Huawei FreeArc Review

Introduction

The Huawei FreeArc is Huawei’s second attempt at making open-earbuds and unlike its first effort, the FreeArc is aimed at being on your ears when it’s time to exercise.

Along with a more fitness-friendly design, Huawei promises multiple listening modes, less sound leakage and improved long-range Bluetooth connectivity.

The number of open-ear sports earbuds that sit in and around the FreeArc is plentiful and the good news is that Huawei offers one of the better options you can pick up.

Availability

The Huawei FreeArc carries a launch price of £79 it will retail for £99. That’s less than the Huawei FreeClip, which Huawei slapped with a £179.99 price tag

That sub-£100 price puts it firmly up against the Shokz OpenFit Air, which are less expensive cheaper at £94. You’ve also got a whole host of other earbuds that sit in and around or less than the FreeArc, including the Openrock X, Soundcore Aerofit and JBL Soundgear Sense.

Design

• IP57 water resistance
• Features gesture controls
• Comes in three colour options

It doesn’t take long to see where Huawei has taken design inspiration from as the FreeArc looks like a Shokz OpenFit Air clone. They’re not identical with a few clear differences in the design, but the stature and look feels very similar to the Shokz open-ear sports earbuds.

You can pick them up in either a black, green or grey shades that give it a not overtly sporty look that’s elegant and understated. They weigh 8.3g so they don’t hang heavy on the ears. The combination of the acoustic bean (i.e. speaker) and the comfort droplet, which sits behind the ear, works well to create a nicely balanced design that did stay put in our tests.

I do think the element in the design that links ear hook to earbud could benefit from being a touch thicker, which would make it sit more reassuringly on the top of the ear. It never felt like the earbuds were going to fall off, but I did find myself playing around with the fit at times, particularly when wearing a hat or glasses.

In a first for Huawei earbuds, the FreeArc carries an IP57 water resistance rating, which is up from the IP54 applied to the FreeClip. That gives it a stronger level of defence against water and dust and can technically be submerged in water up to one metre for up to 30 minutes.

The similarities do not end there with the OpenFit Air, with a similar-sized charging case to drop them into. You’re also getting touch-style controls that can be customised in Huawei’s AI Life smartphone app, and they’re a surprisingly responsive set to use for exercise. You can swipe to adjust volume and double and triple tap to perform functions like handling a call or skipping a track and I’d definitely put them in the category of good touch controls on fitness-focused earbuds.

Features

• Up to 7 hours battery life

Huawei includes additional features to make them more suited to exercise including an anti-wind design that promises to block wind up to 4 m/s to ensure the clearest call performance from the dual-microphones on board.

It’s also promising an antenna design that has a 100 metre indoor range and a 400 metre outdoor one. Huawei mentioned the scenario of using it on a 400 metre running track as a great place to test this. I did that very thing and while they remained connected to an iPhone for most of the way around the track, the connectivity cutouts kicked in at the 350 metre point on every lap.

Outside of those, there’s support for multipoint connectivity and audio sharing, offering Huawei’s take on Apple’s audio sharing feature that works with other FreeArc and Freebuds earbuds when connected to a Huawei smartphone or tablet.

Battery life is solid on the whole with the FreeArc. It’s up to 7 hours from a single charge and a total of 28 hours with a fully charged case. You’ve also got a quick charging mode that gives you 3 hours of listening with a 10-minute charge. I found those numbers stacked up in testing. Louder listening volumes and using additional EQ presets definitely sees the battery drop quicker, with an hour’s listening typically seeing battery drop anywhere from 10-15%

Sound Quality

• Bright, open-ear sound
• 4 EQ modes available

Like the FreeClip, the FreeArc takes an air conduction approach to delivering its open-ear sound to help make them a safer set of earbuds to work out with indoors and outdoors.

There’s a 17x12mm driver unit to produce the open-ear sound with scope to pick from four different EQ modes and a custom EQ from the Huawei AI Life app and these are available for both Android and iPhone users.

To that sound quality and having used the FreeClip, I’m happy to say that there’s a noticeable step up in performance in most departments. You’ve got the same EQ presets as the FreeClip with the Default EQ treating aspects like bass and trebles the same and did leave me wanting to tinker with things.

The Elevate one gives the sound some added oomph and pickup in bass, the Treble Boost reduces that bass, while the Voices EQ is the one you switch on when listening to podcasts and audiobooks. You can only switch between those EQs from the app, which is a shame as matching up them up to your preferred sounds offers the best results.

I’ve used the earphones indoors and out, in quieter and louder busier environments and in windier ones too, and the overall profile is bright and punchy. It does a good job in offering a balance between audio and sounds around you and while I’m not convinced the anti-wind design has huge benefits for windier outdoor use, my sound didn’t get entirely swept up in gustier conditions.

On Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy switching to the Elevate EQ preset, there‘s some good power though it lacks some of the warmth I do think you get from Shokz’ OpenFit Air and more balanced-sounding open-ear earbuds from Bose and Sony. Bass gets pushed to the forefront with a more muddy profile than ever feeling snappy or tight.

There’s a bit of a boxy feel to the mids and if you like your treble grainy. The Avalanches’ Since I Left You with the default EQ mode brings a bit of balance to proceedings with some of that boxiness in the mids department present again. I switched to the Voices EQ preset on London Grammar’s Wasting My Young Years and it did the required job of lifting vocals where there’s definitely some likeable treble graininess. It was a similar story on On FKA twigs’ Two Weeks, where vocals are more of a force.

Retaining the best sound available when you’re outside competing with more sounds is certainly a challenge not only for the FreeArc, but for all open-ear earbuds simply because of the nature of the design. I’m happy to see that the FreeArc manages to maintain some of the nicer qualities you get in that sound profile that’s more noticeable when using them inside.

The same applies to call quality where the FreeArc is more than capable to handle calls indoors and outdoors. Is it the best call quality you’ll enjoy on a set of earbuds? Not necessarily, but it was good enough to make them suitable for interrupting a run to take a call.

Should you buy it?