A Stunning Hybrid Smart Band HUAWEI's TalkBand B2 is a powerful next-generation wearable device that gives you everything you need for smart living.
Publishers review: Huawei Wear is an app that helps you manage your Huawei wearable devices, providing you with a complete, consistent, and convenient user experience. It can currently pair with HUAWEI WATCH, HUAWEI FIT, and HUAWEI Talkband wristbands. More wearable devices will be supported soon (Android 4.4 and later). Please stay tuned.
With Huawei Wear, you can: 1. Pair with various wearable devices. Check fitness, calories, and distance data. Manage paired devices, such as setting alarms, managing notifications, and updating devices. Share data with Huawei Health for more detailed statistics. Huawei Wear Screenshots.
. Pros Accurate fitness tracking. Clear call quality. Attractive design. Cons Pricey. Faint, reflective display. Display doesn't always respond to gestures.
Syncing issues in our tests. Notifications and alerts didn't work properly in testing.
Bottom Line Huawei's TalkBand B3 fitness tracker/Bluetooth earpiece promises versatility, but it's too expensive and is not available in the US. The Huawei TalkBand B3 is a and a Bluetooth earpiece in one.
Huawei Talk Band B1 Review
This means you can track calories, steps, and sleep, and automatically track activities like cycling, running, step climbing, and walking. You can also pop the display module out, attach it to your ear, and take calls from your mobile phone. But it's not yet available in North America, and there are no immediate plans to bring it to our shores. Unless you really want to import an average hybrid device, you're better off buying better dedicated devices like the and the. Pricing, Design, and Display There are three different versions of the Huawei TalkBand B3 available, and you'll have to order from Europe if you want one. The Active model is the least expensive, priced at $190 (about 170 euros at time of writing).
It includes a rubber wristband available in black or white. The Classic variation costs $225 (200 euros), and includes leather straps in beige or brown. The top-end Elite model is $282 (250 euros) and includes a gray stainless steel band.
I tested the Classic model with a beige strap. All models feature the same removable, 0.7-inch, 128-by-80-pixel PMOLED display/earpiece module, which fits snugly into a cradle/band. There are two small trigger buttons on each side of the band that you can press to detach the display so it becomes a Bluetooth earpiece. The stand-alone earpiece measures 1.7 by 0.7 by 0.4 inches (HWD).
Pop it back it into its brushed aluminum cradle/band, and it measures 0.9 by 0.5 inches (WD). The leather strap, a generous 7.9 inches long and made from imported Italian calfskin according to Huawei, uses an adjustable metal clasp you have to snap shut.
It's very comfortable. Like the B2, the highly reflective touch display attracts thumbprints and appears faint, which makes the digital numbers and lettering difficult to read. In direct sunlight, it's almost impossible to make out what's on the screen. To activate the display, you can press a button on the side or raise your wrist. But the raising motion requires more of a jerking motion, and the display times out after about three seconds. That's really quick, and there are no options to ending the length of time it stays on. Once you turn the display on, you'll see the home screen, which contains battery and Bluetooth status icons, date, day of the week, and time of day.
You can customize the watch face from digital to analog. Swipe up or down and you'll see steps taken, calories burned, hours slept, fitness activities, your contacts list (more on that shortly), and settings where you can access Bluetooth pairing mode and a phone finder option. All of the models are IP57 rated for dust and water resistance, so they should withstand splashes while washing dishes, though you may want to steer the leather strap clear of stray droplets. Pairing, Features, and Performance Syncing the TalkBand B3 with your Android or iOS device is mostly simple, but could take a few tries. First, you need to download the free Huawei Wear app from the Apple App Store or Google Play, then tap the device icon in the upper left corner, and follow the instructions.
It took me two tries to pair the TalkBand B3 with a, and the connection sometimes dropped afterward, which required me to go into the phone's Bluetooth setting to reestablish it. A firmware update also never properly installed in my test period.
The Huawei Wear app is the same basic one that the TalkBand B2 and the use. It's very simple.
There's one screen that shows your active minutes, calories, mileage, and steps, and another that breaks down your patterns. The TalkBand B3 tracks activities and sleep automatically.
There are few options available that you can adjust from a slide menu, such as an activity reminder for the B3 to vibrate to alert you when you've been idle for too long, and surprisingly strong vibrating wake-up alarms. As for fitness tracking, you're getting the pure basics here, including calories, distance, and steps. After you set up a profile with your age, height, and weight to estimate calories burned, you can choose a step goal. Once you do, you can just go about your business walking, running, cycling, or step climbing since the TalkBand B3 automatically tracks activities. You can also manually start and pause activities on the display touch screen. I wore the Fitbit Blaze, a tracker I've found very accurate over months of testing, at the same time I tested the B3 and found the two delivered similar results.
There were some minor differences in the numbers of steps recorded, but that's normal. Sleep tracking was a bit off, though. I slept for six hours one night, and the B3 reported four hours. As a Bluetooth headset, the earpiece sounds loud and clear. Voices sounded natural on both ends thanks to built-in dual-mic noise cancellation, though I did have to raise my voice while walking down a busy street past some heavy construction. It's easy to attach to your ear, too, and the default in-ear silicone frame is surprisingly comfortable. I was able to walk at a fairly quick gait without the earpiece jostling around or falling out.
The B3 comes with three spare silicone eartips, including small, medium, and large sizes. Once you're done with a call you can just take the earpiece out and snap it back into the band's cradle with the display facing out. To answer a call, you just press the side button, hold the two cradle buttons to detach the display module, then place the earpiece in your ear. Like the TalkBand B2, the B3 model is a decent fitness tracker/Bluetooth earpiece, but it's barely an upgrade over the TalkBand B2 (which is available in the US), and Huawei's own Honor Band Z1 has some basic fitness tracking abilities for a much better price. Plus, you can only order it from Europe. A North American release isn't in the cards for now, and honestly, that's okay since you're not missing much for such a high price. For less money, you can buy a good, inexpensive, and get continuous heart rate monitoring, a reliable display, and a robust app with the fitness tracker.