested" at the moment. No timeframe given. But let's keep hoping.

drjay

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#2261053 19-Jun-2019 19:07

I've just listed my Watch GT on TradeMe, having owned it for less than a week. Bought off a TradeMe seller who was cashing in their free watch as part of the current Huawei P30 series promotions.

TL;DR: This is not the watch for me, as my fuller-featured Wear OS watch has made some features "must-have". YMMV.

I had been in the market for a replacement smartwatch for a while - I was hoping the Huawei Watch GT was the magical replacement for my aging LG G Watch R (bought 2015, four years makes the LG "old tech", right?) but the lack of functionality of the Watch GT has me rethinking my move away from Android's Wear OS.

The specific functionality I now consider "must have" is;

(1) The ability to interact with notifications - it's not good enough to be able to see a notification and then reach for (or ignore) my phone. This covers two areas; dealing with the notification, as well as interacting with it. If I dismiss the notification, that should be a single gesture - I shouldn't need to swipe up to get the list of notifications, then tap to view the specific one I'm interested in, and then *attempt* to swipe it away (I say attempt because there's no animation, it does generally disappear a few seconds later but some visual feedback would be nice). Then I still need to clear the notification from my phone later on - there's no syncing of notification dismissals back to the phone.

Should I want to DO something with the notification (like respond "OK" to my wife's request to pick up milk on the way home), then I have to do all of the above, AND also write a message to respond. With Wear OS, I could simply hit one of the quick-reply suggestions and it would do everything.

(2) Some sort of Ambient mode to be able to tell the time when my watch display is off/low-power. The Watch GT has no ambient display despite being a really nice AMOLED screen - it would be perfect for displaying a nice basic set of hour/minute hands or basic digital readout whilst "dimmed".

(3) A device that is actually responsive to wrist gestures. My LG might have been old and sluggish, but at least it displayed the watch face when I tilted the screen towards me. The Watch GT is hit and miss in that regard. I was trying to explain to my wife why I'm about to sell the thing I just bought, and a demonstration of the failure to light the display when tilting it was more than enough to garner her support. The lack of additional gesture support (like scrolling the notifications) would likely be tolerable if the display turned on reliably.

(4) This one is probably in the "personal feelings" category, but well worth a mention I believe. The provided watch faces are not well designed, especially the analogue ones. I like an analogue face as I like to think I'm primarily wearing a timepiece (maybe I'm old fashioned) but all of the analogue faces are terrible. Gaudy colours, very flat designs (ie minimal or no drop shadows), no colour/saturation/brightness differentiation between the important bits (the hands) and the less-important bits (like the step counter); the net result is a very busy face that can take more than a moment to find the hands in amongst everything else going on. I found myself turning the watch display back on far too many times for it to simply be me having a senior moment - I found the the faces are legitimately difficult to tell the time with. I've tried all the analogue faces included and only the Elegant face really worked for easily telling time at a glance, and it is literally the hands and a small day-of-month box and nothing more. Given the top-notch quality of the display, I really feel that the face designs let this watch down. I know a Face Store is coming but having seen the faces in the various blogs about the impending Store, I feel safe saying that it won't help.

(5) A user-settable timeout value for the screen, or even just a consistent timeout. I've witnessed it turn off in less than a second (was probably less than half a second, but I'm trying to be fair). It turns off as soon as it thinks the display is not angled at the user, if it was triggered by the wrist gesture in the first place. That's not good enough if you've just made three attempts to get it to light up in the first place and are now seriously considering tearing it off and throwing it at something. If you trigger the screen via a button then it does display for a consistent time (5 seconds) but I wouldn't mind that being closer to 8 seconds, due to the watch face busyness mentioned above. If nothing else, then you should be able to activate the screen with a tap on the screen itself, you should not need to go reaching for the buttons on the side.

In an effort to be fair and balanced, here's the positive sides of this watch:

- Battery life is GREAT. Who knew a smartwatch could go without being charged every day?? It claims 7 days, and I'd have to agree that this is not an overstatement*.

*Note: I didn't own this device for 7 days, but it was using well less than 10% per 24-hour period. I recharged last night, and it's been on my wrist for 12 hours and still shows 96% battery right now. That is in spite of a couple of attempts today to get access to the rumoured Face Store by factory resetting/un-pairing/re-pairing/etc, so it's had a big work-out today including three reboots and still used less than 5%. I have the sleep tracking function disabled and everything else enabled. I would not be surprised to hear of someone going a full 10 days between charges.

- This display is great quality; having an auto-brightness capability is fantastic, the AMOLED quality and brightness is awesome, the resolution is high and therefore the text is sharp and easily readable.

- The device size is bang on perfect in my opinion. It's light, yet big enough to be unmistakably masculine. The screen size is big without being too big; I definitely prefer watches with a bezel even if it's not functional and somehow this bezel is both present AND doesn't unnecessarily chew up wrist space. This is a good looking watch, 10/10 in that regard.

- The green polyelastomer strap actually suits the watch once you have it in hand. I bought this with the thought that I was going to have to change the strap, but it looks good. It looks *right*.

- The LiteOS achieves exactly what it set out to achieve; launching apps or switching display modes is responsive, exactly as it should be, and all the fitness tracking features that I can imagine are there. I don't see any corners having been cut in that regard. Despite my own negative experiences with the functionality, if your needs are covered by the features that *are* there then this is a well put-together OS, and there certainly appears to be both room to improve and a willingness to do so. The Face Store and the rumoured ambient mode will only enhance the experience.

- I'm not sure how it will stand up to the test of time, but the build quality appears to be very good. No manufacturing/forming defects on the case; the bezel feels solid and I get the impression it will stand a knock if you're the hands-on type; the strap is robust and doesn't even show a mark from the buckle. When I compare this to the build quality of my Huawei phone from a few years back, it is obvious that they're not messing around and have put every effort into making a decent device here.

The Huawei Watch GT is not the right device for me. I hope this helps someone else decide whether it is right for them.

ledzep01

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#2261075 19-Jun-2019 19:57

Thanks for the comments about the watch. I've had mine now several weeks and agree with many of the comments. Good battery life, good display visible even in bright sunshine. I find the watch very comfortable and the display is just the right size for me. I was aware of the absence of being able to respond to notifications etc - these points didn't worry me. The only annoyance to me is that there is still no ability to do a customised watch face and none of the standard faces are exactly what I want. So still waiting.

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freitasm

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#2261078 19-Jun-2019 20:02

I think of it more like a fitness tracker than a smartwatch really - nowhere Huawei calls it a smartwatch anyway. but the lack of the faces update/customisation is really a bummer.

drjay

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#2261083 19-Jun-2019 20:15

@freitasm you make a good point there, and I have to say it's pretty good at that function.

As is the nature of generation-1 devices/platforms, the cake is out in the market while the icing is still being developed and I think we'll eventually see a large array of faces available. Maybe with a tiered cost model like the Samsung theme store does - lots of community-built faces/themes using an SDK and a lot of choices in the 'free' category - especially if such a thing can be made cost-neutral for Huawei via a cut of in-app purchases. Lets face it; a low-cost, high quality device with a theme library would appeal nicely to many markets, so there is a real possibility of this blossoming into a big platform.

As a big user of Watchmaker (complete with Pro key and having created a number of faces and even shared some of them), I completely understand the frustration with the current choices.

NikT

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#2261335 20-Jun-2019 10:35

A few further notes as I have since replaced my original flavour WearOS Huawei Watch with a Watch GT Active:

There is a watchface store which is currently unavailable in ANZ - I have reached out to Huawei for an ETA on this
You can access the watchface store by deleting any existing Huawei account, clearing data in the Health app, and setting up a new Huawei account for a region in which the store is enabled - e.g. the UK
I subsequently deleted that UK Huawei account and reset the Health app again, the downloaded faces have stayed on the watch which is welcome, there isn't a wide selection but I found a few to my liking
Always-On-Display is coming(!!) with the 1.0.8.34 software build - which also does not appear to be available in NZ yet/for NZ-variant watches, as for whatever reason watches also have region-gated software

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drjay

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#2261362 20-Jun-2019 11:04

Thanks @NikT

Can I ask you to detail out the steps for gaining access to the Face Store? Some screenshots may also be relevant.

I tried (and tried and tried) based on numerous articles from around the globe, and still was unable to. I have a Huawei ID registered in the UK and still never got presented with a choice of countries for the Huawei Health app. I doubt the device is going to suit my needs (the notification dismissal quirks are driving me nuts with my work emails) but others are going to want to access the Face Store.

FYI I solved the ability to register the device into the Android Smart Unlock / Trusted Devices mechanism this morning with the assistance of a UK Huawei rep, using a third-party Bluetooth Scanning tool to override the built-in BT device filtering. Not sure I even put that limitation in my rant :) Thread: https://uk.community.huawei.com/fid-50/tid-1125?postid=31232

NikT

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#2261702 20-Jun-2019 22:06

drjay: Thanks @NikT
Can I ask you to detail out the steps for gaining access to the Face Store?

It is a wee bit of a hassle (didn't help that I was doing it at ~1am). There is a region detection element based on the SIM card you have inserted, so flick flight mode on first. Then turn WiFi on. Clear data in the Health app, make sure there is no Huawei ID logged in on the phone.

Opening the Health app fresh should now ask for a region. Pick UK, then it will prompt for a Huawei ID login. Set up a new UK one (or try the UK one you've previously set up). It should now let you in to the Health app and show the watchfaces.

Once you've downloaded the faces you want, you can log out of the UK Huawei ID and/or reset the Health app again, the watchfaces will stay on your watch until the watch itself is reset. This is pretty neat coming from Wear OS, which forced a factory reset to pair with a new phone, and while there are ways around that, they are janky and a Wear OS watch paired to another phone without a reset may well be a buggy bad time.

Now I'm itching for the Always-On Display update. If the GT Active gets media controls and slightly better notifications, it will be close to my ideal smartwatch. As-is the sacrifices vs. Wear OS are worth it for my needs given the battery life and sleep/heart rate tracking.

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drjay

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#2261730 21-Jun-2019 06:47

ahhh Flight Mode! Many thanks!

tripp

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#2261940 21-Jun-2019 13:09

I just wish the bloody thing had media control. I'm not talking about Spotify apps or onboard music. Just want to be able to skip, pause music on my phone. This would make it a lot better for the gym etc

psychrn

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#2265498 27-Jun-2019 08:48

Over the last few weeks im noticing that it is getting more difficult to get to charge. Clean the back and contacts and often its still not charging

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