The Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro might have 'Pro' in its name, but it's geared more towards folks who want a decent general overview of their health and fitness. Some Pro features come standard, but if you're actually looking to go Pro, Huawei probably has a slightly better wearable for your desired pursuit. That said, the Watch Fit 5 Pro punches above its weight with its competitive price and premium feel. There might be better alternatives at specific things, but this is the best that's just 'okay' at everything.
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Design
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Features
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Battery
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Tracking
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Value
Huawei’s Watch Fit series is on its fifth outing and has steadily grown to be a dependable smartwatch for the sport-adjacent. While the newest Watch Fit 5 Pro doesn’t break any boundaries, its incremental updates and competitive price make it worth considering. Especially if you’re more interested in keeping an eye on your general health metrics and fitness levels, and less driven to set regular PBs.
Looks familiar
Huawei stuck with the square-ish design but increased the display by 0.1in (it now measures 1.92in across) and made the bezels around the display slightly thinner. If you’re intimately familiar with the Watch Fit 4 Pro, you’ll notice the reduction. You’ll also have the fewest reasons to upgrade. Nearly everything else about the Fit 5 Pro’s design is unchanged.
Not that we’re complaining, Huawei’s last few watch displays have all proven themselves capable. Not only does the Fit 5 Pro have a higher screen-to-bezel ratio than the Apple Watch Series 11, but it is clearly visible even in direct sunlight (and even while wearing sunglasses).
Whatever magic Huawei used to make the Watch Fit 5 Pro as durable as it is… worked. There has been more than one occasion when we weren’t paying attention to where our arm was swinging, and the watch brushed (gouged is more accurate) against bare brick or concrete. You wouldn’t say so looking at it afterwards, though. There was hardly a scratch on the sapphire crystal glass, titanium alloy bezel, or aluminium casing.
Feels familiar too
Regardless of the design, Huawei’s HarmonyOS-powered interface remains unchanged. If you’ve used a Huawei watch before, you’ll have no trouble getting around. Single swipes or a press of the digital crown will get you most of the way, and there’s a customisable action button to quick-launch your favourite workout. Just make sure you open each app individually to grant all the necessary permissions during the setup. It’d be great if Huawei figured out an easy way to do this. But at least it’s only slightly tedious during the initial setup.
It’s also worth noting that while the Watch Fit 5 Pro will pair with any smartphone, Google is about to make it more difficult to sideload apps to your Android device. Huawei might run into some trouble when that becomes official with Android 17, as that is how most Android users must install the Huawei Health companion app — Samsung owners can find it in the Samsung Galaxy Store. Huawei’s App Gallery could be the simple answer to this, but we’ll have to wait and see.
That tracks
The Watch Fit 5 Pro packs in Huawei’s latest (at the time) suite of Trusense sensors and algorithms. Sleep tracking, via Tru Sleep 5.0, was a focus for Huawei here, with efforts made to improve its sleep stage tracking algorithm. We didn’t have the best time with Huawei’s sleep tracking on the Watch Fit 4 Pro, and unfortunately it hasn’t improved as much as we were hoping for here. It will still do a decent job, but there is room for improvement, especially with tracking REM stages.
It is by no means a deal breaker; the watch will still track your sleep to some extent. But tracking the transitions between sleep stages and recognising which sleep stage you’re in might still trip it up. You probably don’t need a smartwatch to tell you you didn’t sleep well. You’ll feel it when you wake up. But when a watch gives a 92 score for a night of poor sleep, it can be a little irritating.
Thankfully, that didn’t happen often, and it’s about all the Watch Fit 5 Pro struggled with. We couldn’t find any issues with general health tracking metrics like heart rate, step count, or SpO2 tracking (at least as far as wrist-based measurements go). Huawei’s Sunflower GPS also proved more accurate than not in most cases.
Since this is the Pro, it’s also rated to dive down to a 40-metre depth. We didn’t get the chance to check that, so we’ll have to take Huawei’s word. It also inherits the dedicated golf mode that first showed up on one of the Watch GT models a few years ago. Ditto the trail running mode.
If you’re doing your training and logging elsewhere, the Fit 5 Pro will connect to most third-party apps, like Strava, but pairing it with TrainingPeaks was still not possible.
As we said earlier, this isn’t really the watch for folks looking to break records or set PBs, so we particularly enjoyed the more relaxed mini-workouts the resident Panda guides you through. These are designed as small movement reminders to give your body a break from sitting at a desk all day and won’t take much time while you strut about, wave your arms around, or pull funny faces at coworkers. You can also unlock different watch faces for completing a few of them, for what that’s worth.
It’s still going
The Watch Fit 5 Pro sports a healthy ten days of battery life, although that’s an “up to” deal with “light usage”. If you’re wearing a smartwatch for notifications and time-telling and not so much the sports tracking, it should last you a little longer.
Similarly, if you are fond of walking around outside for hours at a time, or having the always-on display enabled, you can expect between seven or as low as four days from the battery. The included puck manages up to 20W charging and can get the watch back up to full in less time than it took us to remember to measure. If you make a habit of charging it when you’re not wearing it, battery shouldn’t be an issue.
Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro verdict
Coming in at the same R5,000 price as the previous version, and several hundred rand less than Apple or Garmin’s cheapest offerings, is a huge help in overlooking most of the Watch Fit 5 Pro’s flaws. It covers all of the basics and then goes beyond what we would expect from a smartwatch at this price. Whether you only need a notification tracker or want to actually improve your health, the Watch Fit 5 Pro will earn its place on your wrist.
