Smartphones are the big draw of MWC –— after all, that first ‘M’ stands for ‘mobile’. They’re far from the only gadgets on show, though, and many of the major smartphone players also show off their smartwatches and fitness trackers at the Barcelona conference.
Well, in principle; I’ve been running around different booths at MWC 2026 in search of wearables, but only found three devices which could feasibly be called ‘new’. A few more devices were on display, but they were mostly older models — for instance the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra you see in the picture above.
Huawei Watch GT Runner 2
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Launched at an MWC warm-up event hosted by double Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge, and costing a princely £349.99 (about $475 / AU$664), this successor to the Huawei Watch GT Runner is something our fitness editor has already played about with. And as someone with a love/hate relationship with running wearables, I was surprised by just how impressed I was by it.
I was struck straight away by how light the Huawei Watch GT Runner 2 is — banish the thought of those chunky running watches which feel as much like a manacle as a fitness aid. This is especially true in one of the models I tested, which had a comfortable fabric band, but I also liked how light the synthetic strap was. Perfect, I’d imagine, for running.
The Runner 2 has a 1.32-inch AMOLED display, with a side button and rotating crown, and is 5 ATM and IP69 protected. Software- and feature-wise, it’s a similar beast to before, but with a few upgrades to fix gripes we had with the previous model, such as the introduction of contactless payment.
I didn’t test the original Runner, so perhaps this is a feature of that, but I liked how many different types of running course or test were present in the app; I’d imagine it’s great for prolific athletes or people trying to become better runners, and I always like a device that can work for different types of users.
Moto Watch
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Motorola already showed off its latest wearable, the Moto Watch, earlier this year, and snuck it out on sale at the end of January. Like many of Moto’s stop-start attempts to create a solid wearable line, it went a little under the radar, so perhaps a showing at MWC can fix that.
Moto’s had limited success with its wearable line for years, but it teamed up with a legacy running watch maker to create this model: Polar, of the likes of the Polar Grit X2. Moto has also drawn on its old buddy Pantone to pick the colors of the watch band, so this is a real team effort.
The Moto Watch has a 47mm round face, protected by Gorilla Glass 3, and a steel crown. It runs home-brewed software very reminiscent of Wear OS, and Moto puts the battery life at 13 days, or 7 days if you use the always-on display,
I liked how premium the Moto Watch felt, given that it’s an affordable option that starts at $149.99 / £89.99 (about AU$200) — though I couldn’t help but feel that it was a bit light on features. But for a long-lasting device, it’s easy to forgive a svelte feature set.
Xiaomi Watch 5
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Another device that technically already launched is the Xiaomi Watch 5; this was shown off to Chinese audiences in December, and saw an official international release alongside the Xiaomi 17 Ultra at MWC.
The big upgrade here is that the watch runs the Google-made Wear OS 6, instead of Xiaomi’s HyperOS, and so it’s a bigger competitor to the Google Pixel Watch 4. This brings with it a few major perks, including access to Wear OS’ large roster of apps, as well as Gemini — which works pretty well here.
I was shown, and then got to try, a demonstration of Gemini on the Watch 5; I could ask my watch for directions to a certain location, and the watch would consult Google Maps to find the route and then display it to me. It felt like a genuinely useful hands-free function — and best of all, Gemini was acting just like Google Assistant Plus, instead of the weird chatbot AI tool that Google forces it to be. I’d be curious to see how many other tasks the Watch 5 can accomplish with Gemini.
Beyond that, the Xiaomi Watch 5 has a 1.54-inch AMOLED display, electromyography sensor for gesture control and six-day battery life; that’s a lot better than most Wear OS devices. It’s on sale now for £269.99 / AU$499 (about $300).
Honor-able mention: Honor Watch 5 Ultra
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The Honor Watch 5 Ultra gets a spot for honorable mention not just because of the name, but because it’s not technically a new watch; in fact, it’s nearly a year old. However it was out in force at MWC, mostly to show the cross-device functionality of Honor’s devices, so I’m bringing it into consideration.
This is a big and expensive wearable, costing €279 (about $300 / £235 / AU$480 — as the prices suggest, it’s not going on sale in many regions). We gave it a mixed reception in our Honor Watch 5 review due to its few missing features, but it has a lot of solid perks.
It was shown at MWC to demonstrate part of the wider brand ecosystem, hiding in the shadows of the foldable Honor V6 and Robot Phone. Apparently if you own other gadgets from the brand, you’ll get some features in common, and tools shared between them — though as this wording implies, I couldn’t figure out what.
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tom.bedford@hotmail.co.uk (Tom Bedford)
