I’m writing this from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as a guest of Huawei.

I don’t do advertising in my writing or public speaking I provide useful and insightful information in the hope that my readers can make use of it. That aside I have discovered something astonishing about Huawei that I think people should be aware of.

Huawei’s Watch 2 has made the leap to independent device and signals the death of smartphones

When I first saw the specification of the Apple iWatch, I though “what a stupid idea”, “it is just an extension of the iPhone” but having bought one I have found it invaluable to stay surreptitiously appraised of thing without having to view them on my iPhone. It is in fact a great social device and keeps me out of trouble with friends and family because I am “always connected and always on”.

Conversely Huawei’s Watch 2 is a fundamentally different proposition. I’m not going to talk about the aesthetics, screen size or even battery life they are not the killer components, although battery life was heavily mentioned.

Huawei’s Watch 2 is evolutionary because it’s an independent device, it accepts a SIM becoming your phone, it plays music and offers a payment gateway essentially it removes the need for a smart phone completely. This is the first real step towards Ubiquity and Smart Living because it changes a major physical interaction of holding a device into a personal yet non-invasive ecosystem were the device works in the background.

In another session Paul Scanlon, President of Business & Network Consulting, Huawei said.

well we have to think post smartphones

which is a clear indication of strategic thinking around the next two steps in a service led, ubiquitous ecosystem strategy.

A hot meal waiting for you at home, even with no one there to cook? @UserExperienceU talks #5G: https://t.co/EP3QRoXStf #MWC17 pic.twitter.com/KIQTXjLSR6

— Huawei (@Huawei) March 1, 2017

Completing this strategy Huawei have launched CloudMetro an integrated Cloud based potentially ubiquitous ecosystem.

The following film was live streamed from the event today (it’s in Chinese but Q&A is in Chinese and English) https://www.periscope.tv/UserExperienceU/1yNxaPRlyRvJj?t=30s