Huawei Talkband B5: Does it have to be so ugly?
28.3.2019
Translation: machine translated
The Huawei Talkband B5 deceives itself in terms of design. There are weaknesses on the software side, but in general the thing makes a pretty good impression. What does a watchmaker say about the hideous look of this piece?
"How daft is that?" I ask myself.
Admittedly, I'm not a fan of things on my wrist, apart from my paracord thing. I need something to fiddle with during boring meetings. So after one of these meetings, the Huawei Talkband B5 is on my desk and the question arises.
At first glance, it looks quite normal, just like Huawei's version of a Fitbit tracker. A black, rectangular display in a more or less fancy band, plus the artificial touch of style with a leather strap and gold tones.
Huawei, listen to me. You'll never make a rectangular Amoled screen and leather in the colour "mocha brown" look classic or elegant. This thing will always be a Fitbit.
The ugliness explained
I'm not just saying that the Huawei Talkband B5 looks horrible in the mocha gold colour. To me, the piece seems so extraordinarily ugly and so offensive to the classic brown/gold colour combo that I'm going to ask an expert. In a watch shop on Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse, I place the talc strap next to a Breguet. A watch that comes from a traditional house with name and style. A watch that is obviously a work of art at first glance. I place the Talkband next to the Breguet that the Talkband would like to be.
The manager, who handles the watch with the utmost care, laughs at the sight of the Talkband and gives a scathing conclusion. But ugliness alone is not enough for him. His trained eye sees flaws. "Rectangular shapes on the wrist are tricky anyway. You need a really wide wrist so that it doesn't look bulky," he says first, holding the talc strap in front of his face. "I'd be careful with that. The gold coating looks very thin at first glance. I suspect it will get scratched quickly." And then the leather: "It's quite cheap leather, but at this price, I don't really expect anything else." He himself is of course wearing a Breguet, the "simpler version" of the watch, which is lying next to the talc strap.
Well, but when you as a reader buy one of these, you're not just doing it for the look. You want more than just the time and possibly the date. You want weather, WhatsApp, Spotify and so on. Everything on your wrist... and in your ear, if Huawei has its way.
Trackers will now also be 2-in-1
One of the main selling points that Huawei is using to gain the upper hand over the competition is the fact that the tracker isn't just for your wrist. No, you can detach the screen part from the wristband. Then there's an earbud and you can put the Talkband B5 in your ear, use it as a headset or headphones.
Why?
Honestly, what was the designers up to? It already looked rubbish in the 1990s and only worked half well. Why should it be cooler now? Especially when you can have much more elegant and better-sounding alternatives?
Nevertheless, Huawei thinks you should go back to walking around like one of those cocaine-fuelled American psycho wannabes, talking about business and share prices while you axe a houseguest after a monologue about Huey Lewis and the News.
The problem with the nicer and more socially acceptable, less serial-killer-compatible alternatives is that the XM3 doesn't take your pulse. Or count your steps. Instead, you don't look like Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, but just like a slightly confused everyday person talking to themselves at the train station.
I want my data everywhere, but I can't
Good, so let's test this thing out. I wasn't waiting for the Talkband B5. You probably didn't either. But we're already this far into the text. The setup is surprisingly quick, which doesn't bother me at all. The operation is, in marketing-speak, intuitive and simple. Really, there are only seven menu items on the watch itself. You do the rest via the Huawei Health app. Huawei Wear is not compatible with the Talkband B5 at the time of going to press. It is with the B3. Okay
.
Speaking of compatibility. The synchronisation confuses me at first glance. I go through the whole fitness programme, synchronise the Huawei Health data with Google Fit and MyFitnessPal, and later also Under Armour Record out of curiosity, as MyFitnessPal comes from the same manufacturer.
.
The problem: These apps are either not compatible or only partially compatible with the Talkband B5. Steps seem to be synchronised properly, as my Google Fit list also includes short walks.
The data I'm really interested in, my workout data, is not synchronised from the Talkband to Google Fit. This actually seems to be a headache for users, but only on a device-by-device basis. According to a thread in the Google Support Forum, the sync used to work, but seems to have been disabled. Chinese censorship? The whole USA/Huawei dispute thing? Answers are still pending. The fact is, synchronisation only works partially.
But I am pleasantly surprised when using it on my wrist. The heart rate monitor, which is my main interest, actually works really well. My resting heart rate seems fine with values in the low 60s. There are one or two outliers. I certainly don't have a heart rate of 44 during lunch. The only time my heart rate drops that low is when I'm sleeping.
But the spikes only seem to happen towards the bottom.
During cardio training, however, I realise that the measurement is pretty accurate. I can train at a stable 165 beats per minute. That's still not good, but I lose my head above 170. Of course I want to get as close to 170 as possible, to get my body used to the fact that this is something it has to regularly endure and adapt to. But the Talkband never seems to get past 168, even when the spinning cycle's heart rate monitor says that I'm at plus-minus 175 beats per minute in the final sprint.
Talkband, I expect more. Okay, not really. Actually, I expect outliers and unclean recording. But that's not what the Talkband delivers. The data is recorded cleanly in the Huawei Health app and is accurate, even during training or sleep.
The thing with the notifications
Only the Notification Management is a bit annoying, although the beginning sounds really good. I can set which apps can send notifications to my watch during setup. I don't need a notification for the weather report. It might not bother me as much on my smartphone, but when the device on my wrist vibrates, it makes me take notice. That's why it's nice if I can be extremely restrictive with notifications and not just allow every app to send notifications by default. In short: notifications are all opt-in and not opt-out. Very good.
But then the notifications are annoying. Let's say you send me a message via WhatsApp. Then my wrist vibrates. I can either view the message on the watch's Amoled screen, unless it's an emoji. The Talkband doesn't display them.
If you do what I did and feel your wrist vibrate, then pick up your phone, the notifications will still be there on the Talkband after reading the message on the phone. You then have to do this manually. Some kind of sync with messaging services and not just notification pushes would be sensible here.
And, no matter what you do, never give the Talkband permission to display Spotify notifications.
The nonsense with the headset
On the wrist, the Talkband B5 is convincing apart from its abysmal ugliness.
Then comes the whole headset thing. The concept just doesn't work. Huawei can try as hard as it likes, but the wristband that becomes a headset will never catch on. Because there are two problems, one of them technological, the other purely visual.
The latter problem is once again a matter of taste. But since the device is not in good taste anyway, nobody at Huawei is likely to be bothered by it. If you use the screen part as a headset, then you have an ugly and useless piece hanging from your wrist.
Okay, well, then you just don't pay attention to your wrist when you're on the phone. Because you've pressed the two subtle buttons on your wrist that make the screen pop out of the bracelet. Then you can put the technological part in your ear and make a call. These subtle buttons are so subtle that you just barely notice them.
But then again, the call quality is surprisingly good. I understand the other person really well and the button on the side does its job reliably.
Why so ugly?
The Huawei Talkband B5 is as ugly as night. If it were only black, I could get on with it. Because then it wouldn't be trying to be something it could never be under any circumstances. The worst thing about the whole look is that the item actually exists in a sporty, technical black colour. Simply that it's not available from us. Why, Huawei, why? I'd enjoy the thing infinitely more if it stood by what it is.
In terms of technology, however, the ugly thing manages to impress. The data is recorded cleanly and is surprisingly accurate, even if the interfaces to other apps are missing or only partially functional. For athletes, however, the device is completely worthless, as the critical data is not synchronised. For whatever reason.
So, that's it. I'm going to do some cardio. Bah!
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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