Honor Watch 5 Ultra Smartwatch Review: Ultra design with pretty normal functions

The Honor Watch 5 Ultra can be used with both Android and iOS devices. The smartwatch was not compatible with the current public release of the Honor Health app during testing, so we had to rely on the beta version. We paired the Watch 5 Ultra with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra running Android 15.

An Honor account is necessary in order to use the Honor Health app. The Honor Watch 5 Ultra is quickly detected and paired once the beta version is installed. Initially, the app requests personal data and preferences.

By default, some settings, such as automatic measurement of blood oxygen saturation and stress measurement are disabled. After setup, a brief tutorial appears on the smartwatch. Both the smartphone app and the software on the watch bear some clear resemblance to Huawei products' interface and layout.

The Honor app is divided into 4 sections: Health, Sport, Device, and Account. The Health section acts as a dashboard, showing key information on all areas such as activity, training sessions, sleep, and heart rate.

All completed workouts are listed under Sport. The Device page provides access to the settings of the paired smartwatch, where you can activate measurements and change watch faces. 

Honor Health also includes music management, allowing music to be transferred from the paired smartphone to the smartwatch via Wi-Fi. It is also possible to customize the notifications for each app. There is no dedicated app store.

Collected data is listed under Account. Courses and training plans can also be set up and viewed.

Health data is gathered using the Honor health app. In addition to measuring individual fitness parameters, the Watch 5 Ultra can also collect all parameters in one go; 'health scan', this is how Honor labels this feature.

The health scan takes 45 seconds and covers four points: heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, stress value, and weight. Please note that the user's weight is not measured as par of this procedure; the app uses a manually entered value instead.

If desired, the smartwatch can send reminders for regularly taking measurements and provides a morning report with the previous day's data. The generated report is more comprehensive, as it includes information on the weather, sleep, and heart rate ranges.

The Honor Watch 5 Ultra uses ring-style indicators for tracking steps, calories, and activity duration. These goals can be set individually in the app. A timeline illustrates the daily routine by indicating when each goal was achieved.

Additionally, there are submenus for the individual points. This allows comparison of daily performance with that of other days, along with comparative values for weekly averages and other days or times. 

However, the app does not provide information on altitude or flights of stairs climbed; only the smartwatch itself displays altitude data.

The Honor Watch 5 Ultra can monitor heart rate and blood oxygen saturation. The smartwatch should also be able to measure ECG as per Honor's official announcement, but we did not find this function enabled on our review sample yet.

In order to better assess heart rate values, we compare them with a reference device. We discuss the significance of these readings in a dedicated article.

The Polar H10 chest strap is used as a reference device to determine the heart rate while cycling. The resting heart rate values differ by just one beat per minute between the Watch 5 Ultra and the Polar H10. We measured the performance heart rate at three distinct intervals.

The Watch 5 Ultra performed remarkably well in this context, with an average variance of just 0.76% across the three measurement intervals. The maximum deviation for one measured value was 4 beats per minute.

Blood oxygen saturation readings were similarly quite reliable. A Braun Pulse oximeter 1 served as the reference device. The average difference between three measurements was only 0.01%, with a maximum deviation of 1% in a single measurement.

The Honor Watch 5 Ultra features sleep tracking capabilities. Users need to enable the extended measurement feature first, which then prompts the software to download a plug-in. 

Even without the extension, however, the watch still displays different sleep phases, including duration and proportions for light, deep and REM sleep. Waking times were also reliably detected in the test. The software also provides a rating for the respective sleep phases.

The Watch 5 Ultra provides a comprehensive assessment of the user's sleep quality via a sleep score. This is given a value between 0 and 100, supplemented by a word score and an explanation. The app analyzes sleep trends and compares weekly patterns.

A sleep plan can be created to improve the sleep routine. The software also offers breathing exercises and sleep music. However, there is no smart alarm clock that takes the sleep phases into account.

The software can also recognize sleep sounds and speech during sleep. This requires the Watch 5 Ultra to be connected to a smartphone with internet access, as this recognition does not run via the watch itself.

The Honor Watch 5 Ultra can track over 100 sports activities with particular emphasis on its diving mode. The Watch 5 Ultra is said to withstand water depths of 40 m. Diving functionality was not tested in this review; we mainly used the product for jogging.

The training data collected is extensive and is presented in an easy-to-read manner. Goals can be defined for individual sports, including time, distance, or repetitions. When jogging, there is also a metronome, a function designed to burn fat quickly, and a virtual pacer that runs at a preset pace.

The Watch 5 Ultra can also provide information on the current training status, after every kilometer when running for example. The voice prompts, however, are only available in English at the time of testing. 

The smartwatch is supposed to automatically recognize workouts in four sports, but this never worked during testing despite activating the function.

Post-workout, the Watch 5 Ultra assesses your exhaustion and suggests a recovery time. The software provides information on VO₂Max levels and calculates a fitness age. Preloaded fitness programs are available on the smartwatch.

The fitness courses cover a wide range of training types. They not only cover muscle training for different parts of the body but also include stretching exercises.

Honor advertises a battery life of up to 15 days. Actual battery life during testing was shorter than that. We enabled all tracking features and the always-on display and wore the watch continuously for 24 hours a day. 

On training days, the battery capacity drops by around 20%. Because workouts were not conducted daily, the Watch 5 Ultra would typically last around a week before needing a recharge.

In terms of charging speeds, the smartwatch charges from 12% to 75% in 45 minutes, reaches 94% in one hour and fully charges in 70 minutes.

The Watch 5 Ultra uses Qi wireless charging. This works not only with the supplied charging cradle but also on the back of smartphones that support reverse wireless charging.