Products

Huawei Watch Ultimate 2 is the smart watch for those who want a luxurious yet functional object

by Giancarlo Calzetta

13 October 2025

5' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

5' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

When it comes to smartwatches, there are different strands of thought: some people just want a way to read notifications on the fly without having to turn on their smartphone every time; some want a companion for sports training; some want a system that monitors a specific aspect of their health; and some like statistics and control and want it all together. There are all kinds of smartwatches on the market, but each one comes with its own compromises: there is the model that doesn't make it through the day; the one that lasts a whole month but looks a bit plastic; the elegant but heavy one, etc. Huawei is very focused on the production of wearable devices and among the many models it has lent us its top-of-the-range model for a 'road test'.

Il nuovo HUAWEI WATCH Ultimate 2 si distingue subito per il suo design raffinato. La cassa ottagonale, ispirata agli orologi di alta gamma, è realizzata in una lega amorfa di zirconio liquido, materiale utilizzato anche nell’orologeria di lusso, e rifinita con un rivestimento ultraresistente. Non è molto leggero, onestamente, ma è decisamente robusto e resistente agli urti, ai graffi e alla corrosione. Il display è protetto da vetro zaffiro, mentre la lunetta e il retro sono in ceramica nano cristallina, a testimonianza di una cura maniacale per i dettagli e la scelta dei materiali. Rispetto alla versione precedente (che abbiamo provato per due anni) è un po’ più spigoloso e trasmette la stessa sensazione di grande qualità costruttiva che il produttore ci tiene a garantire specificando che l’orologio è in grado di resistere a test di abrasione quotidiana (con lana d’acciaio, chiavi e coltelli), cicli in lavatrice e persino congelamento in acqua, dimostrando una durezza superiore rispetto a tit

The colour palette is inspired by natural elements: the blue version recalls the ocean, the black one (according to them) the mountains. The 1.5-inch LTPO 2.0 screen offers high brightness and a screen-to-body ratio 4% higher than the previous generation. The maximum brightness reaches 1500 lumens: more than enough to be perfectly visible in bright light and act as a good 'emergency torch' in everyday life.

Outdoor sports and professional diving

Like any self-respecting smartwatch, the Ultimate 2 is designed for sportsmen and adventurers. It is the only smartwatch on the market that supports dives down to 150 metres and incorporates a sonar-based underwater audio system. The internal structure dynamically adapts to pressure, automatically sealing cracks and protecting against water, soap and chemicals. The layered microphone allows sound transmission even under high pressure. When tested in the Y40 pool, the deepest in Europe, it felt like having a dolphin on your wrist as the sounds emitted resembled its cry. The underwater communication function allows messages and emoji to be sent up to 30 metres away, with the possibility of SOS up to 60 metres without having to add optional sensors.

Cristian Pellegrini, Marketing and Communication Manager at DAN Europe (an international non-profit medical and research organisation dedicated to the health and safety of divers) commented enthusiastically on this feature: "Technologies such as underwater SOS and rapid messaging do not change basic emergency management procedures, but offer an extra ally for team safety. Being able to send an alarm or critical indication, such as as ascent, to all team members simultaneously-with the added benefit of an SOS signal up to 60 metres-grants superior operational control in potentially critical scenarios."

Communication innovation is also complemented by the convenience of the new Sunflower positioning system, which in the water comes in handy for finding the boat when surfacing from a current dive. For outdoor activities, it improves the accuracy of route tracking by 30%, with dual-band coverage on five satellite systems (BeiDou, GPS, Glonass, Galileo, QZSS). Ideal for urban running, trekking and expeditions, it allows you to import offline maps, mark waypoints and compare data with professional instruments.

Golf enthusiasts, on the other hand, will be able to enjoy detailed maps of no less than 16,000 courses (spread over 19 countries) and a whole host of special functions such as slope calculation and digital scoreboard.

Also handy is the eSIM support function, which allows independent calls even in power-saving mode and enables the watch to automatically call for help if it detects a fall and the user does not respond within 60 seconds to the check request. The AI noise-cancelling system guarantees clear calls even in noisy environments, with twice the noise suppression of the previous model and wind resistance of up to 7 m/s1.

A big brother for your health

Today, a wearable can't really be called smart if it doesn't take advantage of its proximity to our body to monitor key indicators of our health. The Huawei Ultimate 2 stands out for its X-TAP sensor, easily accessible on the side, which simply rests a finger on it and provides a report of 11 indicators including heart rate, SpO2, body temperature, stress, ECG and more in about three seconds. The watch now actively detects the risks of altitude sickness, rapid changes in altitude and high altitudes above 4,500 metres, suggesting breathing exercises if necessary. The TruSense system also allows for the detection of sleep apnoea.

Variable autonomy according to need and interface

In sports mode, the battery lasts up to 18 hours in diving, 40 hours in outdoor adventure and 24 hours in golf. In everyday life mode with 'everything on', you get up to 4.5 days with Android and 3.5 with iOS; with the display always on, it drops to 2.5 days. However, if you use it in 'power-saving' mode, you get up to 11 days and, in reality, there are very few to give up. This is a bit of a step back from the first Ultimate, which goes up to 14 days, but it is an acceptable compromise and a far cry from other products that burden you with the need to recharge.

From an interface point of view, this Ultimate 2 seems a bit overloaded. Whereas the first one was very linear and easy to handle, here we often see screens that are a bit too crowded, options that are sometimes hidden, too small print and a few bugs. In particular, the choice of colours in the sub interface is questionable in more than one case and an annoying bug sets the brightness of the navigation menu back to the 'automatic' setting, making it very difficult to choose the right options. The warnings to start workouts are a bit too insistent and the option to switch them off is really small. The amount of submenus is sometimes annoying.

All in all, it is a nice product. The design is really nice and it is chock-full of sensors. The weight is a bit high, but on the wrist you don't feel it. Technologically, it is superior to the first version, but the interface needs some tweaking to make it more suitable for those who can't see perfectly well up close and those who don't want to memorise every path to the right information. The on-screen keyboard, although small, works incredibly well. The price is high, 899 euros for the black version and a whopping 999 for the blue one is a bit steep, but the build quality is really excellent.