08-07-2025
The future of luxury is hyper-personalisation
I arrived at Huawei's Experience Centre on Banxuegang Boulevard in China feeling slightly jaded.
I'd seen countless tech showcases before, each one louder and more frenetic than the last, but as I sank into the rear seat of the Maextro S800, something shifted. It wasn't the plush seat that began to massage my back or the fast wireless charging panel where I could rest my phone, but that without me realising it, the car had anticipated my needs and adjusted itself to meet them before I'd thought to ask. A Huawei staff member tapped the centre screen, and suddenly the front of the cabin fell into a hush.
It wasn't only about muting sound, it was about creating an intentional space. My own voice felt clearer, more contained, as though the car were listening. In that moment, I realised I wasn't visiting a showroom. I had stepped into a thesis on luxury. One that doesn't arrive in spectacle, but in softness.
Outside the car, the Experience Centre felt more like a curated gallery than a tech hub. Splash screens and guided tours lent it a familiar kind of corporate choreography, but the devices told another story. HarmonyOS 5 powers a large share of Huawei's portfolio in China, but HarmonyOS 6, in developer preview, reveals where this is all going. Instead of juggling interfaces across your phone, watch, laptop and car, the goal is a seamless flow. HarmonyOS 6 will introduce AI agents, cloud-native continuity and improved cross-device logic, all designed to anticipate you without interrupting you.
This approach was everywhere, though quietly expressed. The Huawei Watch 5 series builds on the company's deepening investment in health tech. It does the expected things — heart rate, sleep, stress tracking — but adds context over time. The longer you wear it, the better it understands you. The personalisation is practical, not performative. When paired with the right services, it begins to act as a kind of wellness concierge, adjusting recommendations based on your patterns rather than your stats.
