Smartwatches are becoming more and more popular these days. In fact, almost all brands offer a smartwatch alongside their smartphones. But have you ever wondered how these smartwatches are developed to showcase the latest tech? Specifically, how do the more high-end models track your workout activity, and more?
Well, we got to find out how they do so when we visited the Huawei Headquarters in Shenzhen, China. The campus itself is huge, and you can easily get lost inside just trying to find your way around. In fact, it’s hard to just walk around to get from one place to another. We had to take a bus to get from one place to another.
More importantly, it is beautiful. The different offices are inspired by different European cities, like Paris, Luxembourg, London, and more. Walking around the place makes you feel like you’re not in China at all. Well, that’s before you see the skyscrapers in the background. If you ever have the opportunity, I recommend visiting the place. Unfortunately, the place is not open to the public so you can’t exactly just walk in and ask for a tour.
But the story today focuses specifically on one part of the Huawei Headquarters, the Huawei Health Lab. It’s here where we get to see how Huawei develops and tests their latest and even upcoming smartwatches.
If I didn’t say so, you might think this place looks just like a really big gym and training center, and to a point, you aren’t wrong. Almost all the sports you can think of, they have it here. I mean that in a literal sense too.
From the entrance alone, you can already notice the paint markings on the floor for the running track, or at least part of it. Moving to the main area, this is where the rest of the sports and activities are taking place. Rock climbing, volleyball, table tennis, badminton, you name it, this place has it.
Other notable features of the facility included a small pool enclosed behind a large glass. It’s like an aquarium but instead of fish, you can see the people swimming. Unfortunately, no one was swimming at the time. There’s also a huge treadmill with cameras all around the treadmill to monitor bikes, skateboards, and more.
They even had a virtual golf area, and I got a few swings in testing one of the new Huawei smartwatches with the golf sport in play. Just don’t ask how my shots were (they were bad, and I’m not going to make any excuses).
But what really surprised me was the fact that they even had a 10-meter shooting range for Olympic shooting. This sport isn’t exactly the most popular, and not a lot of people know about it. I hadn’t shot in awhile, and it was a rifle instead of a pistol so my shots and grouping weren’t the best. But still, I was surprised to find out Huawei was actually developing something for this sport, and they were even working with what looked like China’s national team.
It’s not just smartwatches that they are developing here though. We were even shown other Huawei wearables like the Huawei S-Tag, which simply clips onto your shoes. It pairs with the Huawei Health app, and can supposedly record how you run, how your feet strides, and more. We didn’t get to try this one out, but I don’t think this is currently being offered in the Philippines. Still, it’s a pretty cool wearable device, and it’s nice to look at, especially with all the treadmills in the background.
After showing us around, we were given some time to try out most of the sports in the facility. I spent most of the time at the virtual golf area, trying to improve my swing (it didn’t). It’s amazing to see that the Huawei watch I got to try on was able to monitor how many swings I’ve made among other parameters for golf. If only it had coaching, that would surely help.
As much as I wanted to try out the other amenities available at the Huawei Health Lab, we didn’t have that much free time. However, it was great to see how Huawei actually tests out its smartwatches and smart wearables to ensure you get accurate results and readouts when exercising or playing sports. So if you’re ever in doubt whether the results you get are accurate, you can be sure they test it out thoroughly.
Honestly, one day isn’t enough to go around the entire campus, or even try out all the sports available at the Huawei Health Center. Then again, this isn’t exactly a tourist destination, and we didn’t want to intrude or disrupt the people working in the facility. Still, it was a great experience seeing how the company tests their products out. There are other Huawei Health Labs and research centers around the world too, with one of the Huawei Health Lab being located in Helsinki, Finland.
Maybe next time we get to visit, there will be new sports we can try out. I mean, there are a bunch of new sports trending these days like pickleball.
