Tag: fitness trackers

Oura Ring 4 Ceramic Review: Can the Latest Smart Ring Really Track It All?
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I’ve never cared more about my sleep in my life than during the month-plus that I’ve worn the Oura Ring 4 Ceramic. Previously, if I woke up drowsy, I’d blame the past night’s bad choices and think, “Well, better luck tomorrow night!” Now, the first thing I do when I wake up is check my sleep score.

I’ve always been a person obsessed with tracking my body metrics, having become addicted to both my heart rate and my step count when fitness trackers first came out. But when sleep was added to the devices, I largely ignored it. All that data was starting to add up and feel like too much information to me. How could I possibly walk 10,000 steps in a day, get a perfect sleep score, and keep my heart rate down, my heart rate variability up, and my cardiovascular age lower than my actual age? I am literally just one person.
Oura Ring 4 Ceramic

If you want to track every biometric you can using available sensors, the Oura Ring 4 Ceramic does it best. But it still requires you to put in the work.

Long battery life

Extremely comfortable

Lots of size options

Very accurate tracking

Probably tracks too much data

Needs to be worn 24/7 to get detailed insights
Most fitness trackers these days try to do it all and, honestly, most of them fall short on that task. But surprisingly, when I tested the Ring 4 Ceramic, I stopped feeling bothered by all the data points. Yes, the Ring 4 Ceramic does cram every body metric possible into its tiny device and accompanying app. And yet, somehow, it does so in a way that I am at least a little bit less bothered about than I had been in the past.

I’ve also decided that of all the options currently out there to track my health—smartwatches, straps, etc.—a smart ring is by far superior.

The Oura Ring 4 Ceramic is going to cost you

© Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

The Oura Ring, which originally debuted exactly a decade ago after a successful Kickstarter campaign, is currently in its fourth iteration, which came out over the summer. In October, the company also debuted its ceramic version of the Oura 4, which is made up of high-performance zirconia ceramic, which is a material known for its durability and light weight. The new Oura Ring 4 Ceramic comes in four colors: Tide, Petal, Cloud, and Midnight.

A benefit of the Ring 4 Ceramic, according to Oura, is that the colors are part of the ceramic, and not an added extra layer like they had been with past metals. With older models, users had issues with the colors (a mix of silvers and golds) fading or chipping over time; ceramic has no such issues. And while I’m only going on my second month, my Tide-colored Oura is still just as vibrant as day one.

See Oura Ring 4 Ceramic at Amazon

The Oura Ring 4 Ceramic is currently priced at $500, which is on the pricier end for a health tracker. The regular Ring 4 is $350. Competing devices like the screenless Whoop 5.0 is an annual subscription that includes the band and starts at $200, the Samsung Galaxy Ring is $400, and the most decked-out Fitbit Sense 2 is $250.

You also need a subscription for the Oura Ring, which is $6 a month (you can also pay $70 upfront for the whole year). If you don’t want to pay that monthly fee, the smart ring still works and you will still get certain data, including sleep analysis, a readiness score, and an activity tracker. But if you want access to everything else, you’ll need to pay that monthly fee.

The most comfortable ring I’ve ever worn?

© Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

I’m not generally a big ring person, but I honestly found the Ring 4 Ceramic to be pleasantly snug and cozy on my finger. I often alternated between wearing it on my middle or index finger. For the best and most accurate results, Oura recommends the index finger mostly because it provides a snug fit, and generally, the company suggests avoiding fingers where the knuckle is wider than the base. In my experience, I found that if I wore it on my middle finger, I could more easily forget it was there, whereas if I wore it on my index finger, I tended to fidget with it.

Comfort is a huge component of health and fitness trackers, and it’s one that doesn’t get talked about enough when reviewing these products. If the goal is to wear them 24/7, then they have to be comfortable, and it’s worth trying on a bunch of different types—smartwatches, straps, smart rings—to figure out which one works for you and your lifestyle.

The included charger for the Oura Ring 4 Ceramic. © Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

A single charge lasts for up to 8 days, according to the company. In testing, mine has lasted a full 7 days multiple times. It’s available in a wide variety of sizes—4 to 15—which is even more than the smart ring’s previous iteration.

The Ring 4 Ceramic comes with what the company calls “smart sensing,” which is essentially an algorithm where the smart ring optimizes its multiple sensors to use the one with the best signal at any given time.

Is there anything it can’t track?

© Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

The better question, honestly, is what can’t the smart ring track? The Oura Ring 4 Ceramic uses infrared LEDs to measure blood oxygen during sleep. It also uses photoplethysmogram (PPG) sensors, which detect changes in blood flow, to measure heart rate and heart rate variability as well as respiration rate (which is important for sleep tracking). Temperature sensors measure average body temperature and accelerometer sensors track movement and activity.

All of those sensors mean that the Ring 4 Ceramic has the ability to track a huge swath of data, but the key is how it spits all that out into a usable form.

The Ring 4 Ceramic provides a daily sleep score. It also breaks sleep down into smaller details like total sleep versus time in bed and gives you a sleep efficiency percentage, which is how much of your time in bed you actually spent sleeping. It knows when you are doomscrolling or tossing and turning with the Sunday scaries. The Ring 4 Ceramic takes all of this, along with your nighttime resting heart rate, and calculates a sleep score. Anything 85 and above is optimal, and I’m proud to announce to the entire internet that my highest score was 88. This is where health optimization can get somewhat addictive, and I’m absolutely prone to it.

© Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

The tracker also provides a daily “Readiness” score, which it calculates using an algorithm that takes into account your resting heart rate, heart rate variability, any significant body temperature fluctuations, as well as your respiratory rate and sleep. Again, anything 85 or higher is optimal, and I’ve been getting a lot of scores in the 90s, which makes me proud of my mind, body, and spirit, honestly.

It also provides a daily activity goal, which you can set yourself, and it’s nice to hit that goal each day. Though a daily activity goal is pretty standard across all trackers, Oura’s is really well presented.

© Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

Similar to its competitor Whoop, the Ring 4 also provides a daily stress analysis. It tells you how long your body was in high stress (which it detects based on shifts in your heart rate, heart rate variability, and your body temperature). It also shares a daily stress score by telling you if you were “stressed,” “engaged,” or “relaxed” that day.

It didn’t predict that I was getting sick, but it could tell I was sick

Luckily for you all, I tested the Oura Ring 4 Ceramic during the month of October and November, which is peak fall cold season. The smart ring has an algorithm built into it called the Symptom Radar, which essentially uses changes in skin temperature, respiratory rate, resting heart rate, and heart rate variability to detect if something is off in your system. Theoretically, the idea is that it could detect these changes early and predict that you are getting sick. You could then take it easy those days or maybe even sleep an extra hour or two that night.

© Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

I got a cold in mid-October, which honestly came on pretty suddenly. I babysat a friend’s kid on a Monday. She sneezed into my face multiple times (so cute) and then on Thursday morning, I woke up with that dreaded scratchy lump in my throat, which continued to get worse and then better over the course of that next week and a half. The Ring 4 Ceramic didn’t detect any shifts from my baseline on Tuesday or Wednesday, or even Thursday, when I woke up feeling off. But once my cold was full-blown, the app did note that both my body temperature and resting heart rate were elevated, and wanted to know what was up.

That cold was fairly mild, and came on quickly, so I do wonder if I had had something worse, like the flu or covid, if it would have detected it a bit earlier. I also wonder if I keep wearing the Ring 4 Ceramic for longer, would it get better at knowing what’s normal and what’s not for me?

Period tracking

© Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

I still think that the best period tracker is a pen and paper (or a dedicated note in your notes app). Oura’s new cycle insights and fertility feature, which was unveiled at the end of October by the company (I had been using it since the start of my testing in early October) requires 60 nights of data in order to make accurate predictions. In order to really assess whether it’s working well or not, I’d want to give the Ring 4 Ceramic another couple of months after that, too. So, it’s too soon to tell how well it works.

To predict your period, the tracker collects body temperature readings over a long period of time (two months or more) and uses that in addition to an algorithm to predict when your next cycle might arrive and when you might be ovulating.

How useful is the Oura Ring 4 Ceramic, really?

© Raymond Wong / Gizmodo

The Oura 4 Ceramic really can do it all, from tracking your sleep and your stress score to monitoring your period, your activity level, and your heart rate. There are also a slew of integrations that you can use with the Ring 4, including Headspace, Strava, Natural Cycles, and even Stelo, which is a continuous glucose monitor. Connecting it to the smart ring allows users to see their glucose levels in the Oura app, which shows how factors like meal choices, sleep, and activity impact their glucose levels. Oura’s newest partnership, as of late October, is with Quest Diagnostics, the blood testing company. For an additional yearly membership fee of $100, users can get a comprehensive blood panel, though it’s not available in every state.

However, like I’ve written about in the past when reviewing similar products such as the Whoop and Polar Loop, how much of this data is that useful?

After a month of use, I did become obsessed with my sleep score, but I am not sure if I actually became a better sleeper because of it. This is similarly true for tracking my activity and my strain score. I’ve been a health tracking user for years now, and I’ve found that the key question you have to ask yourself when deciding whether you want to spend a couple of hundred dollars or more on these devices is: what are you trying to get from these devices? Is it better sleep, less stress, increased energy and activity? These devices can do it all, to a degree, and perhaps Oura can do it the best, but it still comes down to how much work you are personally willing to put into making your health better.

See Oura Ring 4 Ceramic at Amazon
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Claire Maldarelli

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November 28, 2025
Oura Black Friday deals: Get up to 30 percent off smart rings right now

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Smart rings are becoming more ubiquitous and a more subtle way to track your everyday activity than fitness trackers or smartwatches. For Black Friday, you can save on Oura ring models. Arguably the most noteworthy deal is on the Oura Ring 4, the latest model, which is down to $249.

The Ring 4 actually topped our list of the best smart rings, and with good reason. It’s comfortable to wear for long periods of time, which is always nice. It’s a visually striking ring. We also appreciated the size options, as it fits fingers from size 4 to 15.

Oura

The company has also discounted some other products.

$249 at Oura

As for functionality, this smart ring tracks a number of health and fitness metrics. The affiliated app will send out notifications when it thinks you need a rest or to remind you to exercise. It keeps an eye on sleep, heart rate, stress, body temperature, menstrual cycle and a whole lot more. The battery lasts around a week, which is always nice when taking a quick vacation.

The only downside here, and this applies to all Oura rings, is that many features are locked behind a subscription paywall. This costs $6 a month or $70 per year.

The company is also selling the gold version of the Ring 4 for $349, which is a discount of $50. The water-resistant Stealth Oura Ring 4 is down to $299, which is a discount of $100.

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Lawrence Bonk

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November 23, 2025
When health tracking turns stressful: How to know if your wearable device is doing more harm than good

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Wearable health and fitness trackers — more commonly referred to as wearables — have decidedly changed the way that we engage with our health. Devices like Apple Watches, Oura rings and WHOOP have become the go-to accessories for millions of people who are interested in tracking their wellness metrics, regardless of whether they’re heading off to work or a black-tie affair.

It’s never been easier to monitor our steps, our heart rate, and even our body temperature. But with all this health data at our fingertips (or around our fingers), it’s also easy to become consumed by these numbers.

Lucy Matz, a 27-year-old living in San Francisco, bought an Oura ring to get a baseline understanding of how sleep was affecting her health. However, she soon became fixated on her sleep score: a metric that Oura calculates by “measuring the dynamic of your resting heart rate, average body temperature, movement, and time spent in specific sleep stages, including light, deep, and rapid eye movement (REM),” according to its website.

Oura’s unique algorithm combines these metrics to give users a score from 0-100, with 85-100 deemed the “optimal” range. “I’ll be watching my sleep score, and I’ll start to get anxious about the possibility of getting sick,” said Matz. “I’ll get a notification that says, ‘We see minor or major signs of something that’s hindering [your sleep.’]”

While it’s helpful for Matz to be aware of her sleep patterns, she says that it’s led her to dwell on her health, which can interfere with her day-to-day activities. “It gives me anxiety if I have plans [and get a bad sleep score], like, ‘Oh, should I not do it?’”

Like Matz, 27-year-old Maya Kalkstein also believes that the “self-fulfilling prophecy” of her Oura ring has increased her stress levels. “I just really do feel like if [the Oura ring] tells you that you’re not feeling well, or you’re not well-rested, then that is kind of how you will conduct yourself,” she said.

For others, the numbers on these devices became more important than how they felt. Chris Mangano first got a WHOOP, which labels itself as a “wearable health and fitness coach” in an effort to keep up the training mentality he had as a college athlete.

Over time, the 26-year-old says he became addicted to tracking his metrics on the WHOOP, which included heart rate variability, resting heart rate, and VO2 max. “If the WHOOP died in the middle of my run or workout, it very much became like, ‘Oh, this workout doesn’t count then,’” he said.

While wearables have allowed for greater insight into our progress toward our health and fitness goals, experts argue that they have also led to increased anxiety. Clinical social worker and psychotherapist Phil Lane wrote in Psychology Today that “though well-intentioned, these forms of technology can lead us to fixation and an unhealthy obsession with our bodily data, serving to defeat their intended purpose, which is to keep us alert to how our bodies are functioning.”

For those who might be struggling to make it through a day without closing the rings on their Apple Watch, there are ways to “unplug” and create some healthy distance between ourselves and our wearables.

Be realistic with your goals

Dr. Christy Lane, a co-founder of the Stanford Wearable Health Lab, believes that the way to maximize the benefits of a wearable is not to see it as an overall indicator of health, but instead narrow in on an individual aspect of personal well-being, such as steps. “People can really only focus on one or two goals at a time,” she says. “You need to be realistic.” It’s important for people not to set too lofty goals, which can cause unnecessary stress and pressure.

Think about the why

Before setting up a wearable, Lane suggests that people think about what their overall objective is. “They need to personally think about why they’re [using a wearable] and what they care about,” she says. “Are they doing it because they’re having bad sleep? Are they doing it because they want to lose weight? Are they doing it because they’ve been told by a doctor?”

Lane argues that without clear direction on how a wearable can help you reach certain goals, users will become overwhelmed by “trying to consume all the data and do all the things.”

Understand your own relationship with anxiety

In addition to understanding your intentions, it’s also important to think about whether you are someone who easily worries about your health. “Ask yourself if you have some kind of health anxiety problem, and if you think the answer is yes, then you might want to scale back some of your use of wearables, especially if you suspect that it may be inadvertently contributing to your anxiety,” said Dr. Paul Greene, director of the Manhattan Center for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in New York City. “It’s not something like smoking cigarettes that’s unhealthy for everyone. It’s really something that is unhealthy for people that have an anxiety proclivity.”

Ask a physician

Greene suggests that people speak with their physician about whether they need to be gathering certain data on their wearables. “Sometimes doctors will prescribe monitors, like heart rate monitors, for example, for people that have cardiac issues, because they want to capture exactly this kind of data,” he says. “So it’s not out of the question that a doctor could say that this is valuable information for the patient to get.”

But a doctor might argue that collecting other types of data might not prove to be that useful, especially if the patient is prone to anxiety. “In that case, [the doctor] may say there are more cons than pros,” Greene said.

Focus on the larger trends, not the individual numbers

Over the course of any given day, the metrics that wearables track are guaranteed to fluctuate, which can be unsettling for some. “It is important to recognize that anxiety often causes us to seek definitive answers, our anxious minds telling us that only a concrete answer can eliminate our worry,” Lane writes. However, when it comes to our health, there is not usually a singular answer. Instead, it can be more accurate to look at trends over time, as opposed to any one particular data point.

Consider speaking to a mental health provider

If you’re finding it difficult to focus on anything but your latest sleep score, it may be worth speaking to a mental health provider. Many anxiety specialists use a combination of tools and modalities, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), to help manage symptoms and work through harmful thought patterns.

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Sara Braun

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October 31, 2025
Gear News of the Week: Honor Teases a Bizarre Robot Phone, and Kohler Debuts a Toilet Sensor

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Prices start at $325 for the carry-on version, $375 for the checked size, $395 for a larger checked version, or $995 for the entire family set. I am planning on using the carry-on version this weekend, and it easily paired with my iPhone. In every other respect, it’s a normal bag—it has your standard polycarbonate shell with a (I have to say) garish embossed July logo on the side; smooth-rolling wheels, bumpers, and leather finishes. There’s also an inset ejectable USB-C battery.

July’s CaseSafe makes it so you don’t have to fuss with AirTags, but that still doesn’t stop me from saying you can upgrade your current carry-on similarly with an AirTag and a power bank, and it won’t cost you anywhere near $300. —Adrienne So

Fujifilm’s New Instax Has Two Cameras

Courtesy of Fujifilm

Fujifilm announced the Instax Mini LiPlay+ this week, an update to its 2019 Mini LiPlay camera. The LiPlay+ is, like its predecessor, a hybrid camera and Instax printer. In fact, little about the main camera seems to have changed. It still has a 28-mm equivalent f/2 lens that records roughly 5-MP photos to the sensor.

Fujifilm has added a second camera on the back, though, for taking selfies. It’s a 23-mm equivalent f/2.2 lens, but what is kind of fun is the ability to create what Fujifilm calls “layered photos,” shooting both lenses at the same time, superimposing, for example, a circle of a selfie on top of a background. Alas, there does not seem to be a way to make this an actual double-exposure image, which feels like a missed opportunity (especially since Fujifilm’s other cameras, like the X100 series, have long had a double-exposure mode).

The other new feature here expands on the original LiPlay’s ability to record audio and attach it to a print via a QR code. Now it’s not just audio but an animated video with sound and music. The Fujifilm Instax Mini LiPlay+ will be available later this month for $235. —Scott Gilbertson

GrapheneOS Will Come to Another Phone

The security-focused, Android alternative operating system GrapheneOS has announced it will soon be available on phones other than the Google Pixel. The developers said in a post on Reddit that a “major OEM” will soon be added to GrapheneOS’s list of supported phones. No brands were mentioned, but many users are guessing it will be OnePlus, given the company’s past support for CyanogenMod, another Android alternative. The GrapheneOS developers do say that whichever phone it turns out to be, it will be similarly priced.

In a follow-up post, the developers clarified that the phone maker is “definitely serious about working with us. That’s how we have security partner access.” They also explicitly say it is not Fairphone, which sells a separate version running another Android alternative, e/OS. —Scott Gilbertson

Roku Leans Into AI for Its TV Interface

Courtesy of Roku

Roku has announced some nifty software upgrades coming soon to its popular streaming devices and TVs, and they lean heavily on artificial intelligence. Roku Voice now features AI searches, allowing you to ask things like “What’s Barbie about?” or “How scary is The Shining?” and get a helpful answer. Roku is also adding easier access to movie trailers, better searching for shows to watch, and a simpler interface to help you understand what is streaming where.

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Julian Chokkattu

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October 18, 2025
How to Use Satellite Communications on the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro
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If I’ve learned one thing from listening to the entire back catalog of the excellent podcast Real Survival Stories, it’s this: Whether you’re mountain biking Californian trails or kayaking the west coast of England, the proverbial, you know, can hit the fan really fast. When an adventure flips unexpectedly into an emergency situation, the one thing you definitely want is a way to summon rescue, even when you’re far from cell networks.

Until now, tapping into off-grid comms meant carrying a dedicated satellite messenger. But alongside competitors like Google and Apple, Garmin—makers of the best outdoor sports watches—have made it possible to have satellite safety back up strapped to your wrist 24/7. The new Garmin Fenix 8 Pro now packs Garmin’s inReach satellite communication smarts, including satellite-powered text messaging, location check-ins and Emergency SOS–a virtual flare that hails assistance via Garmin Response. Here’s how to use it.

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What You Pay For

First off, you must know that the new Fenix 8 Pro is $200 more than the original Fenix 8. You also need an inReach subscription plan, which starts from $8 per month and rises to $50 per month for the top tier. Picking the right plan depends on how many messages you want to send and how much you plan to use the live tracking.

All inReach packages include the Emergency SOS and LTE services and require a 30-day commitment. Monthly subscriptions are available, and if your tracking or communication needs change, you can also move up or down tiers. For situations when you’re without your phone but still have network coverage, there’s also phone-free LTE calls, voice messages, text messages, and live tracking.

How to Set Up Satellite Comms

From setup to send, I put the new satellite and LTE tools to the test using the Fenix 8 Pro 51-millimeter AMOLED. You need:
- The Garmin Fenix 8 Pro
- A smartphone with Garmin Connect and Garmin Messenger apps installed
- A Garmin account (that you sign into on your phone and watch)
- A Garmin Messenger account, linked to your phone number
- An inReach/satellite service plan–a free trial can be activated during setup
The initial setup is a bit of a faff, involving multiple Garmin apps, creating an account within Garmin’s inReach platform, and lastly, deciphering which subs package you need. Still, the whole process took about 15 minutes and can be done on your phone and the watch. You’ll consider that time well invested if you find yourself stuck in a ravine, being circled by predators, in need of help.
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Kieran Alger

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October 16, 2025
The Amazfit T-Rex 3 Pro Is Like a Cheap Garmin That Doesn’t Work

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Offline routing is supposed to be one of the banner features of this watch. You should be able to just pick a point in the Maps app on the watch, then choose Straight-Line Navigation or Route Navigation. Unless you’re in a wide-open field, Straight-Line won’t help you much, but Route Navigation should parse the watch’s ability to read roads and trails to get you where you’re going.

Then you choose between Outdoor Running, Walking, or Outdoor Cycling. Why isn’t hiking included? Who knows, but it doesn’t really matter because 90 percent of the time I tried it, the watch would just say, “Route Creation Failed. Try Again.” I only managed to get it to work a couple of times, and only for extremely short distances, and one of those times it advised me to run on Interstate 405, which is one of the largest, busiest highways in the country. I would not rely on this feature.

There’s just a general sense of unfinishedness to the whole thing. Questionable translations abound. It missed waves while I was surfing. It still doesn’t recognize the types of strength training that you’re doing, which is a feature that was promised earlier this year and is readily available on all other sports watches at this point.

Finish the Job

Photograph: Brent Rose

It’s not all bad news. I love that this watch has an LED flashlight, which is a feature that I think every sports watch should have because it’s so useful. The speaker and microphone aren’t great quality, but they’re also nice to have. The watch does a pretty good job of displaying notifications from your smartphone, and if you’re an Android user you can even quickly reply to incoming texts, or initiate texts through Zepp Flow, even though it doesn’t draw distinctions between types of notifications and it will just start buzzing incessantly while you’re driving.

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Brent Rose

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October 11, 2025
Gear News of the Week: Adobe Premiere Lands on iPhone, and Nothing Lets You Design Your Own Widgets

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Adobe has had a busy year designing and redesigning a number of its most popular apps for mobile, and Premiere for iPhone is the latest—a mobile-first video editing workflow that adapts most of the tools from the desktop version of Premiere to a mobile user interface. You can trim, layer, edit, and even auto-generate captions, alongside all the basic editing features you’d expect, like color and exposure adjustments.

The automatic resizing feature is particularly nice, adapting videos to both horizontal and landscape platforms, making sure your subject is centered for both cuts. As with anything Adobe releases these days, there are plenty of AI-powered features, including the ability to generate backgrounds from a prompt and create sound effects from your voice.

Premiere for iPhone is free, though if you want to use the AI features, you’ll have to buy credits within the app. According to Adobe, the Android version is still under development. —Scott Gilbertson

Nothing Reveals an AI ‘Operating System’

No, Nothing isn’t switching from Android to a custom AI-powered OS. However, the phone brand announced a new platform called Essential, which will lay the groundwork for a future in which users generate their own apps and user interface. We’ve heard these ideas before, often called generative user interfaces, and it’s still early days for the technology.

Nothing’s plan starts with two apps: Essential Apps and Playground. The former lets you create “apps” with natural language, though these are really designed in the form of widgets. Just describe what you need—capture all the receipts in my camera roll and export a PDF every Friday—and this will be generated as a widget you can interact with on the home screen. The Nothing Phone (3) supports up to six of these Essential apps, but older Nothing devices are limited to two.

Playground is a place where you can publish not just your Essential Apps but also other Nothing oddities, like Glyph Toys from the Phone (3), camera presets, and EQ profiles. You can download what the community has made and even “remix” them into your own. Eventually, these features will turn into what Nothing is calling Essential OS, which it expects to debut in 2028. (Remember the Essential Phone from 2017? Nothing bought the company’s assets in 2021, and it seems like it was for the name.)

Nothing debuted some of these AI features with the “Essential” branding earlier this year. Essential Space is a new app that debuted on the Phone (3a), triggered by a dedicated button; tap it to capture your screen and have AI pull insights and summarize the contents. Now, there’s Essential Memory, which the company says “brings everything together by learning your habits, and surfacing forgotten details when you need them most.” It’s coming soon, so we’ll have to wait and see to learn more.

Whoop Now Lets You Order Blood Work

Courtesy of Whoop

Hot on the heels of Ultrahuman and Oura announcing that you will be able to schedule and take blood labs with their services, Whoop debuted Whoop Advanced Labs. Not only can you add your preexisting blood work to the Whoop app, but you can also book blood testing through the app (like Oura, Whoop has partnered with Quest Diagnostics). Whoop’s offering is a bit more expensive, at $199 per test, $349 for two tests per year, or $599 for four tests per year, as compared to Oura’s $99 per test. Both purport to combine blood work results with long-term continuous monitoring with their respective trackers.

Labs are routine medical tests that let doctors screen things such as high cholesterol, high blood glucose, and diabetes, or hormone or ferritin tests to check if your thyroid is working or you’re eating enough iron. They can be expensive, inconvenient to schedule and take, and fairly arcane to interpret, so it makes sense that startups are starting to offer them as part of their subscription services.

Still, it’s a sad statement on the current accessibility of health care that routine medical services are now being funneled into revenue streams for private companies. As much as I like the Oura Ring and the Whoop band, they’re not doctors; they still can’t actually treat you for a heart attack or colon cancer. —Adrienne So

Arlo Refreshes Its Security Cameras

Courtesy of Arlo

Arlo’s new Essential 3 range rounds off a busy week for security cameras, with Google showing off new Nest cameras and Amazon releasing a fresh batch of Ring and Blink cameras. Arlo’s Essential 3 lineup includes indoor and outdoor pan/tilt cameras (a first for the company), alongside a new generation of regular outdoor and indoor cameras.

The Essential Pan Tilt ($60) and Essential Pan Tilt Indoor ($50) offer 2K footage, 360-degree pan, 180-degree tilt, and automatic subject tracking, and there are HD versions for a bit less. The 3rd-gen Essential Outdoor Battery ($70), Essential XL Outdoor Battery ($80), Essential Security Camera Plug-in ($50), and Essential Indoor Camera Plug-in ($40) all offer 2K footage, and again, there are slightly cheaper HD versions of each.

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Julian Chokkattu

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October 4, 2025
Withings Updates ScanWatch 2 With 35-Day Battery Life the Apple Watch Could Only Dream Of

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Withings, which is best known for its smart scales and similar devices, also makes a smartwatch series, the latest of which is the ScanWatch 2. At IFA 2025, the company announced a new blue and silver version of the 42mm model. It also unveiled HealthSense 4, an AI-laden software update that leverages the tech to handle a set of new health- and sleep-tracking features.

I grabbed a picture of the ScanWatch 2 while I was there, and now I get the appeal of this watch. If you’re not familiar, the ScanWatch’s big deal is that they’re like smartwatches disguised as regular old analog watches, complete with mechanical time-telling hands and a more standard overall watch face. The screen itself is just a watch face complication—a tiny circle embedded in the upper part of the screen. The ScanWatch 2 looks nice, and the blue-banded, silver model is no different. In fact, I’m a fan of the blue, if only because it reminds me of the blue suit Adam Sandler wears throughout the movie Punch Drunk Love. (If you haven’t seen it and you’re scoffing at an Adam Sandler mention in this Very Serious Smartwatch Article, cut it out, and go watch the movie.)

This version of the ScanWatch 2 is available now on Withings’s website, Amazon, Target, and Best Buy, and costs $369.95. Buyers will get a month of Withings Plus for free. (After that, it’s $9.95 a month, or $99.50 per year.)

Under the hood, the ScanWatch 2 does a lot of what other, more conspicuous smartwatches do. It takes measurements of things like heart rate and blood oxygen level, or carries out ECG readings to power atrial fibrillation detection.

With HealthSense 4, the ScanWatch 2 (and ScanWatch Nova and Nova Brilliant, but not the original ScanWatch or ScanWatch Light) can now track REM sleep and take more accurate measurements of your breathing rhythm while you sleep. Withings says its new algorithms, using data gathered by the smartwatch—such as heart rate variability, physical activity, body temperature, and respiratory rhythm—can find possible causes of fatigue, and provide AI-powered recommendations telling users what they might be able to do to feel less tired all the time. These recommendations are collected under what Withings calls the Vitality Indicator, which you need a Withings Plus subscription to access on your phone.

© Wes Davis / Gizmodo

© Wes Davis / Gizmodo

Withings product manager Etienne Tregaro walked me through some of the new app features at IFA 2025. The Vitality Indicator screen gives you an overview of your “vitality,” which I took to be a sort of shorthand for Withings’ AI system’s impression of your overall readiness to face a given day. Days of the week at the top of the screen are filled with circles with green outlines that can be anywhere from nonexistent to a complete ring—the fuller the ring, the less fatigued you are. At the bottom, various boxes tell you where you are for the day in categories like Recovery and Effort.

The Withings app also features Withings Intelligence—a chatbot you can talk to about your health metrics. It can take note of patterns; another Withings representative I spoke with showed me a screen where the chatbot noted he had just lost a little weight, speculated about the causes, and asked if he’d been intentionally trying to lose weight. In theory, it would give him helpful guidance, depending on his answer.

The subscription also gives access to AI-powered notifications letting users know when their menstrual cycle is beginning or when the ScanWatch 2 has picked up signs of an infection. The Withings Plus service also comes with Cardio Check-Up, an option to have your cardiovascular data checked by a professional cardiologist, who returns a basic summary of what they saw and recommendations for dealing with issues that may have cropped up.

It’s a staggering update that leapfrogs over Apple’s more passive presentation of health information and more closely mirrors efforts by companies like Samsung to deploy AI, informed by smart wearables data, as a health coach. I worry it could draw certain people further into unhealthy obsessions with constantly tracking and micromanaging their health? I’m not an expert in this; for that, I’d encourage you to read the many articles on the subject. We’re riding into a new frontier with generative AI now becoming more deeply enmeshed in smart wearables, and only time will tell.

One thing you won’t need a subscription for is the battery life improvement that comes with the new HealthSense4 software. Now, the ScanWatch 2 gets 35 days on a charge, which is up from 30 days before, already way more battery life than most standard smartwatches. Although to get there, you’ll probably need to turn off a number of the ScanWatch 1’s features, like its always-on display or blood oxygen sensor.

Tregaro told me Withings managed to add those days by identifying areas it could optimize its code. I asked what your settings would have to look like to actually reach 35 days on a charge, because obviously you can’t expect that while using every single feature the ScanWatch 2 offers. He said you’d need to turn off a number of features, including some of the overnight tracking or notifications. Withings, to its credit, has a chart that can tell you which features incur the biggest battery life penalty. Nice to have a guide.

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Wes Davis

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September 6, 2025
Which Apple Watch Is Best Right Now?

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If you have an iPhone, the Apple Watch is the best wearable to go with it. But which version should you buy? This question has recently gotten more complicated. Last year, a court ruling dictated that Apple could no longer sell the latest watches—the Series 9, the Watch Ultra 2, and the new Series 10—with a blood oxygen sensor. The medical technology company Masimo alleged that Apple had infringed on its patent. (Apple later defeated a lawsuit alleging that it had a monopoly on heart rate apps, but a larger antitrust suit is ongoing.)

We recently reviewed the Apple Watch Series 10, but are last year’s Series 9 and Ultra Watch 2 still worth it? Yes, especially if you’re upgrading from an older model now being sunsetted. I love the Apple Watch. It is the watch I would wear if I weren’t constantly testing other fitness trackers. I test each new one for two weeks and often for many months after that. (Now my children test them as well.)

How can you tell them apart, when all of these watches look pretty similar and share a rotating stable of features? We break down which one is best for you and whether older models are worth the price. Wondering what the operating system for these watches will look like? Check out our guides to the top new features in WatchOS and learn about the new Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18. As always, don’t forget to check out our other buying guides, like the Best iPads, Best Smartwatches, and Best iPhones.

Updated September 2024: We added the new Watch Series 10 and the update to the Watch Ultra 2.

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Adrienne So

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September 20, 2024
The Best Smart Rings to Rule Them All

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There is plenty to consider when buying a smart ring, so use these tips to help you narrow your choice and get the best from it.

Size: Some smart rings come in standard sizes, but there is some variation, and half sizes are rare. Most manufacturers will send you a free sizing kit, enabling you to wear a dummy ring for 24 hours to ensure you get the right fit. (You may have to buy the ring directly from the manufacturer to get this kit for free.) You should absolutely do this. Bear in mind that your fingers swell and shrink over the day. Your smart ring should be snug to enable the sensors to measure accurately, and it will work best on your index finger (though the middle or ring finger can work).

Finish: All the smart rings we tested combined tough titanium with a sensor array on the inside, but the coatings and colors vary. If you are hard on rings, a silver or gold finish will likely suit you best, as there is less risk of damage. My Oura and Ultrahuman rings with black finishes have visible scratches and chips after a few months. The Oura and Amazfit rings have tiny dimples to help you align the sensors. While I prefer the smooth finish of the Ultrahuman, I suspect correct placement aids accuracy enormously.

Care: If you want to avoid damage, you should remove your ring when working with tools, weight lifting, washing pots and pans, or even cleaning the sink. If your ring is likely to rub against a surface, take it off. I found this was a bigger problem wearing a ring on my index finger than with the middle or ring finger. I scratched the Oura and Ultrahuman rings when gardening, moving boxes, and using a dumbbell. Titanium is also tough enough to damage surfaces in your home. I gouged the porcelain of my sink and marked the inside of a mug with the angular Ringconn. All the smart rings we tested are water resistant, so you can swim or shower without taking them off.

Charging: Smart rings come with a charger and cable, but you will generally have to provide your own wall adapter. From dead, they take anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours to fully charge, but you should avoid letting the battery run down completely, or you run the risk of losing data. We tested the smart rings above with all the bells and whistles turned on, so our battery life estimates are lower than the manufacturers claim.

Features: Most smart rings will track your sleep, heart rate, and temperature. If you want to keep an eye on your sleep and health unobtrusively and comfortably, smart rings are ideal. Fitness tracking varies, with most smart rings offering basic step counts and movement, some offering manual workout tracking, and only the Oura and Galaxy Ring offering automatic workout recognition. But you can expect more depth and accuracy from a traditional fitness tracker or smartwatch. Combining a smart ring with an Apple Watch or Fitbit makes for a seamless experience, allowing you to take off the watch and let it charge at night without gaps in your tracking.

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Simon Hill, Adrienne So

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September 2, 2024
The Galaxy Ring Draws Strength From Your Galaxy Watch

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Like most fitness tracking rings, Samsung’s Galaxy Ring has been positioned as a minimalist health wearable for people who don’t want the pings and buzzes of a wrist-worn smartwatch or fitness tracker. But that’s only part of its appeal. Its real appeal is that it’s a supplemental wearable if you already have a Galaxy Watch and a Galaxy phone.

When I received my tester, I immediately charged it and added it to Samsung’s Health app, where it joined my Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra. You can elect to send battery-intensive tasks to either the watch or the ring to save battery life on one or the other. I delegated heart-rate monitoring to the watch, and after two days, the ring’s battery life was still at 97 percent.

I can’t think of any other devices that work together that seamlessly for such an immediate, quantifiable improvement. I did compare the Ring’s measurements to an Apple Watch Ultra, which I will discuss later, but after a few days, I switched back to the Galaxy Watch. This is what the ring was made for, so this is the most appropriate testing scenario.

Box It Out

Even from the first unboxing, the Galaxy Ring compared favorably to the Oura Ring. It arrives in an awesome clear charging case with a USB-C connector that snaps shut with a cover. I love this cover. You would not believe how often I manage to knock the Oura Ring off its charger when it’s sitting on my desk. You can also check the battery level by putting the ring on the charger. An LED around the perimeter shows the ring’s battery level, unlike the Oura, whose light just shows if the battery is full or not.

Photograph: Adrienne So

The Ring is titanium and comes in three finishes; I tested the titanium silver. Samsung has a sizing guide consistent with other fitness tracker rings as I was bucketed into my usual size 8. Like most other rings of this type, it has an array of sensors on the inside; a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor with three LEDs to track changes in blood volume, an accelerometer, and a skin temperature sensor.

I can’t feel any of these sensors when wearing the ring. I don’t mind wearing the Oura Ring, but the Galaxy Ring is more than a gram lighter and is noticeably thinner and lightweight. As a bonus, you can go into your Health app on your Samsung phone and click Find My Ring and the LEDs will start flickering! You can’t see them in daylight, but at least the company has acknowledged that one of the major problems with smart rings is how often you lose the darn things. I keep taking mine off mindlessly to wash dishes, lift something heavy, or play the violin. It’s also rated at 10 ATM and IP68, and I have kept mine on while swimming and paddling with my kids.

The battery life depends on how many tasks you want to outsource to your watch. If I’m wearing my Galaxy Watch, the Galaxy Ring lasts over a week. Without it, it lasted a standard three to five days of continuous tracking.

On Period

The Galaxy Ring measures a fairly similar set of metrics to the Oura Ring. For example, it offers an Energy Score, which is similar to Oura’s Readiness Score in that it takes in several factors, like your sleep time and consistency and the previous day’s activity, and spits out an easy-to-understand number to show you how ready you are to tackle the day.

To do that, it tracks your sleep. You can click through the Samsung Health app to check your sleep stages, including how long you’ve been awake, your blood oxygen, and whether you’re snoring. It usually records more sleep time than my Apple Watch Ultra; I’m guessing it’s easier for the watch to tell that I’m reading in bed instead of sleeping when my arm is holding my Kindle up to my face.

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Adrienne So

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August 18, 2024
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra Isn’t an Apple Watch Ultra Dupe … Yet

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To test the Galaxy Watch Ultra, I had to take off the Apple Watch Ultra 2 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) with a mere two days left to go before completing my 28-day preliminary Training Load analysis. Training Load is a new feature in watchOS 11 that takes cumulative, calorimetric data like heart rate, pace, effort, and age to gauge whether your efforts are improving your fitness performance or not. It was annoying to be so close and not finish. However, it was not as annoying as it might have been, since I’ve tried this feature before. Garmin has had a Training Load feature for years.

In the race to create the most fully-featured outdoor smartwatch that works well with your phone, Apple is clearly winning. The Apple Watch Ultra’s design is more visually distinctive. The software is better, with more sports like diving, better algorithms like Training Load, and a better UI. It’s also hilarious how closely the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s design mimics Apple’s, with a safety orange band that looks exactly like Apple’s Ocean Band ($99) and a Quick Button on the side where you can assign a function, like Apple’s Action button. There’s even a gesture-based feature very similar to Double Tap, which is called (still laughing) Double Pinch.

With all that said, Samsung has the resources to catch up quickly, and I found no major flaws. If you’re pretty happy as an Android user and would like the experience of wearing an Apple Watch Ultra, this is a decent start. It can only get better.

Add It Up

The Galaxy Watch Ultra is very pretty. It’s not as visually distinctive as the Apple Watch Ultra, but its design does echo the look of a high-end Garmin or Coros watch. It’s a 47-mm smartwatch, which makes it slightly smaller than the Watch Ultra’s 49-mm case, but it feels bigger because it’s square instead of rectangular.

It has a titanium case with a sapphire glass face that is rated to 10 ATM (which means it can withstand the pressure exerted by 100 meters of water) and IP68, and can withstand elevations as high as 9,000 meters and temperatures as high as 131 degrees Fahrenheit. I didn’t have the opportunity to bag a Colorado 14er while testing, but I did stupidly go biking to run errands with temperatures well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in a heat wave, and the watch operated well (I did not).

Photograph: Adrienne So

Battery life is my main issue with these smartwatches turned extreme fitness trackers. The Watch Ultra can last a little longer than two days, which is great for a smartwatch but far below what you’d need for your average weekend camping trip. Every other morning, it took three hours to charge the watch back up from 10 or 15 percent. With Power Saving mode on, the watch could last up to three to five days. I like being able to tinker with the settings to figure out what to turn off or keep on to extend the battery life.

Samsung notes that the watch has a new enhanced BioActive sensor, which increases the accuracy of the heart rate sensor and other new health metrics. It’s remarkably consistent with what I track on my Oura ring—for example, if the Oura said my heart rate was 69, the live reading on the Galaxy Watch Ultra was 70.

The other new feature is the AGEs index. According to Samsung, the Galaxy Watch 7 and Watch Ultra can measure your advanced glycation end products (AGEs). (Diagnoptics is the company that powers the tool, which takes readings via a light source that excites specific fluorescent moieties, or molecule parts, on your skin). Your AGEs index is important because it can help predict the risk of diabetes and stroke; the way most people do this now is by taking a test called an A1C, which is a more invasive blood test.

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Adrienne So

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July 24, 2024
Google and Fitbit Made a Kids’ Smartwatch

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For parents, their child’s safety is paramount, so Google says it has taken extra precautions with the Fitbit Ace LTE. Rather than trying to protect the data, Google adopted a policy of data minimization. Unlike the Fitbits for adults, Google will not take health data to improve products or do research; it will simply delete it all. Location history will be deleted after 24 hours and health data is deleted after 30 days. There are no third-party apps and no ads allowed.

Does Your Kid Need a Device?

When I told my kids about the new watches they were going to get to test, my 9-year-old frowned and said, “Sounds … distracting.” (Yes, she is a gadget reviewer’s kid.) This device launches into an atmosphere of profound ambivalence about the effects of smart devices on our children. Children are getting phones at younger and younger ages. According to Common Sense Media, about half of the children in the US already own a smartphone by age 11; my children are already starting to rely on mine to log in to their school’s set of proprietary apps.

At the same time, acknowledging the grim effects of social media on adolescent mental health, the schools in our city of Portland, Oregon, have started to ban phones and smartwatches from schools entirely. Organizations like Wait Until 8th ask parents to sign pledges to not give their child a smartphone until the eighth grade. My husband and I are not planning on giving our children smartphones until they’re 14.

I have been pretty happy with Apple’s Family Setup and the limited functionality on my children’s Apple Watches. The only problem is that my children are not motivated to keep them charged and wear them often and are often not wearing them when they need them.

The Fitbit Ace LTE could change that, motivating them to keep it charged and on their wrists, even if the idea of a 24/7 wearable gaming device makes me a little nervous. I also don’t want to keep buying bands every six months; my bank account and I already have enough trouble managing their Animal Crossing and Squishmallow habits.

Courtesy of Fitbit and Google

“All we need to do is build a great product and schools will respond accordingly,” says Anil Sabharwal, Google’s vice president of product management for health and wearables. “We’re working with school boards to talk about what mechanisms we can install so that the watches can be used in schools. But even so, there’s a lot of time before school, when parents want to make sure their kids get to school safely. The kids have after-school activities. We see a tremendous amount of value there.”

The solutions are imperfect, but at least they’re there. Giving my children smartwatches may sometimes be a distraction, but it also lets my kid move more freely around her neighborhood, get exercise, and socialize in person with her friends. If a device can help further those goals, I’m all for it. And maybe walking around more will help improve her sense of direction, just a little bit.

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Adrienne So

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May 29, 2024
The First Women’s Health Fitness Tracker Is Running Out of Time

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No one was more excited than I was to try the Movano Evie ring. When it was first announced, I added it to our list of the Best of CES in 2023. I was excited to finally find a fitness tracker that solved an actual problem for an underserved population! It is really hard for many women to track their menstrual cycles, and this is especially relevant if you’re a woman in perimenopause. The 10-15 years before your period ends are typically characterized by health conditions like hot flashes and lack of sleep. Monitoring these conditions would be the first step to treating them effectively.

However, in the intervening year, almost every fitness tracker has come out with a similar cycle tracking feature. Apple debuted skin temperature sensing and automatic ovulation detection with the Series 8 (8/10, WIRED Recommends), and so did the Samsung Galaxy Watch and the Withings ScanWatch (7/10, WIRED Recommends). Several months ago, the period tracking app Clue introduced a new feature set, Clue Perimenopause, where you can manually track perimenopausal symptoms.

Most significantly for biological women in the United States, Roe v. Wade was overturned. Depending on where you live, you might not even want to track your period online at all. Assuming that you still want to track your period in an app, and don’t have menstrual cycle features on your existing fitness tracker, is the Movano Evie ring worth buying? Right now, it’s probably not.

Affordable Price

The Evie ring has a number of great features. At $269, it’s relatively affordable (as far as smart rings go), and it doesn’t require an additional subscription fee. I used the free sizing kit and got my usual size 8, and the tester came in a gold finish (there is also silver and rose gold).

The ring itself is injection-molded and has a titanium finish that feels high-quality and comfortable, with tiny sensors packed into the inside. There is a notch cut into it, which makes the sizing a little more flexible than it might be otherwise. It can accommodate your hands changing size when you work out or have hormonal fluctuations, but the downside is that the notch gets caught in my hair.

The ring’s sensors include red and green LEDs, infrared PPG sensors, skin temperature sensors, photodiodes, and a 3D accelerometer. It also comes with a tiny portable charging case that holds up to ten additional charges and itself charges via USB-C. When I first got the ring, I had multiple charging issues that were only resolved with frequent app and ring updates.

Right now, I get a little less than 3 days of battery life, which is not that much, especially compared to the Oura ring’s 5 days. I also don’t get any notification that the battery is dead, so I miss a lot of data if I don’t check the app every morning. It takes between 2-3 hours to recharge.

The app itself looks pretty perfunctory. It’s currently only available on iOS 16 or above, and does not sync with Apple Health. The Daily Summary shows your day as a circle, but that circle doesn’t seem to correlate with your activities for that day. For example, half of the circle is sleeping, even though I only sleep 6-7 hours per night and not 12. A 40-minute run shows up as almost half of my daytime hours. You also have to log workouts manually in the app and can’t note what type of workout it was, only the duration.

It’s also pretty disappointing that the vaunted skin temperature sensor only shows you deviations from the average, and not a monthly graph. A monthly graph is the only way to see the minute temperature drop that occurs at the end of your cycle. You can see and record the drop on an Oura ring, but not with the Evie.

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Adrienne So

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May 14, 2024
Looking for the Best Smart Scale? Step On Up

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The humble bathroom scale has long been overdue to learn some new tricks. After all, who needs to devote precious real estate to a device whose purpose is merely to tell you your weight? The “smart scale” category sprung to life in the early days of the internet of things, but early models weren’t always the best, hampered by connectivity issues and general usability problems. As such, the category has largely stagnated; only a handful of companies are now making the devices, and some haven’t updated their product line in years.

Only recently has that started to change, as newer, faster, and all-around better products have begun to hit the market again. Not only can newer smart scales track a bevy of health metrics for multiple members of your household via sophisticated mobile apps, but they’ve also ironed out all the kinks, so it’s easier than ever to track your weight.

Just how smart can a scale be? And which should you buy? If an accurate weight is what’s most important to you, don’t sweat the decision too much. All of these scales I’ve tested are quite accurate. My highest and lowest weight never varied by more than 0.6 pounds across all of them—that means getting one of the cheaper models will suffice. But if you’re serious about weight loss or physical training, you’ll probably want to get further into the weeds and consider the accuracy of the additional body metrics, the wireless format, and the overall usability and robustness of the hardware and software. It’s here where I’ve spent the bulk of my testing time to find the best smart scale. With all that in mind, I have some thoughts.

How Do Smart Scales Work?

Smart scales come in two basic flavors: Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The former connects directly to your phone to sync its readings. The latter uses your home’s wireless network to sync readings straight to the cloud, which your phone’s app can then access. Wi-Fi scales are more expensive but more versatile. While older scales often featured erratic wireless connections, newer models have had many of their kinks worked out—and firmware updates have improved connectivity.

Virtually all smart scales use the same type of system to gauge your additional vitals: bioelectrical impedance analysis, which involves sending a minuscule electric current up one leg and measuring what happens when it comes down the other side. Some mathematical magic converts all of this into any number of derived measurements about things like your body’s percentage of fat, water, and bone; body-mass index; and, sometimes, arcana like your basal metabolic rate, a measure of your body’s energy consumption at rest. All the scales I tested can sync data with Apple Health and Google Fit or Health Connect, either directly or by passing data via the app.

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Christopher Null

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May 11, 2024
Our Favorite Smartwatches Do Much More Than Just Tell Time

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The number of smartwatches on the market is staggering. I’ve tested models from Tag Heuer, Citizen, Montblanc, and many other fashion brands, but most of them are simply too expensive for what you get. Here are a few options I like.

Apple Watch Series 8 for $329: If you can find the 2022 Apple Watch Series 8 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) for a good deal less than the Series 9 (under $300), you should snag it. It’s nearly identical to the latest model, especially the health features. Save your cash!

Samsung Galaxy Watch5 for $229 and Watch5 Pro for $380: The 2022 Galaxy Watch5 and Watch5 Pro (7/10, WIRED Recommends) are still great, just make sure you pay less than the price of the new Galaxy Watch6 models. They match the Apple Watch’s accuracy in several health and fitness metrics, from SpO₂, sleep, and heart-rate tracking to electrocardiogram measurements (though the latter is exclusive to Samsung phones). The Watch5 Pro is larger and has a battery that lasts roughly two full days, whereas the Watch5 lasts around a day and a morning. The Pro also adds GPX, meaning you can download hiking routes to the watch. They have sapphire crystals protecting the screen, but the Watch5 Pro’s crystal is even more durable, and it has a stronger titanium case versus the standard Watch5’s aluminum.

Casio G-Shock Move DW-H5600 for $299: Want a G-Shock with a heart rate monitor? The DW-H5600’s measurements lined up well with the Apple Watch, but if you’re serious about tracking your health, I think you’re better off buying something from our Best Fitness Trackers guide. The buttons are a bit tough to press, and there aren’t a ton of workouts you can track (running, walking, gym workouts). You can sift through a good amount of data in the app, though I was left wanting more, and battery life lasted me roughly three days with continuous monitoring. It can recharge via solar, but you will need to use the bulky charging clip every few days. I still enjoyed wearing it, even if I didn’t find it as useful as our above picks. You can use it to track different time zones, your movements via the GPS during a workout, and even sleep.

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Julian Chokkattu

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April 14, 2024
Which Garmin Watch Is Best for You?

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In certain circles, the word “Garmin” is less a brand name than a category definer, like Q-Tip or Band-Aid. From casual hikers to nationally ranked professional athletes, anyone who loves outdoor sports can glean useful information from the bevy of sensors, safety features, and sophisticated software that come with every Garmin watch. A few other fitness trackers have come close to replicating Garmin’s durability, wearability, and reliability, but the company remains the industry standard. Unlike, say, an Apple Watch, Garmins also work with both iPhones and Android phones. (Also unlike an Apple Watch, Garmin watches still have a blood oxygen sensor.)

Many features that only recently debuted on other fitness trackers, like sleep tracking, blood oxygen measurements, and fall detection, have been on Garmin watches for years. Over a half-dozen years, the WIRED team has tested dozens of Garmin watches. Let us help you decide which Garmin is best for you.

Once you’re set up with your Garmin, check out our other buying guides, like the Best Barefoot Shoes, the Best Workout Headphones, and the Best Hiking Gear.

Updated April 2024: We added the Forerunner 165, the Lily 2, and the Index S2 and added more information about Garmin Connect and the Apple Watch. We also updated links and pricing throughout.

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Adrienne So

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April 2, 2024
The Garmin Forerunner 165 Has Better Sensors and the Same Great Training

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Even the most advanced fitness trackers can’t catch everything. While testing the Garmin Forerunner 165 Music, I got a severe case of food poisoning and spent two days in bed. There’s nothing more irritating than your cheery fitness tracker notifying you that you’ve gotten tons of sleep and your Body Battery is at 100 as you’re struggling not to throw up water. It’s almost as irritating as your children shouting to ask if you’re still trapped in the bathroom.

When I finally got back to working out, the watch counseled me to build up my base with long, slow runs. This pace is insanely slow, particularly since I live next to a college campus full of long-legged teenagers, humiliating me with their vigorous strides, youthfulness, and hope. Nevertheless, I persist. My legs feel great. The Forerunner has allowed me to graduate to tempo runs, and my heart rate is lower than ever. Amazing!

The Forerunner 165 is the latest entry in Garmin’s Forerunner series, but there are no duds in the Forerunner lineup. If you’re a beginner runner who can find the barebones Forerunner 55 for under $200, that one is perfectly fine! However, the Forerunner 165 has enough additional features that, to me, it justifies the extra cash.

A Few More Features

The Forerunner 165 looks like your standard technical Garmin. It has the familiar five-button layout—three on the left and two on the right—with a chemically reinforced screen, a polymer bezel, and a silicone strap. Note: You will need to wash the strap every two to three days if you don’t want to get a wrist rash. It now also has a new, bright AMOLED display that I had no problem seeing in bright, direct sunlight.

Photograph: Adrienne So

It’s also a touchscreen, so instances where I spectacularly fail at navigating the button system have decreased dramatically. Same with times where I accidentally call my emergency contacts from holding the wrong button down for too long. (It’s the Up button on the left side. Don’t hold that button unless you’re in trouble.)

The higher-end Forerunner models are aimed at multisport athletes, but the Forerunner 165 is pretty explicitly aimed at runners. In addition to personalized, adaptive training plans, you can also now see metrics like running power and cadence on the screen on your wrist, as well as some of Garmin’s more esoteric proprietary metrics, like Training Effect, which helps you determine how impactful each workout was on your overall performance.

The reason you get a Forerunner 165 over a Forerunner 55 is that in addition to a nicer display, you also get more sensors. In addition to the now-standard multiband GPS positioning systems—GPS, Glonass, and Galileo, which lets you position yourself precisely for accurate workout metrics—the Forerunner 165 has the pulse oximetry blood oxygen sensor, as well as a barometric altimeter, compass, and ambient light sensor.

Photograph: Adrienne So

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Adrienne So

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April 1, 2024
Our Favorite Garmin Smartwatches Are on Sale

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to celebrate the start of the spring season, Garmin is holding a sale on various gadgets and accessories—including a few WIRED-approved smartwatches. Whether you’re a novice runner or a seasoned hiker, we’re confident that at least one of the discounted smartwatches below will make the perfect companion for your next outdoor adventure.

These deals aren’t just at Garmin either—we’ve also linked to other retailers like Amazon and Target. Don’t see anything you like here? Check out our buying guides, like the Best Fitness Trackers, the Best Sleep Trackers, or the Best Camping Tents.

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Garmin Smartwatch Deals

Garmin Instinct 2 Solar Smartwatch

Photograph: Garmin

WIRED senior associate reviews editor Adrienne So says this is currently her favorite smartwatch. The second-generation version (9/10, WIRED Recommends) comes with a high-resolution display, improved solar charging, and an insanely impressive 21-day battery life (even when tracking multiple activities per day), all packed into a compact 40-mm case. (You can also choose a 45-mm or 50-mm size.) It’s a great option for tracking outdoor workouts or activities like camping, trail running, and more. The price has dipped as low as $300 back in November, but this is still a great deal.

Forerunner 255

Photograph: Garmin

The Forerunner 255 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) holds the title of Best Running Watch in our Best Fitness Trackers guide. It packs a ton of great features, including multiband GPS support, a compass, a barometric altimeter, Bluetooth compatibility with a variety of heart rate monitors, and improved sleep tracking. It has excellent battery life, too—WIRED reviewer Scott Gilbertson says he got about 30 hours of continuous use. You’ll also have access to useful features like Morning Report (which includes a daily greeting, weather, and more) and Body Battery (which measures your energy throughout the day, based on other metrics like activity, sleep, and VO₂ Max). It dipped slightly lower to $239 earlier this month, but it’s still a good deal.

Garmin Venu SQ

Photograph: Garmin

The Venu SQ (8/10, WIRED Recommends) was released back in 2020, but Garmin wearables are known for their longevity. This is still a great entry-level fitness tracker. It has an always-on LCD touchscreen that’s both responsive and bright, along with high-end features like energy level monitoring, blood oxygen monitoring, and sleep tracking—in addition to tracking basic metrics like step count, calories, workouts, and more. The Venu SQ often dips to this price at Amazon and reached as low as $116 in January, but this is still a solid deal.

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Brenda Stolyar

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March 27, 2024
The Amazfit Balance Has a Wonky Heart In a Pretty Shell

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Of all the fitness trackers that I’ve tested, none has made a bigger leap in hardware development than Amazfit. The first iterations that I tried in 2018 were plasticky and horrible. Every year, the wearable has gotten steadily, well, more wearable. A coworker recently asked if my tester Balance was a Samsung Galaxy Watch6 (7/10, WIRED Recommends). That’s high praise!

The Balance is Amazfit’s general purpose fitness tracker, aimed at promoting “wellness of body and mind.” It looks … well, it looks like a Galaxy Watch6, with a slightly different top button, and ideally it would work in the same way by tracking your sleep, heart rate, and activities, as well as taking your calls. It also comes with a bevy of optional AI-powered tools to help you sleep, meditate, and exercise. Right now, though, it’s just still too buggy, which is especially obvious with a seamlessly functioning tester Garmin on my opposite wrist.

Red Flag

As with most fitness trackers, I check the company’s privacy policy to see how it will use such intimate information. It’s usually easy to find, and it usually looks similar to Google’s—no data used for ads, et cetera. The Balance’s privacy policy is unusually hard to find. According to Amazfit’s website, the privacy policy explicitly does not apply to Amazfit trackers, nor does Zepp Health’s policy. There’s no privacy policy in the product manual, either. I asked Amazfit for a link to the privacy policy that applies to this tracker and got no response.

Even if everything is aboveboard, the company has made it very difficult to find out what’s happening to your data. If that matters to you, you should probably stop reading here.

With that said, the Balance is a very light, good-looking, and low-profile fitness tracker. Despite having such a big case—46 mm across, 10.6 mm deep—it didn’t feel large or obtrusive on my 150-mm wrist. The bezel is sleek gray aluminum, and it has two buttons on the left hand side to control it, as well as a tempered glass AMOLED touchscreen.

Photograph: Adrienne So

The screen is clear, bright, and responsive—maybe a little too responsive. It started and stopped workouts accidentally whenever I fidgeted with my jacket cuffs in Oregon’s cold, gray weather. The battery life theoretically lasts 14 days, but with a few tracked activities per day (walking my dog, running, indoor workouts), I did have to charge it once in the past two weeks. It charged relatively quickly, though—it went from 15 to 65 percent capacity in the 45 minutes that I was waiting for a plane at the airport.

It has a water resistance rating of 5 ATM, which means that you can use it while swimming (if not while taking a shower, weirdly). (By way of contrast, my favorite Garmin Instinct 2 is rated to 10 ATM, and I have used it snorkeling and surfing without issue.)

Like most higher-end fitness trackers these days, it comes with a bevy of sensors and tools. These include onboard GPS with dual-band positioning that helps the tracker filter out environmental noise; an acceleration sensor, gyroscope, ambient light sensor, temperature sensor, and a couple of biometric sensors for measuring your heart rate and blood oxygen and so forth. It also has a microphone and an incredibly loud speaker, and my favorite, most comfortable nylon strap.

Add It Up

Amazfit is owned by Zepp, formerly known as Huami, and the app that the Balance uses is Zepp Health. Zepp Health used to be almost unusably annoying, but the app’s homepage has been cleaned up quite a bit. Zepp Health now features a Readiness score, which is similar to that of Fitbit’s Daily Readiness or Garmin’s Body Battery, but you can still check the company’s previous general purpose metric, which was PAI. The company developed its PAI score using the research of Ulrik Wisløff, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. It uses your age, sex, resting heart rate, and past seven days of heart rate data to calculate just how much activity you should be getting.

Photograph: Adrienne So

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Adrienne So

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March 16, 2024