Huawei unveils FreeBuds Studio, Porsche Design Watch GT 2 and more 

2021-12-16

Alongside its flagship phones, Huawei featured a new pair of over-ear headphones with impressive noise canceling abilities, long battery life and superior audio quality. There’s also a Porsche Design watch, glasses with built-in headphones, a smart speaker and several accessories for the Mate 40s.

The Huawei FreeBuds Studio feature no less than 8 microphones. With four mics on a side they boast 40 dB reduction in noise. Besides the mics, the Tee Audio Tube structure helps filter out medium and high frequency noise.

The headphones are smart too, they support three main “scenes” – Ultra Mode (for flights and train rides), General Mode (moderately noisy environments like a restaurant) and Cozy Mode (for quiet spaces like an office, this removes the hum of air conditioning and PC fans). An intelligent algorithm pics the best scene and can switch between the scenes in 1/100th of a second.

The headphones won’t leave you deaf to your environment, in fact they can help you hear better. Awareness mode is triggered by pressing the ANC button on the left ear pad, it allows you to hear everything. Voice Mode is configured in the AI Life App and it enhances human voices while simultaneously reducing noise.

The FreeBuds Studio have 40 mm drivers with 4-layer polymer diaphragms. They can reproduce frequencies as high as 48 kHz as well as very deep base, down to 4 Hz. They use the new L2HC codec for optical quality, it transfers music at up to 960 Kbps. These are suitable for gaming too, thanks to the low latency mode.

A stable connection is ensured by the dual antenna design. You can connect the headphones to two devices and easily switch between them. With Fast Pair and Auto Search support, the initial pairing is as simple as tapping a button on your phone. The headphones use touch controls as well as wear detection (so they can pause playback when you take them off).

You’ll rarely need to charge the headphones, they last up to 24 hours (with ANC off) and need only 60 minutes to charge fully. If you’re in a hurry, then 10 minutes are enough for 8 hours of listening (again, with ANC off).

The Huawei FreeBuds Studio cost €300.

The Porsche Design Huawei Watch GT 2 features a wear-resistant sapphire glass and a lightweight titanium frame. The back of the watch is made out of skin-friendly ceramic while the wrist strap is titanium and has a butterfly buckle. The segments of the strap have a slider allowing you to take them off or put them on with your bare hands, no tools needed to adjust the length of the strap.

The Watch supports over 100 workout modes, including climbing, surfing, rowing and more. There are 10 running courses with voice guidance, there are also a skiing coach, a golf drive range mode (which analyzes your swing posture and helps you improve your swing speed and frequency).

When you leave the golf course and head out into nature, you’ll have access to a barometer, which can warn you of adverse air conditions. The watch also tracks sunrise and sunset, the phase of the moon and the tide, so you can go adventuring on the water or dry land. If you go for a swim, the watch is water resistant up to 5 ATM.

The Route Back calculates when you’ll be back to your starting location whether you’re cross-country running, hiking or climbing.

Embedded into the ceramic back is a sapphire glass covering the heart rate and SpO2 sensors. They track your readings 24-hours a day, thanks to low power optimizations. The TruSleep 2.0 feature can diagnose 6 common types of sleep issues, TruRelax tracks your stress levels.

The Porsche Design Huawei Watch GT 2 can go up to 14 days between charges with regular use, 8 days with heavy use. You can pop it on its charger in the morning and in 5 minutes it’s ready to go for 10 hours.

Like the regular Watch GT 2 Pro, this one runs a proprietary Huawei OS. It has a 1.39” OLED display and a 46 mm body. While the Pro also features a sapphire and titanium build, the Porsche Design is more than twice as expensive – it goes for €700.

The Huawei X Gentle Monster Eyewear II combines fashion with practicality. They come in multiple versions and allow you to insert prescription lenses if needed, but what unifies them is the semi-open speakers on the side.

They feature 128 mm² diaphragms for great audio quality, but also an inverse sound wave system to ensure your conversation remains private (it minimizes audio leakage). Tap and swipe controls allow you to change volume and skip tracks as well as answering/ending a call.

The glasses use a Bluetooth 5.2 with a priority channel for a stable connection. They have a low latency mode as well and will automatically detect when you start gaming.

The Huawei X Gentle Monster Eyewear II carry a €300 price tag.