Huawei didn’t just turn up in Munich to brag about how cool its new Watch GT 7 Series is, although it was certainly the highlight of its ‘Chase the Wild’ global event. The company brought enough new tech that you’ll be left wondering whether someone accidentally hit ‘launch all’. Stuff has its boots on the ground in Germany, and we got a good look at Huawei’s new seriously skinny tablet, new earbuds, and a fresh Nova smartphone line-up.
The Huawei Watch 6 Series is back
After taking a year off, Huawei’s more mature smartwatch is making a comeback. The Huawei Watch 6 Series — encompassing the Watch 6 and Watch 6 Pro — sits at the smarter end of Huawei’s wearable family. Expect independent calling, navigation, and payment functionality. In other words, this is the watch for those who like to leave their phones behind without becoming completely disconnected from civilisation.
Huawei’s also loaded it with all manner of upgraded workout modes and, of course, AI-powered exercise analysis, because just… going for a run isn’t enough anymore. You watch also needs to have an opinion about it. A few folks must prefer it. Why else would it keep turning up?
Health monitoring remains a major part of the pitch, with Huawei expanding its Health Glance, Health Insights, and Healthy Living features. The interesting question will be how useful all of this intelligence proves. There’s a difference between your smartwatch amassing a mountain of information and actually doing something with it.
Some of the specs, like the Watch 6 and 6 Pro’s battery, are still under wraps at the time of writing. We know that the cheaper of the two — the Watch 6 — features a rather lightweight 38g body and sapphire glass coating, while the 6 Pro justifies its higher price with a titanium alloy chassis and ‘nano-tech ceramic’.
The Watch D3 would like a word about your blood pressure
On a more serious note, Huawei also unveiled the Watch D3, the latest generation of wrist-based blood pressure-monitoring wearables. The big addition this year is support for blood pressure measurements before and after a workout, along with reminders to keep taking readings for a more accurate assessment.
Wearable companies have spent years attempting to move beyond counting steps and even congratulating us for standing up occasionally. Blood pressure monitoring is part of the industry’s much bigger push towards making watches useful health devices rather than expensive digital pedometers. Still, it could be a tad more exciting.
Huawei has made some other improvements to make up for that. The Watch D3 now offers a 1.92in AMOLED, though the resolution remains unchanged at 408 x 408 pixels. It’s also considerably thinner than Huawei’s D2, now measuring at an impressive 11.4mm thin. Despite the smaller body, the battery is bigger at 540mAh. Huawei reckons that should be more than enough to squeeze six days of life out of the watch under “typical use”.
Huawei’s MatePad Pro is almost suspiciously thin
Next up on the menu is the Huawei MatePad Pro 12in (2026), which measures an exquisite 4.7mm thick. That… is very thin. Thin enough, in fact, that our first instinct upon picking the thing up was whether it’d actually survive a trip in a crowded backpack — especially when there’s a laptop charger lurking.
The slim body is paired with a 12-inch flexible OLED PaperMatte display, while Huawei has also packed in AI speech-to-text conversion, AI handwriting enhancement, and stylus air gestures. The idea, clearly, is to position the MatePad Pro as more than a tablet that occasionally gets dragged into a meeting. Huawei wants it to go everywhere you do, acting as a seriously creative and productive device. You know, like a laptop?
Whether it can actually replace a laptop will depend heavily on the user and their software requirements, but it certainly has one advantage over lugging a notebook around all day. Your shoulders should approve.
FreeBuds Neo enters the chat
Huawei next unveiled its FreeBuds Neo. Oh, you didn’t get the memo? No tech convention in 2026 is legally allowed to conclude before the host says something along the lines of “here’s a new pair of earbuds.” Huawei has complied, showing off its FreeBuds Neo, buds it describes as being built for a modern lifestyle.
We know that doesn’t tell us very much. However, they seem purpose-built for folks who live slightly old-fashioned lifestyles. The company has promised a refreshed design and ‘immersive’ audio. We’ll be the decider of that, after we actually get a pair in our ears for longer than a few seconds. Now that just about everyone has a pair of earbuds under their brand, it takes a lot more than good sound to stand out.
Still, Huawei hasn’t ever disappointed with the FreeBuds range in the past, and we don’t expect it to start here.
The Nova 16s wants your face
The Nova line has increasingly been Huawei’s fashion-conscious phone range, aimed at buyers who care as much about what comes out of the camera as what benchmark score the processor produces.
Huawei hasn’t suddenly discovered portrait photography, of course. Smartphone manufacturers have spent years trying to persuade us that every mildly interesting coffee shop visit deserves the photographic treatment previously reserved for a Vogue cover.
But camera technology remains one of Huawei’s traditional strengths, so the Nova 16s will be worth watching once we get a clearer picture of the local specs and, of course, pricing. A clever camera is nice. A clever camera at the wrong price becomes something you point and laugh at on the internet.
The bigger Huawei picture
Look beyond the launch event slogans, and a fairly obvious theme runs through Huawei’s Munich announcements. The company wants its devices to occupy more parts of your life, whether you’re exercising, working, creating or just being. For South Africans, though, the interesting part now is what actually makes it to local shelves and how much it costs.
Huawei is still keeping its cards close to the chest on that front, however. We suspect that not all of the devices unveiled today will reach South African soil. For now, though, Huawei has given us much to look forward to. We’ve seen the next generation of Huawei devices. The next step is finding out whether they’re as good to use as they look on stage. We’ll have more to say once we’ve had some proper hands-on time with them.
