Honor unveils new wearable, lets users decide name
Provisionally titled the Honor Band, Honor's new wearable is part TalkBand, part fitness tracker
On top of the Honor 7, Honor has also announced its very first wearable. The only thing is that it doesn’t actually have a name yet. Provisionally dubbed the Honor Band, the Huawei-owned company will be letting its fans decide its official moniker in the run up to its launch in Q4 of this year. Entries can be made via Honor’s Facebook page or on Twitter @HonorEU.
Costing just £60, the Honor Band is essentially a more attractive TalkBand B2 without the built-in Bluetooth headset. It borrows the same touch-controlled UI as Huawei’s fitness tracker and uses identical icons and graphics to display the time, track your steps, monitor your sleep and give you call notifications. However, the Honor Band is also rated as IP68 waterproof, so you can wear it in the bath or shower without damaging the unit.
Designed with a slightly younger, more fashion-conscious audience in mind, the Honor Band will be available in two different strap sizes. The thinner white plastic band shown above, for instance, is intended to appeal to women, while the thicker black band is designed for men. There will also be a choice of khaki as well, but it’s currently unknown which size category it will fall into.
As for the watch itself, its smooth, pebble shaped design sits very discreetly on the wrist, and its jet-black panel does a great job of masking its square display. Honor didn’t mention what type of screen technology it uses, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it uses a similar P-OLED panel to Huawei’s TalkBand.
With no buttons, the Honor Hand is controlled entirely by swiping the touchscreen. However, when I tried it out for myself, it sometimes took a few goes for it to turn on, making it much more fiddly to operate than Huawei’s TalkBand.
That said, it’s certainly a lot slimmer and more stylish than the TalkBand B2, and its tiny size actually makes it look like a smartwatch I might want to buy. I’ll have to wait and see how it fares in day to day use when I get one in for review later this year, but if this is a glimpse of what the future holds of Huawei’s TalkBands, I’m all for it.