The Huawei Watch D was announced back in mid-2022. It took Huawei over two years to deliver its successor, and now it’s here. That’s the device that I’m here to review for you, the Huawei Watch D2. This smartwatch launched alongside the Huawei Watch GT 5 and Huawei Watch GT 5 Pro. So, there’s plenty to choose from in Huawei’s current smartwatch lineup, if you’re looking for a higher-end smartwatch, that is.

The Huawei Watch D2 is notably different than the other two watches, however. This is the watch you’ll look to if you prefer squarish watches, and if you need a medical-grade blood pressure monitor on your hand. It can, of course, do a ton of other things, similar to its siblings, but this is its main selling point, without a doubt. So, let’s see if the Huawei Watch D2 is worth your hard-earned cash.

Huawei Watch D2 Review: Hardware / Design

The Huawei Watch D2 is made out of aluminum and glass. It has a rectangular shape, as you can see, with rounded corners. This watch is considerably smaller and lighter than its predecessor, which is a very important difference. It actually feels like a regular smartwatch on your hand. Its strap is wider than on your regular smartwatch, though, and it comes in two layers due to proper blood pressure monitoring. More on that later.

It has a squarish display that is also flat

There is a flat display included on this smartwatch, but it does have curved glass on top of it. The curve is quite subtle, though. The display is very comfortable to use. On the right side, you’ll spot two buttons. The top button also rotates. It is very clicky, and it actually feels like a quality piece of tech. The haptic feedback upon rotation is very good too, and I appreciate that Huawei gives texture to that button. That actually means a lot when you rotate it frequently.

Be bottom button has a similar clickiness to the top one, but it feels different to use. It’s longer and wider too. That button is set for blood pressure monitoring by default, but you can change that to whatever you like. There is a speaker placed on the left-hand side of this watch, and a microphone sits right next to it. There are not lugs on this watch, as the watch band goes straight into the watch’s frame. This watch needs to have a specific type of strap for blood pressure monitoring, so that makes all the sense in the world.

It is IP68 certified despite its special strap

Another thing worth noting is that the watch is IP68 certified. It is water and dust resistant, which is a great feat considering its blood pressure feature. It does not, however, have the 5ATM rating or anything of the sort. So you should not wear this watch while you’re diving, nor while you’re in a sauna or a hot bath. It’s fine for taking showers, rain, a quick swim and so on.

The Watch comes in two color options, Black and Gold. The ‘Black’ model includes a black strap and a dark gray frame. The ‘Gold’ model has a white strap and a bronze frame. The straps are also made out of different materials. The one we received is black, and it’s a fluoroelastomer strap. The one on the ‘Gold’ model is called the ‘White Composite Leather Strap’, as leather is a part of the equation. It is worth noting that you do get two strap sizes in the box, depending on your wrist size.

You also get a measure tape, which will determine what strap size and cuff you need, for your specific wrist. So make sure to use that before you start using the watch. Both straps are adjustable too, in terms of length, and they simply click into place when you place them on the wrist, as long as you have the right length set.

This watch needs the included strap to utilize its most special feature

What’s special about the straps here, is that they have an airbag on the inside that runs all along the length of them. So they’re double-layered, in a way. There is a pump located in the watch, that inflates those airbags for blood pressure measurements. When not in use, though, it’s basically not noticeable on the inside. Huawei made it as compact as possible. One thing worth noting is that this material is not all that breathable. Thanks to that airbag, your wrist may get a bit toasty, depending on the climate where you live. That’s something that crossed my mind, but it’s not exactly hot here, so I had no such problems. We’ll talk more about blood pressure monitoring later on. In addition to the straps, and the tape measure, you also do get a wireless charging puck in the package which magnetizes to the watch itself.

Huawei Watch D2 Review: Display

The Huawei Watch D2 has a rectangular display, unlike the Watch GT 5 and GT 5 Pro models that launched alongside it. Huawei included a 1.82-inch AMOLED panel here, it has a 480 x 408 resolution. The PPI here is 347, in case you’re wondering. This display is excellent in almost every way that matters. It is vivid, has great viewing angles, and its touch sensitivity is just right. It’s more than sharp enough, while the blacks are as inky as you’d expect them to be from an OLED panel.

The display is great, but automatic brightness needs work

That was the case with a number of displays on previous Huawei watches, so I’m not one bit surprised. In terms of brightness, well, that’s where I stumbled onto my first problem. The brightness itself is not a problem, at all, the watch does get immensely bright when you fire up the brightness manually. When I turned on automatic brightness, it was often too dim for my liking. There is no way to leave it on automatic brightness and just tune that to your liking, unfortunately. This is something that I’ve spotted on some of the previous watches from the company, but Huawei fixed it quickly via an update. So… chances are the same will be the case here.

Huawei also needs to balance out the flick gesture

Something similar can be said for another annoying problem, the motion to power on the display when you flick your wrist. It works great on the Huawei Watch GT 5 Pro, which I reviewed recently, but not here. It is too sensitive. Let me give you an example. While I was driving, the watch was powering on the display all the time as my hand was making slight movements on the steering wheel. It was powering it on constantly. Huawei needs to optimize that a bit, but that’s something they can easily do via an update, and something they’ve done on previous watches, so… I’m not really worried, to be quite honest.

Huawei Watch D2 Review: Performance

Huawei smartwatches have been great in terms of performance for quite some time now. Just to be clear, I’m talking about general watch performance, as in going through menus, opening apps, etc. Everything has been smooth for years, and it’s not different now. Huawei did bring over new HarmonyOS version here, and with it improved animations, though. That does improve the overall feel of using the watch, that’s for sure.

The performance is great, there’s no lag in sight

The performance overall is as good as you’d get on the Huawei Watch GT 5 and Watch GT 5 Pro. We don’t know what chip Huawei used here, nor how much RAM the company included. I usually expect to see such information in the spec sheet, but some companies opt to leave it out for smartwatches. Considering how well previous Huawei watches aged in terms of performance, I’m not worried about this one at all.

Overall use of the UI and everything you can navigate in and out of was extremely smooth. I did not see a touch of lag while using the watch. Well, a stutter or two did occur, but it does on every product, it’s just a momentary lapse. In general, the performance was outstanding.

Huawei Watch D2 Review: Battery

Is the battery life any good? Well, yes, actually it’s great compared to Wear OS watches and the Apple Watch, but it’s not as good as the larger Huawei Watch GT 5 and Watch GT 5 Pro deliver. That is to be expected, though. So, during Huawei’s testing, the company was able to get 6 days worth of use with ‘typical usage’. That included a specific scenario of used features. Huawei also noted that if you enable ABPM (Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring) with 15-minute intervals, you’re looking at a 1-day battery life. You’re unlikely to do that, though. Well, perhaps some of you, but it’s not advised in regards to battery life.

This watch offers 5-6 days’ worth of battery life

During my testing of this watch, I was able to pull out around 5 days’ worth of battery life, two times in a row. Do note that I fired up pretty much every feature I could other than ABPM and always on display. I also wore the watch while showering, and was stuck in a rain shower too. Not that it matters for battery life, but I want to give you a full picture. I also received a ton of various notifications, used the watch for music control, and had around 6 workout sessions in those 10 days.

I got spoiled by the Huawei Watch GT 5 Pro battery life prior to reviewing this watch, so this is not as impressive. When I remember worrying about charging Wear OS devices, however, this is great. It all depends on the perspective. Chances are you won’t have to charge this smartwatch for days, though. It’ll all depend on your usage, of course.

It can fully charge in less than an hour

Speaking of charging, it’s conducted via a magnetic charging puck. The watch sits in place when you bring it close to that puck, which has a Type-A port for you to plug it in. It took me around 45 minutes to fully charge the watch, in case you’re wondering. It was not fully dead, though, but it was well under a 10% charge on both occasions.

Huawei Watch D2 Review: Software

The Huawei Watch D2 ships with HarmonyOS 5.0. That is Huawei’s proprietary software that has been on the company’s smartwatches for a while now. It is the same version as the one that ships on the Huawei Watch GT 5 and Huawei Watch GT 5 Pro. It’s similar to the HarmonyOS 4.X, but with a number of refinements brought to the table. This version of the OS feels very, very smooth, the smoothest yet. The animations are actually the first thing I’ve noticed, they’re not all that much different than before, but feel different.

Familiar OS layout is on offer here

The layout is still the same as it was on the previous watches. Your quick toggles can be accessed by swiping down while accessing notifications requires the opposite swipe on the home screen. Your widget screens are on the right, while the wather and media controls are on the left on a vertical list, sort of. It’s a rather familiar setup at this point, and other OS’ do things rather similarly in that regard. Accessing a full list of your apps requires a press on the rotating button.

This watch is heavily focused on health and fitness, so the vast majority of apps are dedicated to that. That’s something we’ll focus more on in the next section. What else is there, though? Well, you can access your Call Logs, Contacts, Notifications, Music, Weather, Wallet, Stopwatch, Timer, and so on from the app screen. Yes, you can install more apps on the watch but do note that there are not that many choices in the store, at least not for well-known smartwatch apps. The vast majority of people won’t need any of those, though, as you get everything you need pre-installed on the watch, basically. Just note that the ‘Wallet’ app will not work in most markets, you’ll need to use Curve for that.

The notifications are great with a one slight annoyance

That leaves us with… notifications. The first thing worth noting is that the notification cards look great. You do get plenty of information in there, especially if you actually press on a card. You can set up pre-written responses to notifications, or respond via emoticons. Some apps also support full keyboard responses, though not all of them. Every time you get a notification, an orange icon will pop up at the bottom of the display every time you flick your wrist in order to power on the display. That’s a great way of the watch actually tell you that you have new notifications. That was not present in the previous version of HarmonyOS.

The notifications sync only one way, and that’s a good thing in my book

Another very important thing to note when it comes to notifications is that they don’t sync both ways. What do I mean by that? If you dismiss a notification on your phone, it will be dismissed on the watch too. If you dismiss it on your watch, it will stay on your phone. That’s actually the way I prefer to have it, otherwise I miss a ton of notifications/messages. It is worth noting, though, as some people may prefer it to function in a different way. The notifications were always on time for me, everything was fine in that regard. Just make sure to lock the Huawei Health app in the background in every way possible. Also, you’ll need to grab Huawei Health either from the AppGallery or directly from Huawei’s website, it’s not available in the Google Play Store.

I generally had a great experience with notifications, but one thing did bother me. For some apps, icons are not showing up properly on the watch. You do get a generic icon instead of the icon that is supposed to be there. The vast majority of apps are fine, but not all of them.

Huawei Watch D2 Review: Health & Fitness

As I mentioned already, this watch is heavily focused on fitness and health. Its main selling point is medical-grade blood pressure monitoring. Let’s talk about that first, and then we’ll get around to various other features it offers. The watch comes with a special strap, as mentioned earlier, which has an airbag on the inside, and a pump attached to it. You’ll need to position yourself and the watch properly to utilize that feature, though. How do you do that? Well, you’ll start by resting for at least 5 minutes, preferably lying down, relaxed.

You need to follow instructions for blood pressure measurements

At that point, we can begin. It would be best if you sit down while you measure your blood pressure, and you need to be in a quiet room. You’ll need to extend your arm to be in line with your heart and support its elbow with the palm of your other arm. You should be in a natural sitting position with your feet touching the ground. Also, do your best not to press down on the airbag too much, simply lay your hand on your chest, don’t press hard or anything like that. You can tap the option to measure blood pressure at that point, at which point a 5-second countdown will commence. Return your other hand where it was, supporting your hand via which you’re measuring blood pressure, and we’re off.

While you’re measuring blood pressure, do prepare yourself to feel pressure around your wrist. That airbag on the inside needs to inflate in order to do its job. The watch will let you know when it’s done measuring your heart rate. It will also let you know when the measurement may not be correct for some reason.

The Huawei Watch D2 also offers ABPM scheduling

In addition to standard, manual blood pressure monitoring, this watch also offers ABPM (Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring). This feature basically measures blood pressure at present intervals over a 24-hour period. It then calculates your averages for the whole day, daytime, and nighttime, and analyzes your BP rhythm. That data is then processed and used for hypertension and cardiovascular/cerebrovascular risk assessment. As mentioned earlier in the review, this will drain more battery, of course, it all depends on your settings.

So, what’s my experience with blood pressure monitoring here? Well, I did have a couple of unable-to-complete readings, but that was my fault for not following the instructions. Once I did that, I was able to get proper readings. The thing is, the readings provided by the watch were a bit different than the readings provided by my dedicated blood pressure monitor, the battery-powered one. Truth be said, it’s quite old, so I’m not really sure which one was more accurate. What I’ll say is that the Huawei Watch D2 was rather consistent in terms of blood pressure monitoring. I waited 5-10 minutes between measurements, and I did not get vastly different results, so it was consistent. As long as you follow the instructions I believe this can be a rather useful tool. I did have a spike in my blood pressure recently due to some health issues, so this watch certainly came in handy. It was really, really useful to have.

There are over 80 exercise modes for you to utilize

What else is there on offer here? Well, a lot, actually. In terms of exercise/sports modes, there are over 80 of them available here. The watch can auto-detect six of them, including Outdoor/Indoor run, Outdoor/Indoor walk, Elliptical, and Rower. All the others you’ll have to activate manually, and there’s really a lot to choose from here. Regardless of whether you’re in running, biking gym, or something else entirely, this watch has you covered.

It did a great job tracking my biking and gym sessions, actually. The GPS worked flawlessly, and it picked up the signal almost instantly. That was a bit surprising as it doesn’t have that fancy multi-band support, but that was not an issue at all. My reps with the kettlebells and dumbells were tracked really well too. I could not really try out all the modes here, but based on what I’ve seen, the watch does a great job. It also did great when it came to tracking my heart rate. The improved TruSense system that Huawei deployed here is doing a really good job.

Arterial stiffness is included, stress level measurements, and much more

The watch also has arterial stiffness measurements, it can measure your stress levels and much more. Breathing exercises are at your disposal here, while the watch can also measure your skin temperature. What about sleep tracking you ask? Well, that’s the feature I’m usually the least impressed with when it comes to smartwatches. The same was the case here, actually.

It did a good job overall, but one area where sleep tracking always fails for me is in the morning. The watch never knew when I was awake as I usually spent about 20-30 minutes in bed going through the latest news, usually for work. It usually counts that time as me being asleep. The same goes for tracking sleep stages, the Huawei Watch D2 didn’t do a particularly great job with that either. Everything else in the realm of sleep tracking was good, though. It’s the feature that impressed me the least out of the whole armada of health and fitness features this watch has to offer.

Huawei Watch D2 Review: Audio

The Huawei Watch D2 does have a speaker, it’s included on the left side. That’s also where you’ll find its microphone. Yes, you can listen to music via that loudspeaker, if you really want to, but it’s there mainly for phone calls and various notification sounds. The speaker is good for what it is, but don’t expect too much from it. this is, after all, a smartwatch speaker, and not something you’d find on a smartwatch. With that in mind, it’s better than most speakers on smartwatches I’ve had the pleasure of using. Though again, manage your expectations. As long as you’re not in a loud environment, you’ll be able to hear the person on the other end of the line without a problem.

What about the microphone? Well, based on the feedback I got from my mother, two friends, and my wife, it’s good, but I sounded different than I usually do. Of course, you won’t be able to get the same quality as you would via a phone, but it’s good overall, it would seem. Yes, you can make phone calls with it thanks to Bluetooth calling. I never really use that feature for my personal needs, but I know a couple of people who really like talking via their watch, for whatever reason. So, if you want to, that’s certainly an option here.

Huawei Watch D2: Should you buy it?

The Huawei Watch D2 is not a cheap smartwatch. Getting this watch over the Huawei Watch GT 5 or GT 5 Pro means that you really need that blood pressure monitoring feature, and you also love square watches. In all honesty, if you prefer circular watches, and don’t need the blood pressure monitoring feature, going for the Watch GT 5 or Watch GT 5 Pro seems like a better option.

However, most people looking into this watch want it for its flagship feature, and if that’s the case, there’s really nothing to compare it to out there, at least not mainstream that does a good job on the same level as this one. If you have problems with blood pressure and need something on the go to keep an eye on it… this can be your solution. It’s lighter than you think, and it also looks really good on the hand. Huawei really managed to polish it out compared to the first-gen model.

You should buy the Huawei Watch D2 if you:

…have blood pressure problems
…don’t want to carry around a blood pressure monitor
…like square watches
…want good battery life
…appreciate wireless charging
…need a good display on a smartwatch

You shouldn’t buy the Huawei Watch D2 if you:

…prefer circular watches
…don’t need the blood pressure monitor feature
…like exchanging watch straps
…want to go diving with a watch