INSIGHT: Huawei Watch GT – “Influencer” Marketing

I’m taking a different tack today with the Huawei Watch GT.

Huawei have produced a 20 page Reviewer’s Guide which I thought I would share with you and comment on. As well as some quite detailed technical information it also gives insight into how Huawei are HOPING to guide the media-influencers to help Huawei MARKET their own product.

Source: Original Document here

Brands sometimes send out REVIEWERS’ GUIDES to influence what reviewers write about. From one perspective this is GOOD as it saves people like me wasting time trying to find the important stuff but it also tells people who have time limitations what to write. #GoodJournalism 😉 #ControlTheMessage

FWIW: If I ever review the Watch GT then, because of what Huawei claim below, I would specifically look really, really, really (did I say “really”) hard at their claims on, for example, GPS and oHR…it would be probably better they played the claims down somewhat 😉

Huawei’s Reviewer’s Guide wasn’t sent to me by Huawei. It is, sort of, public, at least in some parts of the world – Huawei are staggering the release of information around the world on the internet. Errrr. Good luck with that.

Let’s go.

OK it’s SWEET-looking and the name “Hauwei Watch GT” sounds a bit speedy and racing car like. Brrrm Brrrm.

Competing Product: This is interestingly stated as the Garmin Fenix 5X Plus. Indeed the GT is supposedly superior to the 5X Plus because it’s lighter, has a higher screen resolution, has more accurate oHR (hmmm), more accurate GPS positioning and is cheaper – coming in at $799. I’m just gonna say ‘hmmm’ again.

Target Markets: “urban explorers who are keen on exploring, pursue quality of life or are interested in new technology products.” – this is a relatively standard form of words used by several companies.

Typical Use Scenarios: “Treadmill in fitness room, indoor cycling, indoor swimming pool, outdoor runway, outdoor swimming pool or open waters (sic), avenue, mountain climbing, cycling, office, home, etc.”

Unique Selling Points – hey, remember this is NOT me speaking. It’s what they are saying: two week battery life; smart smart health and fitness; and multi-sport modes. In more detail, these are the things Huawei think YOU want

• “Two-week ultra-long endurance, smart power saving and dual-engine architecture. With smart power saving design, it can reduce the power consumption while improving its endurance”
  • Actually it is great that Huawei state a scenario that should give about 2 weeks of battery life. That scenario is “wearing 24×7 with oHR, sleep monitoring on, 90 minutes GPS exercise a week, notifications on (50 SMSs, 6 incoming calls and 3 alarm reminder), screen brightening for 200 times a day“. You and I might bemoan the 90 minutes of exercise time per week but at least they are defining what ‘2 weeks’ typical usage means to them. Nice.
  • They also say 22 hours of GPS-on activity from full charge to depletion. Fair enough. That’s good enough for me and they are not bypassing the battery drain issue caused by GPS usage.
  • Here is how Huawei want to get reviewers to say why the GT is better than the Fenix 5X Plus for battery life “The endurance of Garmin Fenix 5X Plus varies with different modes, and may be up to 18 days under smart watch mode. As for HUAWEI WATCH GT, the endurance may be up to 30 days under watch mode, and 2 weeks under typical scenarios.“
• 3-system GNSS ie GPS/GLONASS +BEIDOU or +GALILEO
  • Huawei say “Collaborative optimization of software and hardware ensures no drift in case of complex scenarios“. That’s great to know and maybe it’s true. I’d say a complex scenario was an “urban scenario” and Huawei have already said (above) that “urban explorers” are their target market. I just can’t help feeling that at least ‘some drift’ will be found in those urban GPNSS/GPS tracks. “some”….or, perhaps, MORE than some.
  • GT also has a (sic) “unique ephemeris auxiliary scheme ensures rapid positioning“..ie it’s got A-GPS like everyone else!!
  • “The watch also adopts accurate track optimization algorithm for one-to-one track optimization under complex scenarios” (sic). What does that mean? Ah, then they say
    • “Track optimization algorithm : advanced self-developed inertial navigation algorithm + GPS positioning can restore the user’s precise track.
    • “Optimization of tracks under complex scenarios : for playing ground, avenue and other special scenarios, track optimization algorithm makes one-to-one track optimization possible.
    • “Optimization of swimming tracks in open water : unique self-developed track optimization algorithm can restore real tracks in such scenarios as swimming”.
  • A diagram is included to help explain that (kinda) and the diagram shows the abbreviation PDR without explaining it. If I attempted to explain the above info I would say that PDR likely means “Pedestrian Dead Reckoning”. So if the GT records 10 steps since the last GPS point but the new GPS position says the equivalent of 12 steps has been made then an adjustment is made to the GPS position…or something like that. Maybe it’s a bit like Suunto’s rather clever FusedTrack. It is potentially clever. Potentially. But…
• TruSeen heart rate monitoring –  That sounds interesting, I’m intrigued…tell me more. They do:
  
  • “HUAWEI partners with TOP suppliers in customizing professional devices, and has optimized and designed PPG scheme with separated characteristics for lower power consumption and higher signal-to-noise ratio. In terms of algorithm, HUAWEI 2012 Lab joints hands with Russian Research Institute to further optimize the multi-sensor fusion + neural network and AI technologies. In terms of testing, HUAWEI collects and verifies typical big data samples regardless of costs to cover more people and more scenarios” (sic) Glad we’ve cleared that up then. It’s good to know that they don’t use the BOTTOM suppliers, that wouldn’t be good.
  • And they tell me that this proprietary tech has taken 4 years to develop. And then they tell me
  • “In terms of heart rate monitoring, Garmin Fenix 5X Plus is designed with wrist optical heart rate monitor, allowing the user to check heart rate at any time. Backed by TruSeen^TM3.0 technology, HUAWEI WATCH GT is superior to Fenix 5X Plus in accuracy of heart rate monitoring under all exercise modes. During exercise, the watch can judge the heart rate of the user in real time based on alarm threshold set by the user and give alarm in advance in case of high heart rate, offering the users more professional heart rate monitoring services.” I mean, maybe it is. Maybe. Should I say it again? Maybe.
• Climb, run, swim, cycle and more sports profiles including Firstbeat training programs and guidance.
  • They provide “rich sports modes” which include data for time, distance, heart rate, stride frequency, step count, stride, aerobic/anaerobic training effect. (Power?…any external sensors? Any links to sports data platform?)
  • There IS some good stuff alluded to with Firstbeat’s “real-time guidance for training courses, real-time feedback on exercise effects, and evaluation of exercise effects“.
  • A wide variety of guided run types are listed: HIIT interval running, Threshold tempo, Cruise intervals, Aerobic endurance run, Long slow distance, MAF180 advanced, MAF180 primary, MIIT fat-burning running, Enhanced fat-burning running, Easy fat-burning running, Easy jogging. It does seem like more thought than usual has gone into the creation of running programs (First beat probably did it for them 😉 )
  • There is other good stuff in some of the sports modes including, for example, SWOLF and swim stroke detection, performance alerts, real-time training effect, training status, training load, recovery time, VO2max, training effect and exercise score prediction
  • Here’s another quote “HUAWEI WATCH GT is comparable to Fenix 5X Plus in terms of *basic* exercise ability and specialty, while it is superior to the latter in terms of interactive experience and UI during exercise.” – actually that probably is true if you read it carefully..I underlined the key word.
• Design of watch and UI
  • Thin body construction @10.6mm, ceramic bezel, 20x polished stainless steel 316L body, DLC Diamond coating option,
  • 1.39″ AMOLED HD touchscreen
  • Compared to the 5X plus which Huawei say has a “semi-reflective color screen that is essentially LCD screen” (sic). To be fair the 5X screen is NOT great and the GT will certainly look better.
• Smart Health Assistant
  • “HUAWEI TruSleep™2.0 is the first PPG-based staged sleep monitoring technology in the industry, and is a CPC (Cardiopulmonary Coupling) technology jointly developed by HUAWEI in cooperation with CDB Center at Harvard Medical School. The principle behind the HUAWEI TruSleep™ sleep detection technology has been validated by the CDB center at Harvard Medical School.“
  • Is that an independent study at Harvard? Who paid for it?

Thoughts

It’s great that Huawei have made the effort to help reviewers. I’ve had a little, probably unfair, fun having a poke at poorly translated English when my own grasp of any language other than English approaches zero. However we are talking about a significant global corporate that really should have produced a clearer and more concise document.

Furthermore, some of the phrases used are plain gobbledygook. I’ve been out of the corporate world for a few years now but ‘Corporate Speak’ still appears to be rife. I would imagine that speaking with a genuine voice to almost any audience is the best way to go these days – YOU are a clever lot.

I also don’t quite understand why Huawei are saying the Fenix 5X Plus is the main competition. Well I do. It’s a high value watch with a large market share. Kerching. It’s more wishful thinking on Huawei’s part, as the two products address fundamentally different market needs. Sure the Watch GT really DOES look prettier than then Fenix and WILL have a vastly superior screen and that REALLY is a factor in MANY people’s purchase decision BUT I would like to think that you Fenix buyers out there all bought the Fenix because of the Fenix’s performance characteristics for sports. YES the GT does have some GREAT Firstbeat stuff…probably broadly on par with Garmin’s Firstbeat stuff (aka the same!) …but ALL the other sporty functionality will simply not be as comprehensive as what Garmin have developed over several years. We all know that.

Then we come to the seemingly bold claims about: battery life; GNSS/GPS performance; and oHR performance. Many surveys show that these are EXACTLY the technical characteristics that people REALLY want improvements on (see my survey results here as one small example of that). The GT’s battery life is probably good enough for their true target market but I am sceptical that the GNSS/GPS and oHR will be better than Garmin. On the other hand, dcrainmaker and other reviewers are showing that the Apple Watch 4 may well be making significant inroads in producing great GNSS and oHR data…so why not Huawei? or LG? or Samsung? why not? Maybe the tide is about to turn in favour of the smart watch players and away from the sports watch players. Maybe. It WILL turn … eventually.

But really the Watch GT comes back to what it was originally intended to be. It was originally expected to be a great WearOS watch. It is NOT WearOS. But, essentially that is the space where it is competing. ie a smart, connected fitness watch (Apple Watch+) – albeit hopefully a GOOD one. Clearly Huawei saw the technical limitations of WearOS and have gone their own way to address the pressing sports tech problems of the day. Compared to WearOS they probably WILL have produced something better. But to produce something a bit better, in some respects, to WearOS does not mean that you have developed a sports watch that will kill off either the Apple Watch 4 or the Garmin Fenix 5X (Plus).

Thoughts?

Huawei Watch GT – Detailed Specifications