No more needles. Until the Google Pixel Watch 5 arrived as part of Google's Made by Google 2026 event, the only way most people could monitor their blood sugar's responses to food and exercise with smart tech was to use a continuous glucose monitor, or CGM. A small puck with a Bluetooth receiver inside and a spike to connect to your blood, it projects your blood sugar levels to your phone in real time.

Very useful — and originally developed — for diabetics, it was also quickly co-opted by the wellness sector and marketed as a way to curb blood sugar spikes. I attended a product launch for one of these devices in a fancy hotel, where a celebrity chef talked us through how to make healthy canapés that wouldn't spike our blood sugar, As proof, we could see our blood sugar broadcast to our phones in real time, monitored by the needles in our arms.

Too much sugar increases the body's insulin resistance, leading to fat storage, while exercise uses your body's glucose stores as fuel. Simple enough in theory, but I found the constant readings from the CGM easy to obsess over during my trial period, checking my graphs after every meal and mentally planning how much exercise would be needing to offset the effect of those spikes. I am not diabetic.

The Google Pixel Watch 5 is heralding in, as part of its passive-tracking Health Guardian suite of features, a non-invasive Insulin Resistance Trends feature for Pixel Watches 3 and above. According to Google: 'The tool uses passive sensors on your wrist to track monthly shifts in your metabolic health, reserving formal lab work for when you're at the doctor's office.

'The goal of this new feature is to help you take control of your health journey, serving as a gentle reminder to pause and check your routines,' continues Google's press release. 'When this Health Guardian feature detects sustained, elevated insulin resistance trends over the month, it alerts you with a gentle nudge to help you adjust your daily habits and get your metabolic health back in its sweet spot.'

'Metabolic health' refers to the process of your body turning food into energy. A healthy body turns food and sugar into energy very effectively, while an unhealthy body works harder to mitigate those blood sugar spikes, leading to excess blood sugar being stored as fat rather than fuel. This results in weight gain and in some cases, Type-2 diabetes.

The feature isn't on watches yet (it'll arrive next month) and there's no indication of exactly how Google has been able to wrangle its optical LED sensors to manage this non-invasive Insulin Resistance Trends monitoring.

In its press materials, Google has been keen to emphasize that 40% of Americans are living with 'invisible shifts in their metabolic health'. The feature might help the US obesity crisis with a two-pronged assault; education about insulin resistance, and providing an accessible way to monitor this growing health problem without sticking a needle in your arm

However, just as I could see myself compulsively checking my blood sugar graphs, I worry that this might become yet another metric for otherwise-healthy smartwatch users to obsess over. Like weighing yourself every day or taking GLP-1s, weight management techniques can quickly transform from a healthy, positive thing into an addiction.

Research published in the Cardiovascular Digital Health Journal in 2020 has identified a trend we've seen before in health tech users: an obsession with metrics, streaks and optimization.

The researchers said that although wearables provide lots of actionable data and improve real-time surveillance of disease, they found "another aspect of the digital health revolution that has not yet received due attention: the unanticipated and potentially negative effects of wearable devices on patients’ psychological health, quality of life, and health care utilization."

Just recently, our writers Becca Caddy and Alex Blake wrote about their own experiences with this phenomenon, with Caddy stating "What I didn't understand at the time was how thin the line between discipline and obsession can be. You can cross it gradually, one habit and one goal at a time, until something that started as a genuine attempt to look after yourself becomes another source of pressure, anxiety and control."

The messaging around weight management can be difficult to get right, and as much as the feature is likely to improve wearer's health, I worry Insulin Resistance Trends could become quite a triggering metric for people at risk of disordered behaviors.

To Google's credit, however, the glimpse of the feature we've seen so far isn't a moment-to-moment graph. Instead, it shows month-to-month general trends, presumably to avoid people checking the feature too much. There's also a lot of good to be done around educating users about the relationship between blood sugar, insulin, weight gain, and diabetes.

Regardless, when the feature does arrive next month, I hope thought is put into its execution so we can have as many of the good consequences as possible, while avoiding the bad.

• Google Health’s AI chatbot is leaving users frustrated
• Reports say it regularly hallucinates workouts that never happened
• Social media has been flooded with complaints in recent days

The timing couldn’t be worse for Google; just as its slew of new devices launches, including the Google Pixel Watch 5, complaints about the Google Health app and its premium AI Health Coach are reaching fever pitch.

One Fitbit user who posted to Reddit saying that their device’s Google Health app had created a workout summary that seemed to be completely made up, stating “I have a Fitbit Inspire, it just does not have the capability to do form analysis. All of these stats are made up.” .

They’re far from the only person to complain about the app. The problem seems to lie with Google Health’s AI assistant. It's designed to summarize your health metrics and give you tips on how to improve — from early bedtimes to workout and diet suggestions — but users are noticing that it seems to be prone to hallucinating workouts that simply did not happen.

People have reported Google Health giving them “wildly incorrect” exercise numbers, mistaking walking or even folding laundry for swimming workouts, imagining 5am runs and house moves that never occurred, and more.

One person was even able to get Google Health to list all the false statements it had made regarding the user’s workouts, dubbing them “Nonstop lies from the AI.” As a commenter put it, “Imagine if a personal trainer lied to your face and then said: ‘Oopsie Daisy! I made those up.’”

And it’s not just limited to physical activity. Fitbit customers have taken to social media to protest that Google Health keeps asking how their cruise is going even though they’ve told the AI that it’s yet to occur. Another user took their Fitbit off for a couple of hours — with no heartbeat being recorded during that time — only to see that Google Health believed they’d been sleeping in that time.

“Fun fact: If someone is sleeping and their heartrate is 0, it’s called being dead,” the user dryly remarked.

‘A bit of a mess’

These users certainly aren’t alone in their annoyance. When we reviewed the Fitbit Air, we lamented that the design of its Google Health app was “a bit of a mess, and not intuitive to use, with features dotted all over the place.” While we found its AI integration to be useful, we noted that “its constant chirpy summaries and insistence on hiding my data inside walls of text became annoying.”

We reached out to Google with a list of questions about whether its Google Health app is hallucinating user workouts. We haven’t heard back yet, but will update this story when we do.

The situation has become so bad that some users have begun speculating that Google Health might be entirely coded by AI agents, such is its tendency to dream up data and produce anomalous behavior. While we have no way of knowing if that’s actually the case, it aptly demonstrates the level of user frustration with Google’s app.

Whatever the truth, it’s clear that something is going wrong with Google Health for a lot of users, and it’s leaving them exasperated and ending their AI subscriptions. It should serve as a warning to any company that wants to integrate AI and health data: with sensitive information like this, mistakes are rarely tolerated.

Hot on the heels of Samsung Galaxy Unpacked, there’s now a big Google hardware launch to look forward to, with the brand set to unleash its new Pixel devices at today's New York-set Made by Google event.

We’re expecting to see not just the Google Pixel 11 series, but also the Pixel Watch 5 and potentially other devices, too.

You’ll find full details of the possible announcements further down this article, but first, we’ve covered exactly when this launch is taking place and how to tune in.

How to watch the next Made by Google event

The Google Pixel 11 launch event starts at 3pm PT / 6pm ET / 11pm BST on August 12, which is 8am AEST on August 13 for those of you in Australia.

The event is being held in New York, but as with most big tech launches, it will also be streamed online, and you can tune in on YouTube, or by watching the embedded video below. If you click the ‘Notify Me’ button on that video, you’ll also get a reminder when the event is starting.

Of course, those timings won’t be ideal for everyone, but you don’t need to tune in live. You’ll also be able to watch a recording of the launch afterwards. Alternatively, just head to TechRadar’s home page for our expert analysis of what's unveiled.

What to expect at the Google Pixel 11 launch

As well as the Google Pixel 11 itself, Google is also almost certainly going to unveil the Pixel 11 Pro, the Pixel 11 Pro XL, and the Pixel 11 Pro Fold.

These phones are all expected to have a new ‘HiLight’ feature, previously referred to as ‘Pixel Glow’. This seemingly takes the form of colored lights on the back of the phones that can switch on to alert you to notifications, or when you’re interacting with Gemini.

Beyond that, these phones are also likely to include a new Tensor G6 chipset to give them a power boost over the Google Pixel 10 series, and in the case of the Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro XL, a 120x camera zoom, up from 100x on the Pixel 10 Pro series.

However, these phones could also be more expensive than their predecessors, and the Pro models might start with less RAM.

Other than phones, Google is also likely to announce the Pixel Watch 5, which might have double the storage of the Pixel Watch 4 at 64GB, and 50% more RAM at 3GB. It will reportedly also have a slight battery boost, but could stick with its predecessor’s Snapdragon Wear W5 Gen 2 chipset.

We’re also hearing that Google could launch the Pixel Tag at this event. That would be the company’s first AirTag rival.

Plus, there’s a chance we could hear more about some upcoming Android XR glasses, and we might also finally see the launch of the long-awaited Gemini 3.5 Pro model.

I’ve been a big fan of Shokz’s open-ear headphones for some years now. I’ve previously owned the Shokz OpenRun, and now have the Shokz OpenFit Pro as my daily driver. I find them perfect for listening to music, podcasts or audiobooks while I’m out running or cycling, and even for navigating with Google Maps turn-by-turn directions.

If you’ve long considered buying a pair — whether you’re running the upcoming Sydney marathon at the end of the month or shopping for a Father’s Day gift — but are unsure which pair(s) to get, Amazon has a slew of Shokz’ open-ear headphones discounted for a limited time.

Some of the deals include our picks for the best running headphones, the best open earbuds and the best bone conduction headphones, as well as some that are great for work calls. With prices starting at AU$109 and savings of up to 36%, there’s something for everyone here.

Garmin Fenix 8 Pro microLED: One minute review

The Garmin Fenix 8 Pro microLED is both a fantastic always-on, lifestyle-support smartwatch, and a 51mm, titanium-bodied multisport watch bulked out with the kind of rugged design that could survive the entire Die Hard franchise. It's absolutely one of the best Garmin watches ever made, but also one of the most expensive.

Of course, the headline ‘brightest smartwatch screen ever built’ feature of this microLED edition is justifiably front and centre, but it also provides the 8 Pro microLED with best-in-class performance, screen clarity and brightness.

It’s bursting at the seams with activity, performance and health tracking features backed up by snappily accurate sensors, which enabled real-time monitoring of everything from shifts in barometric pressure outside in the hills to automatically detecting the start of another eight-metre vertical rep in the indoor climbing wall.

Once you dial the brightness up to maximum in the settings (despite all the hype, the default is befuddlingly set to 75%) the step up in brightness from AMOLED is dazzlingly obvious, and contributes to an impression of increased definition too. In fact, the watch screen is so bright that I could easily use the inbuilt mapping mode to navigate in direct overhead summer sunshine while wearing sunglasses, which is a quality of life gamechanger for outdoor adventurers. And putting it side by side against a maxed-out-brightness iPhone in these conditions really hammers home the benefits of the 4,500 NITs of light coming from those microLEDs.

This next-level brightness is maintained even when viewing the watch face from an acute angle, which can be surprisingly useful when glancing at your watch mid-run or taking quick compass bearings, for instance.

Despite the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro microLED’s 51mm, beefed up form factor (it’s 1mm thicker and 3 grams heaver than the already-thick AMOLED version) I quickly grew used to wearing it 24/7 so that I could really dig into Garmin’s lifestyle, training and health monitoring features. It’s chunky, of that there’s no doubt, but I found the combination of a supremely comfortable, flexible strap and well-designed watch body surprisingly easy to wear all-day and overnight. For the first time in a long time, possibly ever, I found that the sleep monitoring data matched my lived experience almost exactly, which gave me faith in the smartwatch to provide useful, actionable data and insights into how to improve the duration and quality of my sleep without feeling ‘nagged’ to do so.

As befitting a true multisport smartwatch, I took the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro microLED everywhere from trail running around London to hiking national parks in sideways rain and from snowboarding at 50mph down a French Alp in -18°C windchill to scaling routes in an indoor climbing wall. I was consistently impressed with the automatic tracking and accuracy of the various activity modes once they’re activated (and there are a lot of modes, including eight running sub-modes and not just Snowboarding but Backcountry Snowboarding too).

I love data but I hate lots of pain points in the tracking experience, so the ability of this smartwatch to intelligently detect and log activity is unsurpassed, in my experience. I found that this smartwatch wasn’t flustered by extreme conditions or environments and the battery life remained consistent even as the iPhone in my pocket was spluttering and dying in sub-zero temps.

Speaking of battery life, it’s nominally less than the AMOLED version, but in practice I got at least four days life on a single charge with Always-On Display on and was pleasantly surprised by its longevity. In situations where battery life was critical, I got used to toggling off the Always-On screen, which made battery life jump to 10 days+. Unlike some smartwatches, there was no perceptible lag when turning your wrist to activate the screen so you don’t sacrifice much usability with this setting.

I also appreciated the rugged design, which shrugged off knocks and scrapes when high in the mountains. Ironically, the biggest impact was when I punched the bezel into a plastic hold when climbing indoors and made the whole wall shake. The sapphire screen remained resolutely unmarked and while I did scrape the very edge of the adonised black finish off the bezel, the titanium itself was undamaged. I look forward to the time when the form factor can be shrunk down, but until then the durability of this smartwatch will see you through despite its egregious, easily-knocked size.

On paper, the brightness upgrade of microLED over AMOLED seems like a ‘nice to have if you have the cash’. But in practice, the real-world experience of discovering unexpected performance and quality of life improvements from a brighter screen are compelling. The upgrade is worth it, and makes me hopeful for the future of microLED technology coming to other smartwatches.

Garmin Fenix 8 Pro microLED: Price and availability

• $1,699.99 / £1,399.99 / AU$3,399.99
• A significant leap above the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro AMOLED
• In a price class of its own for a multisport smartwatch

The Garmin Fenix 8 Pro microLED retails for £1,399.99, $1,699.99, AU$3,399.99

That breaks out from the upper reaches of multisport smartwatches and approaches the terrain of luxury connected watches such as Tag Heuer’s Connected Caliber E5. So, you need to be convinced of the benefits of brightness, because that’s 100% what you’re paying for.

• Value score: 4/5

Garmin Fenix 8 Pro microLED: Scorecard

Garmin Fenix 8 Pro microLED: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

How I tested

I wore the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro microLED over several months, including stints wearing it 24/7 overnight and for very varied activities and workouts including trail running, indoor climbing, snowboarding, weight lifting, sailing and cycling. I was in 35°C heatwaves and -18°C blizzards, from sea level to 4,000m.

First reviewed: August 2026

• Amazfit has brought a slate of new features to its fitness watches
• That includes improvements to swimming and indoor rowing workouts
• The update is coming to almost the entire Amazfit watch range

Amazfit currently makes some of the best fitness trackers available, but the company’s devices have had a few blind spots in the past. Now, though, Amazfit users have received a new software update that brings serious improvements to some of the best cheap smartwatches on the market.

Specifically, Amazfit’s blog details how you’ll now get a better experience when swimming and using indoor rowing machines, plus there’s info on a few new quality-of-life touches that will help when working out. Combined, the new features could help close the gap with some of the best Garmin watches.

One of the headline changes comes to pool workouts. There, you’ll be able to add manual rests so you can see how your session was divided between activity and recovery. Your swimming and rest segments are counted separately, with the former organized by stroke, giving you a clearer picture of your workout structure.

If you prefer to use indoor rowing machines, Amazfit’s software update means the firm’s devices can connect to FTMS-compatible machines such as the Concept2 RowErg. That lets you see your workout metrics in real time as you exercise.

Finally, Amazfit has added a handful of new features that improve the workout experience, including a touchscreen lock that prevents accidental interference. Amazfit has also launched Athlete Defaults, which automatically apply a set of recommended workout settings when you begin training, saving you the hassle of setting everything up each time. Athlete Defaults turn on Do Not Disturb, disable workout alerts, and set GPS to maximum precision, too.

More competition for Garmin

The update is coming to a wide array of Amazfit watches, including the Balance Ultra, Balance 3, T-Rex Ultra 2, T-Rex 3 Pro, T-Rex 3, Cheetah 2 Ultra, Cheetah 2 Pro, and the Active 3 Premium. The latter device blew us away in its five-star review, making it an even better option if you want a new smartwatch.

That means you’ll be able to take advantage of it whether you own one of Amazfit’s most affordable smartwatches or one of its most premium, with almost the entire current range affected by the update.

It also means that Amazfit’s watches now offer some of the same features seen in the best watches that Garmin has to offer, making choosing between the two brands a tougher prospect than it used to be. And if it fosters a little healthy competition, that can only be good news for fitness fans.

The Garmin Fenix 9, this year's premier adventure smartwatch hotness, is expected to drop soon, but it's likely to be very expensive if previous iterations of the Fenix line are anything to go by.

However, if you are in need of GPS maps, wrist-based flashlights, and on-demand fitness stats as well as a navigation companion, you don't have to shell out for a brand new, high-end Fenix 9 — most people don't need all the features on these watches, and can get along just fine with a cheaper model.

Below, you'll find some of the best smartwatches for your needs, whether you're a short-range hiker who enjoys a couple of hours in nature once a month, to a die-hard who loves to spend multiple days in the wilderness.

Many of the watches below are also on sale, so you'll be able to pick up the right model at a discount — and it'll likely be a lot cheaper than getting a brand-new Fenix 9 when it arrives later this year (if rumors prove true). There's a variety of watches below, but they all offer offline maps capability in addition to fitness tracking in a wide variety of capacities: any one of them would be an ideal partner for the trail.

Today's best adventure smartwatch deals

I’ve never particularly enjoyed running, especially when training solo, but it takes the least effort for me to prepare for in the morning compared to my preferred activities — cycling or badminton — and it’s also a nice cross-training option.

After reading about my colleagues using AI to build training plans, I thought it could be an opportunity for me to change how I feel about running, so I turned to Google Gemini and asked it to build a training plan to prepare for a major running event here in Australia, the Sydney City2Surf.

My goal was to try out a plan that could easily adapt after a setback, like an injury or illness, while balancing run training with my usual badminton sessions and bike rides within a week.

I also wanted to see if I could stick to running for longer compared to my previous attempts, which involved either winging it — running for as long as I could until I ran out of breath — or following a rigid online plan.

Setup

My initial prompt was “How realistic is it for a beginner runner to train for City2Surf starting next week?” It was in late December 2025, so Gemini replied that I had plenty of time, as the event was on August 9 this year.

City2Surf has a 14km route that starts from Sydney CBD and finishes at Bondi Beach, which explains the name. It’s an infamously hilly route, headlined by a 2km section midway through the course with an average gradient of about 3 to 4%, or 75 to 80m in elevation.

“Most beginner-friendly training plans only require 12–16 weeks,” the response read. “Starting now puts you in an excellent position to not just survive the race, but actually enjoy it and run the majority of the course.”

Here’s the general overview from Gemini:

To make sure I stuck to the plan, I asked Gemini how to enter the workouts into my old Garmin watch, and it gave me a step-by-step guide.

I was also offered to test the newly released Garmin Forerunner 70 and 170 range while I was training, and I chose the 170 Music edition. I wanted to see if the built-in music function and Garmin Pay wireless payments were enough for me to leave my phone at home during training sessions.

Lugging my heavy iPhone 16 Pro Max in a running belt during my first few weeks of running became annoying, so the Forerunner was just what I needed. It also completely cuts down on distractions, and the voice prompts also helped keep me on track during interval sessions.

I managed to stick to the program for the first few months while keeping my social badminton games and bike rides. But things started to get tricky as I progressed into the second phase.

Setbacks and adjustments

Heading into phase 2 of my training plan, I unexpectedly got Achilles tendonitis, which my physiotherapist told me was the result of putting too much load too quickly on my legs and feet. Recovery took more than a month of rehab and rest.

When I was cleared to run again, I told Gemini I’d missed a few weeks and asked how I should adjust. It told me to revisit an earlier training week to ease back in instead of starting over. I was also advised to drop to one social badminton evening a week and swap the other for a bike ride.

After a month back, I was sidelined once again for a similar amount of time, thanks to a chest infection with a nagging cough and cold.

Ultimately, I felt that these setbacks were enough for me to decide not to enter the City2Surf, even though Gemini said I still had enough time to train. I set my sights on next year’s event instead.

“Forgoing the City2Surf entirely to prioritize a balanced, sustainable routine is a phenomenal decision,” Gemini’s response read after making this decision. “Since you haven't registered yet, dropping the pressure of a hard August 9th deadline allows you to completely shift your mindset from 'panic training' to building a strong, bulletproof foundation for the long run.”

Looking back, I likely would have just quit after the first setback if I had been following a more rigid training plan. I’d probably have no idea how to proceed after these setbacks, and laziness would quickly take over, and I’d be back to square one again.

Refocused training

Without the pressure of a fixed race date, Gemini readjusted my plan over the next four weeks to focus on just two sessions per week: one day of run-walk intervals and one longer, uninterrupted easy jog before I move forward with a fresh training plan. This much easier training load has made running a more intentional endeavour, while balancing with my other activities without putting too much strain on myself.

Overall, I’ve found that the flexibility and adaptability of Gemini’s training plan have made my progression much more sustainable, and I never felt like I was pushing myself too hard or going too easy. Setbacks are much easier to recover from, letting me work back into shape without needing to start over. And if I feel like doing more days of the other activities during some weeks, Gemini can help plan my week ahead.

While I ultimately failed in my original objective of joining a popular running event, I ended up enjoying the journey of becoming a better runner at a more sustainable pace.

Should you let AI be your running coach?

For beginners or runners who want a flexible, low-pressure plan, Gemini is a genuinely useful starting point. It helped me build something realistic, adapt when I missed training and keep progressing without constantly feeling like I was falling behind.

I'd argue though that it's not a substitute for proper coaching. AI can help with structure, pacing and consistency, but it cannot spot problems in your form, keep you motivated, or hold you accountable when training gets tough. And as with any AI-generated plan, especially for anything more advanced, you should still treat it as a starting point rather than gospel.

For my purposes, though, Gemini was enough to turn running from a chore into something I could actually stick with.

• Shopping for a new Garmin watch? Check out the latest Garmin Australia coupons here.

RingConn Gen 3: One minute review

RingConn has always been a solid challenger to Oura in the smart ring space, and after spending two weeks testing it, I can safely say the new RingConn Gen 3 continues that trend. You’ll get most of the same health, sleep and recovery tracking features as rivals in our best smart rings guide here, but without the monthly subscription that puts some people off buying a smart ring altogether.

The Gen 3 tracks heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), blood oxygen levels, skin temperature, respiratory rate, stress, activity and sleep. New additions include a haptic motor for some alerts and reminders, improved battery life and new vascular health trend insights, which are designed to give you a picture of your cardiovascular wellbeing over time.

However, this version does feel similar to the Gen 2 that came before it. The design and app experience feel largely unchanged and many of the core features will already be familiar to anyone thinking of upgrading from a RingConn Gen 2.

Although that's not necessarily a bad thing. The lightweight titanium design is still incredibly comfortable to wear and the app is simple to navigate. RingConn also continues to stand out by offering useful features like sleep apnea monitoring, something that still isn't standard across the smart ring market.

The experience here isn't perfect. During my testing, I found that some health insights can feel generic, certain wellness scores lack meaningful context and some of the messaging around features like vascular insight trends can be confusing. And, while the app is clean and easy to use, it still doesn't feel quite as refined or polished as Oura's.

But RingConn continues to occupy a compelling middle ground. It isn't the cheapest smart ring you can buy, but it undercuts premium competitors while delivering a similar experience overall.

The RingConn Gen 3 may not be the most exciting smart ring launch of the year, but for anyone looking for comprehensive health tracking without an ongoing subscription, it's shaping up to be one of the easiest smart rings for me to recommend.

RingConn Gen 3: Specifications

RingConn Gen 3: Price and availability

• Priced at $426 / $454; £322 / £343 (approx)
• Rolled out from late May 2026
• No subscription needed

Pricing starts at $426 for the silver, gold and matte black versions. That rises to $454 if you’d like the new brushed silver and brushed rose gold finishes.

I only tested the standard silver, but the brushed effect is really appealing. At least what I can see from promo shots, it makes the ring look a little more refined and if I was buying one myself I’d probably pay extra for that finish.

UK pricing hasn’t yet been confirmed at the time of writing, but that US pricing works out at approximately £322 to £343, depending on the finish you choose.

That places the RingConn Gen 3 firmly in the premium smart ring category. It's not cheap by any means. You can now find more affordable smart rings, like the Circular Ring 2, which starts at $349 / £280 / AU$497.

However, it still manages to undercut some of its biggest competitors, making a tempting value proposition. For context, the new Oura Ring 5 starts from £399. Which, granted, isn’t that much more expensive. But you do need to factor in the ongoing monthly subscription, which you’ll need to unlock all of the Oura’s features. That costs $5.99 / £5.99 per month. So paid monthly, that’s around an additional $70 / £70 per year.

What makes RingConn stand out is that there are no subscription fees here. Once you've bought the ring, you get access to all of the core health and wellness features without any additional monthly costs.

It’s worth mentioning that other smart ring brands are offering their devices without a monthly subscription too. And the gap between RingConn and its premium competitors isn't quite as large as it once was, especially as smart ring prices continue to rise across the board. But when you factor in the lack of subscription fees and the breadth of features on offer, the RingConn Gen 3 still represents good value.

• Value score: 4/5

RingConn Gen 3: Design

• Lightweight and comfortable design
• Distinctive squared circle shape
• New finishes and expanded sizing options

The first thing you'll notice about the RingConn Gen 3 when you take it out of the box is its unusual shape. Rather than being perfectly round, it has a subtle squared-off design. It looks a little unusual at first, but I really liked it. Plus it seemed like a refreshing choice in a market where so many smart rings are almost indistinguishable from each other.

At between 2.5g and 3.5g depending on which size you get, and measuring 2.3mm thick, the ring is light and discreet enough to forget you're wearing it. I wore it day and night when I was testing it, including while sleeping, without any issues.

That weight and thickness are both fairly standard compared to other smart rings. The only notable exception is the new Oura Ring 5, which has been designed to be slimmer and lighter than previous generations and almost all rivals.

The Gen 3 ring is made from titanium with a medical-grade resin interior and is rated IP68 and 10ATM for water resistance. In practical terms, that means you can wear it in the shower, while swimming and during workouts without worrying about taking it off. During testing, I rarely had to think about removing it, whether I was washing up, showering or exercising — though I did remove it when lifting weights to avoid any scratching.

RingConn has also expanded its sizing range this time around, now offering up to size 15. Many competing brands don't go beyond size 14. One thing to be aware of here is that RingConn says the Gen 3 sizing may differ slightly from standard ring sizing and other smart rings. Which means it may be worth using the sizing kit first just to be safe. Although I tested my usual size without any issues.

There are several new finishes available, including brushed silver and brushed rose gold. I tested the glossy silver model, which held up surprisingly well during testing. After more than a week of daily wear, there were no visible scuffs or scratches, even on close inspection.

That's really notable because when I’ve tested many smart rings in the past I've found that some finishes, particularly matte black ones, can start showing signs of wear after only a few days.

That said, if I were buying this ring myself rather than reviewing it, I'd probably choose one of the new brushed finishes, even though they cost a little more. After years of testing smart rings, I've come to think that the super glossy finishes are often what make them look like gadgets rather than jewellery. So if making sure a smart ring blends in is important to you, the brushed options are probably worth considering.

My only real criticism is that there isn't an obvious external marker showing which way round the ring should be worn. That's really nit-picking, but it's something some competitors have added. While it's easy enough to identify the correct orientation from the sensor placement inside the ring, a small external indicator, like a tiny notch, would make it quicker and easier to position correctly for the most accurate readings.

The charging case is handy. It's compact, easy to throw into a bag and feels more refined than previous versions. Unlike some competitors, it's also not tied to a specific ring size, which might be useful for you if you know someone else who has a RingConn ring.

• Design Score: 4/5

RingConn Gen 3: Features

• Subtle haptic alerts
• Comprehensive health and wellness tracking
• Sleep apnea monitoring and vascular insights

You’ll find all of the health and wellness features you'd expect from a premium smart ring here. The Gen 3 continuously tracks heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), respiratory rate, skin temperature, stress, activity levels and sleep. There's also menstrual tracking and a Baby Prep mode to support ovulation prediction.

Alongside these core features, RingConn offers a few more advanced tools that are designed to help it stand out from rivals. One of the most useful is sleep apnea monitoring. Once enabled, it monitors for the core signs of sleep apnea and provides short-term risk indicators alongside longer-term trends.

Like any wearable health feature, it's not designed to diagnose a medical condition. But I think it could be useful if you're concerned about your sleep quality or breathing patterns and want some additional information before you speak to a doctor.

New for the Gen 3 is a built-in haptic motor, which means the ring can now vibrate for health alerts, inactivity reminders and low-battery warnings.

At first, I was conflicted about this addition. Part of the appeal of smart rings for me is that they collect data in the background without demanding attention in the way a smartwatch can. Fortunately, RingConn has taken a restrained approach. The vibrations are subtle, focused on health-related notifications rather than phone alerts and can be disabled entirely if you'd prefer that.

Another notable addition is RingConn's vascular health tracking. Rather than attempting to estimate blood pressure directly, the feature combines overnight vascular load data with blood pressure readings and lifestyle information to provide longer-term cardiovascular insights.

To use it, you'll need to periodically enter blood pressure readings from a traditional blood pressure cuff. Initially, I wasn't convinced of the value of this feature. Wouldn’t you just use a cuff instead of the ring if you have one? But it became clear during testing that the goal here isn't to replace a blood pressure monitor. Instead, it's designed to help identify broader patterns over time.

One reason for the confusion is likely that in the app this section is labelled as 'blood pressure trends', which RingConn tells me is out-of-date copy and will be changed to 'vascular insights' soon to make it clear this isn't just a blood pressure reading feature.

Because the data you get here is about circulation stress tracking, which RingConn describes as a measure of how effectively your body moves between activity and recovery. Results are then also broken down into areas such as day-night rhythm, sleep breathing, post-exercise recovery and stress response.

The insights aren't especially deep, and if anything is flagged you'll need to go and search for what it means, but they're among the most detailed explanations available in the RingConn app and provide useful context without becoming overwhelming.

• Features Score: 4/5

RingConn Gen 3: Performance

• Clean, easy-to-use app
• Excellent battery life
• Strong sleep and wellness tracking

As with any smart ring, the Gen 3 relies heavily on its app, and RingConn gets a lot right here. While it doesn't feel quite as polished as Oura's software, I found it easy to navigate through the different menus. I also liked the flower-like Wellness Balance graphic at the top of the dashboard, which provides a quick visual snapshot of your overall health.

The app makes it easy to check key metrics at a glance, while more detailed charts, historical trends and explanations are there if you click through into each dedicated section, including sleep, activity and stress. Stress tracking was a particular highlight, making it easy to spot recurring patterns and periods of higher pressure throughout the day.

Some of the written insights can feel a little generic though, as daily summaries occasionally surfaced observations that felt obvious or lacked enough context to be genuinely useful. Sleep insights tended to be more helpful, with more detailed explanations and recommendations.

Sleep tracking is one of RingConn's strongest areas. The app presents sleep duration, efficiency, stages, overnight heart rate and movement data clearly without overwhelming you with information. During testing, it also handled my occasionally unusual sleep schedule surprisingly well, which meant that on nights when I woke up for an hour in the early morning before falling back asleep, RingConn correctly identified this as a brief 'awake' period rather than ending the sleep session entirely.

In terms of accuracy, I wore the RingConn Gen 3 alongside a Whoop 5.0. The two devices produced very similar results. Whoop measured a 84% sleep performance, 6 hours and 31 minutes of sleep and a 49bpm average overnight heart rate. RingConn gave me a 77 sleep score, recorded 6 hours and16 minutes of sleep with a 48bpm average overnight heart rate

Sleep stage breakdowns also aligned closely, with only minor differences in deep and REM sleep estimates. No wearable tracks sleep perfectly, but the results were broadly consistent.

I also appreciated how RingConn handles unusual readings. Rather than generating alarming warnings whenever a metric moves outside of its normal range, the app generally presents changes with reasonable context. I'd still like more explanation in some areas, particularly when a metric is flagged. I was often felt feeling a little frustrated at the lack of context and additional information as to why a reading deviated and what that really means. But the overall approach feels useful and sensible.

Sleep apnea monitoring is well implemented here. The feature presents trends clearly, includes some useful explanations and feels more mature than some of the app's other health insights. It's worth noting though that monitoring won't function properly once battery levels drop below 30%.

Exercise tracking is more basic than what you'll get from a dedicated sports watch, although that's true of most smart rings. During testing, the ring automatically detected walking, running and strength-training sessions without requiring manual input. You just need to acknowledge it’s identified your activity correctly and there are a wide range to choose from.

In the activity section you’ll find useful information like activity intensity, active time, calories burned and step count, which should be enough for most users.

Step tracking was accurate, although RingConn did seem to slightly under report compared to other devices. On one test day it recorded 5,167 steps versus 5,500 on the Whoop, a pattern I noticed in a few other comparisons.

Battery life is still one of RingConn's biggest strengths. The company claims between 11 and 14 days per charge, and in my testing the ring lasted nearly 12.5 days with both vascular insights and haptic alerts enabled.

That comfortably exceeds most rivals these days. For comparison, the Oura Ring 5 offers up to 7 days, the Samsung Galaxy Ring up to 7 days, while the Ultrahuman Ring Air and Circular Ring 2 both offer around 6 days.

For me, this is one of the RingConn's biggest selling points. The less often you need to remove a wearable for charging, the more likely you are to wear it consistently and collect uninterrupted data. RingConn also displays both remaining battery percentage and an estimate of days remaining in the map, which is a small but useful touch.

Overall, the RingConn Gen 3 delivers a strong experience. The app isn't quite as refined as Oura's, and some insights could go further, but the combination of comprehensive health tracking, clear data presentation, excellent battery life and a subscription-free model makes it one of the most compelling smart rings currently available.

• Performance score: 4/5

RingConn Gen 3: Scorecard

RingConn Gen 3: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

How I tested

I tested the Ringconn Gen 3 for just over 2 weeks. I wore it all day and all night, only taking it off to either charge it or lift weights — I've learned many times in the past that smart rings are very easy to scratch with metal dumbbells. The smart ring was on throughout workouts, while I was working, out socializing, relaxing on an evening and sleeping at night.

I've been reviewing smart rings since the very first version of the Oura ring came out back in 2017. Since then, I've tested almost every generation from every smart ring brand that came after it. This puts me in a solid position to not only test the newest rings, but compare the models, tell you which one might be right for you and bring you loads of context about the smart ring space.

• First reviewed: June 2026

These days, millions of us have smart devices strapped to our wrists, fingers and arms, measuring our metrics and building a picture of the “quantified self” to make us healthier, more active and better prepared for a medical emergency.

Wearables can help improve our wellbeing and nudge us towards better habits, but it’s less common to hear about the flipside: the anxiety at failing to close your rings, the frantic exercise to ensure you maintain your streak, and the obsession with meeting your targets on a daily basis.

These are feelings I know all too well. Having worn some of the best Apple Watches for close to a decade, I’ve watched it become an essential part of my life — so much so that I’ve tried closing my rings when I’m ill, on vacation, or should otherwise be resting and recuperating. I obsess over those little rings on my watch.

I know this is a problem for me. But what I wanted to find out was whether this is a more widespread issue, and if it is, what can be done about it. Is wearable tech making us more anxious? And can it be redesigned to push back against these tendencies and help us feel more relaxed, not less?

To find out, I spoke to tech and wellness experts who shared their thoughts on the ways wearables can impact our health — for better or worse.

The endless streak

During the FIFA World Cup in July, I was preparing to wake up in the early hours to watch England play Mexico at 1am local time. I set my alarm, went to bed early, and got ready to cheer on my team without waking the neighbors.

Yet there was one thought that I couldn’t get out of my mind as I contemplated the looming disruption to my sleep: my Apple Watch is going to hate this.

It’s now become part of my morning ritual to check my sleep score on my Apple Watch. Every high score gives me a little dopamine hit, every low result a crushing sense of disappointment. And I knew that waking up at 1am and staying awake for two hours in the middle of the night was going to make my Watch very disappointed indeed.

In the end, I rolled over and went back to sleep when my alarm woke me for the game. I didn’t watch it, and I know that was only partly because I was woken at some ungodly hour — it was also because, to a certain extent, I’ve allowed the scores and metrics on my Watch to govern the way I live my life.

That’s not the only way this has happened to me. I recently hit a streak of closing my Move ring for 2,000 consecutive days. But I’d be lying if I said there weren’t some days when I entered a fake exercise to get me past my calorie goal on a day when I was ill, tired or simply unmotivated.

Why cheating is fine, but resting is not, is something I admit doesn’t make much sense. But what I do know is that the thought of losing my streak absolutely fills me with dread. 2,000 consecutive days on my Move streak sounds like a lot, but knowing myself, I’m sure I’m going to try to continue it until the day I die, such is the anxiety associated with the idea of my streak ending.

The dark side of wearable tech

I’ve long had perfectionist tendencies, but it’s through observing the way I interact with my Watch that it’s really become clear to me how strongly my device’s gamification of fitness has struck a chord with me — and led me into some unhealthy, possibly obsessive behaviors.

I spoke to Dr Dana McKay, Associate Dean of Interaction, Technology & Information at RMIT University in Australia, to get her opinion.

“These technologies are often designed to help us form habits,” McKay pointed out. "They often use tools for so called ‘persuasive design’.... to persuade us to do something we wanted to anyway when we bought the device."

There are two problems with this:, Dr McKay points out: the possibility of becoming “unhealthily focused” on the device, and the prospect of being convinced to don a wearable by an outside party, like an insurance company, and sharing data we don’t want to share. Some private health insurance companies may subsidise the purchase of a wearable in exchange to access to lower premiums, and sharing your tracker's information to an insurer's app.

Yang Wei, Professor of Wearable Technology at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, agreed, saying that while wearables can help us form positive habits, we also need to be careful around them.

“For many people, wearables can be motivating and empowering,” Wei noted, “but for some users they can also create pressure, anxiety, guilt, or unhealthy dependence on data.” After all, wearables “create a framework for what counts as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ activity, sleep, recovery, or productivity,” Wei said. If that data is framed the wrong way, it can push users in an unhelpful direction.

Wei also warned that “One of the risks is that people may start to trust the device more than their own body. For example, someone may feel they slept badly because their watch gave them a poor sleep score, even if they felt fine. Or they may feel they have failed because they did not close a ring or reach a step target, even if they had a perfectly reasonable day.”

That certainly resonates with me: I consciously work to close my Apple Watch’s rings, viewing it as a requirement for each day. A full set has almost become a condition for having a ‘good’ day, regardless of how I’m feeling or what I’ve achieved. And this overreliance on a piece of tech strapped to my wrist feels key to the negative habits I seem to have formed. So what can I do about it?

How to push back

If wearables have the potential to form negative habits, what can we do to put things right? The answer is often remarkably simple, both McKay and Wei believe: take your watch off from time to time.

“There is no need to wear your device while on vacation unless a health practitioner recommends it,” McKay advised. If your relationship with your fitness tracker has become a problem, “start by turning all the notifications off, limit checking of goals to help reduce obsession, and consider not using the device at all if possible.”

You also need to understand why you are using the device in the first place, Wei contends. “Is it to be more active? To understand sleep? To monitor a specific health concern? Or simply to be more aware of daily patterns? Having a purpose makes it easier to keep the technology in perspective.”

“I would also encourage people to treat wearable data as guidance, not judgement,” said Wei. “These devices can be useful, but they are not perfect and they do not understand the full context of a person’s life. Illness, stress, caring responsibilities, disability, travel, recovery, or simply needing rest can all affect what a ‘good’ day looks like.”

And both McKay and Wei said that if your device is causing significant anxiety or obsessive behavior, it might be best to speak to a medical professional. As Wei put it, “The aim should be for the wearable to support the person, not control how they feel about themselves.”

But this has to go beyond the user’s own actions — wearables themselves should be designed to better support healthy habits and discourage negative ones. For McKay, that includes “allowing people who use trackers to set the number of notifications they get” and hide those they don’t want to see, as well as “removing gamification elements like badges and sharing (competing) with friends and family.”

Many of these features, like push notification controls, are already buried in the watch's settings, but a lot of smartwatch users don't go looking for them.

“I think we need to move from a data-driven relationship with wearables to a more reflective and human-centered one,” Wei added. That means designers should “move away from purely addictive or performance-based features” and towards focusing on “long-term wellbeing rather than daily judgement.”

Ultimately, Wei said, “I think the best wearable technologies will be those that help people feel more confident and informed, not more anxious or dependent.”

I can’t change how Apple designs its smartwatches, but I can reduce the pressure on myself to hit my goals day after day, even when my body is telling me to rest. Staying fit and healthy is a worthwhile pursuit, but when it comes at the cost of anxiously worrying what will happen if your streak ends, it might just be time to bite the bullet, take off the watch, and enjoy some tech-free time with friends and family. After all, losing a streak is not the end of the world.

The Garmin Cirqa is making waves in the fitness community. I put the new screenless tracker through its paces over 10 days of intensive testing, and awarded it 4.5 stars in my Garmin Cirqa review. As part of the testing process, I wore it for all of my workouts over the past couple of weeks — and, unusually for a device I've been testing for review purposes, I'm still wearing it now.

I normally alternate between an Apple Watch Ultra 3 or a Garmin Fenix 8, but I've found myself loathe to ditch the Cirqa just yet. This isn't only because it's good: I'm gravitating towards the Cirqa because it interfaces with a system I already use, and because it's helping me get over the dreaded "Strava-itis".

Last month, our writer Becca Caddy wrote about optimization culture — how wearables are causing us to engage in unhealthy mindsets and disordered behaviors. I can certainly attest to that: I'm guilty of glancing at my watch during a run, wanting to push my pace even on zone 2 sessions and easy days, because I know the end results are going to end up on my Strava account for all to see.

Even uncoupling my watch from automatically uploading my run to Strava is only half the battle. I'm constantly glancing at the watch to check my pace and time, engaging in subconscious judgement, comparing my own performance to that of my mates, colleagues and acquaintances. I didn't realize quite how much my self-judgement was sapping my enjoyment of exercise.

The Cirqa, and to some extent the Google Fitbit Air I tested earlier in the year, goes some way to changing all that.

While the Cirqa offers up some fitness and wellness metrics (certainly plenty to understand the effect of exercise on your body and health), what it doesn't give you is workout specifics. You won't find split pace per kilometer, for example, which runners use to measure average speed across a distance run, or heart rate zones to display a workout's intensity. With other models, I get those statistics piped into my ears at regular intervals, and my watches offer them at a glance.

Having access to such statistics removed during the workout can be detrimental to performance or for those times you're training for a specific event, but it's oddly freeing for day-to-day fitness training. I ran a 10km route during the testing period (at least, I assume it was 10km based on previous runs) and the Cirqa recorded plenty of heart rate-based statistics and applied them to recovery metrics such as my Training Readiness Score, along with how it improved stats such as my VO2 Max and Fitness Age.

However, it informed me of these statistics after the run, and didn't deliver any specific run performance information at all beyond time and heart rate information. Without my watch to glance at during the workout, I wasn't adhering to a target pace: I was running on vibes and perceived effort.

I concentrated on how my body felt, and responded to that in the moment. I paid attention to my form, my music, the trees and the road. I didn't feel guilty about stopping to stretch part way through, nor did I pause the Cirqa for that particularly pause, as doing so would invalidate the whole "complete, holistic workout overview" thing it's got going on. For the first time in quite some time, I had no idea at all about how fast I had run — but I knew that it was a good workout as a result of every other metric and the fact that I felt awesome.

Although it isn't a running-specific device, the Cirqa is exactly what I needed to reinvigorate my relationship with the road. When the time returns to take my training seriously again, taking speed and times on board again, I'll switch back to my best Garmin watch, with all my fitness stats ready to be incorporated into Garmin's workout plans.

Do you run without a fitness tracker, or use a screenless model, to better run on vibes, or are you a metrics-fiend with a dedicated running watch? Let me know in the poll below.

• A Samsung exec has just done a Reddit AMA
• They answered all sorts of questions, including those criticising a perceived lack of innovation, and an undesirable focus on AI
• Among the answers, health was pointed to as an area of future innovation, along with technology that understands what you need

Following the recent launch of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8, Annika Bizon, VP of Product and Marketing for Mobile Experience at Samsung Electronics UK & Ireland, has taken to Reddit for an AMA about these devices and other topics.

Many of the answers are some combination of marketing jargon and tech support, but there are some genuinely interesting nuggets too, including a response to claims that Samsung has stopped innovating.

Reddit user densusenapi commented: "I've been a long-time Samsung customer since the original Note. I replace my phone every 3 years since the hardware innovation just isn't there anymore? I used to change my phone every 2 generations but the leaps are so small now. Start experimenting and innovating again, please."

To which Bizon replied: "If I may, I'd like to politely challenge the idea that the hardware innovation isn't there. The more people use AI every day, the more personal it becomes and that's pushing us to rethink how phones and wearables work for people alongside how they look. That kind of shift only happens if the engineering and craftsmanship behind it can keep up, and that's still where we put a lot of our energy as a company.

"The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is a good example. This year we're expanding our foldable range to meet a real need we kept hearing from customers who want a bigger, wider screen to go deeper into content. The new Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 has had a phenomenal upgrade this year too to make sure it can help you achieve your fitness goals in the most extreme environments. So, I promise you we're not slowing down; we’re experimenting based on what people are telling us they would like.

"Hopefully that's changed your mind!"

It’s a fair answer, but arguably this has been a far more innovative year for Samsung than most recent years have been — we don’t often get whole new phone form factors after all.

But between what Bizon detailed above and the Privacy Display on the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, the brand has genuinely done some very interesting things this year, so hopefully we’ll see more of that going forward too.

A focus on health

As for what form that future innovation might take, in a separate response, Bizon pointed to health as a real focus at least for her personally, saying:

"I think we're at a super exciting time for mobile innovation. As I'm sure you're aware, we've just launched our biggest ever foldables line-up, inspired by how people are using their devices. AI is really helping us think more about new form factors, because we're all using our phones in much more personalized ways.

"But if you want to know what excites me personally right now, it's health, because that's where I think our devices and the features on them are helping people in ways they would never have imagined. Suddenly we're shifting as a society to being more preventative in the way we approach health challenges.

"So let's start with some of our features, powered by the new sensors on the Galaxy Watch 9 and the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2. Vitals is a good example, because it tracks things like skin temperature and heart rate overnight, and flags meaningful changes so you can determine if you might be about to fall ill, and act by resting more.

"It's also become more personal. We've all been told about 'get eight hours sleep,' but our new sleep latency feature, which calculates how long it takes you to fall asleep from when your head hits the pillow, can help you work out what your optimum conditions are for falling asleep.

"I've seen this play out in my own training too. I did an ultramarathon a while back and pushed on for far too long despite how I was feeling and that's a really common mistake. Fitness Index now helps flag your strengths and weaknesses earlier, and Nutrition Alert will nudge me if my hydration levels are too low.

"That's the shift I'm most excited about — how technology understands what you need, and gives your personal experiences."

A nod towards AI

That — unsurprisingly — doesn’t really give us any concrete ideas of what to expect next from Samsung, but technology that “understands what you need” will almost inevitably involve AI, and this, of course, also came up in the AMA — though largely through people being negative about it.

Multiple Redditors essentially said that they don’t want AI on their phones, to which Bizon noted that “if AI isn't for you, every AI feature on Galaxy devices is opt-in. You can switch off anything you don't find useful.”

That said, Bizon also suggested people should give AI a chance, arguing:

“If you're open to dipping a toe into using AI, my advice is always the same — try one small thing and see if it saves you time. Say you're out and about and spot a concert poster, show it to your phone with the camera and ask it to find tickets for you to buy. If it's useful once, great. If it's not for you, that's fine too.”

That advice might work for some people, but many others are opposed to AI as much for ethical reasons as functionality ones — so they’re unlikely to give it a chance, and may object to it being on their phones even if it can be disabled.

Still, AI aside, it will be interesting to see whether Samsung continues its current innovative streak. We'll probably have an indication of whether it has done so or not early next year, when the Samsung Galaxy S27 series launches.

• Latest Garmin rumors point to details on the Garmin Fenix 9
• We could get three sizes
• And MIP solar technology may not be dead yet

The Garmin Fenix 9 range is likely to be arriving soon. The rumor mill, fuelled by comments made by CEO Cliff Pemble on Garmin's quarterly earnings call earlier this year, suggest this is going to be the case. But plenty of Garmin fans were wondering how the Fenix 9 line would look.

The Garmin Fenix 8 line came in three sizes (43mm, 47mm and 51mm), and two screen options: a standard bright AMOLED screen of the sort you see on many smartwatches, and a duller memory-in-pixel (MIP) varient with solar charging. The MIP displays used to be used on all of the best Garmin watches as it was more battery-efficient, but these days it's almost entirely used for models that use Garmin's Power Glass solar charging tech, which uses a solar panel behind the display to suck up lumens and extend the watch's battery life in bright conditions.

It's likely that once Garmin figures out how to do the same with its AMOLED watches, MIP screens will bite the dust permanently, which is a shame. There are lots of fans of the lower-power screen tech, as this poll suggests.

A year after the already-premium Garmin Fenix 8 line entered the fray, we got the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro, a model which came in two sizes (47mm and 51mm) with InReach messaging connectivity using Garmin's satellite communication network, LTE which uses a standard internet connection, and on some models an even brighter MicroLED screen.

So, where does that leave the upcoming Fenix 9?

Three sizes, two Pros, two MIP displays

According to Garmin Rumors, the Garmin Fenix 9 will arrive in three sizes like its predecessor, and in three different models; the base version, the Garmin Fenix 9 Pro (with the release not being staggered like the Fenix 8/Pro) and the Garmin Fenix 9 Pro InReach.

This time, all three models are said to be arriving in all three sizes, so those with smaller wrists are still getting the Pro experience. The Fenix 9 Pro InReach is obviously getting access to Garmin's satellite network for off-the-grid messaging, but GarminRumors is not sure what upgrades the Pro will sport over the base model. Apart from one.

Both the Garmin Fenix 9 Pro and Pro InReach are said to be getting Solar models, which means the MIP screen would be back for another generation — but the standard Garmin Fenix 9 will remain an AMOLED watch. This would be the first time a standard Garmin Fenix won't get an MIP model, but it does make sense if Garmin is now reserving its solar charging for its premium Pro models.

If true, it's a shame. The MIP display isn't just a vehicle for solar charging: its lower-power technology is reminiscent of a digital watch, and as well as being more battery efficient, it's a way for Garmin users to distinguish their training tools from other, say, Apple and Samsung smartwatches. There's also no info on the Garmin Enduro 4.

We'll have more details on the Fenix 9 range as we get closer to its likely launch date. Stay tuned!

• The Samsung Galaxy Fit 4 just leaked in FCC regulatory filings
• The documents suggest it will have a screen, unlike the Fitbit Air
• But the leak reveals previous few other details

The Fitbit Air has proved that you don’t need to pay a high price tag to get a great wearable, and now it looks like Samsung is getting in on the act with an alternative of its own. And with more details leaking out, we’re getting a clearer picture of the upcoming device than ever — but plenty of unanswered questions remain.

New FCC regulatory documents (spotted by Gadgets & Wearables) have spilled the beans on the much-rumored Samsung Galaxy Fit 4. There, you’ll find various nuggets of info on what we can expect from the product, as well as a few things that it likely won’t do.

For one thing, it looks as if the Fit 4 will not be a screenless device, as the FCC documents include diagrams showing a product with a very similar design to the Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 — which did include a display. That could be a key difference with the Fitbit Air, which notably forgoes the display entirely.

The regulatory filings also confirmed that the Fit 4 will come with Bluetooth 5.4, which is a slight upgrade over the Fit 3’s support for Bluetooth 5.3. And there’s a button on the side and optical sensors on the back, much like the Fit 3.

Shrouded in mystery

The Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 is one of the best cheap fitness trackers money can buy, making it ideal for budget-conscious users. But if Samsung apparently isn’t planning to reduce costs by going down the screenless route, how else will it keep the price down?

That’s one of the big unanswered questions from the FCC report. Given the Fit 4 diagrams’ similarity to what we know about the Fit 3, there’s a decent chance we’ll see things like GPS omitted, meaning it might not end up being one of the best wearables for runners. But we don’t know for sure right now.

Plenty of other areas remain an enigma. The documents mention battery testing but do not specify the battery’s capacity, for instance. The Fit 3 packed in a 208mAh battery that lasted around 10 days on a single charge in our testing, but it’s unclear whether that will change with the Fit 4.

If anything, these FCC files raise more questions than they answer. They note that documents like product photos and a quick-start guide will remain confidential until January 31, 2027, but that doesn’t necessarily point to a release date. We’d expect Samsung to launch the Fit 4 sooner, but until that happens, much of this secret device will continue to be shrouded in mystery.

• Whoop has partnered with women's health tracking app Natural Cycles
• Whoop users get one year of the app totally free
• Natural Cycles will use that data to provide a 'daily fertility status' through its app

Whoop has partnered with women's health tracking app Natural Cycles, offering a year's worth of membership to existing Whoop users free of charge.

Whoop users also using the Natural Cycles app can now enable their Whoop app to import skin temperature data into Natural Cycles, said to 'eliminate the need for manual daily tracking' using a fingertip sensor or similar. Natural Cycles will incorporate this data to provide a daily fertility status, as basal body temperature is a key indicator in cycle tracking.

“At Natural Cycles, we're committed to making digital contraception as seamless as possible for our users," Dr. Magda Armbruster, VP of Product at Natural Cycles, said in a statement.

"Integrating with WHOOP removes friction from the experience by allowing members to use the wearable they already rely on to automatically capture overnight skin temperature used by the NC° app to determine daily fertility status."

It's worth noting the integration is only available with Whoop MG and Whoop 5.0 devices: anyone still rocking the Whoop 4.0 is unfortunately left out in the cold.

Whoop isn't the only wearable that Natural Cycles works with. Natural Cycles can use data from Whoop's fellow subscription-powered premium wearable, the Oura Ring, as well as the best Garmin devices and Natural Cycles' own NC Band.

Natural Cycles costs $149.99 in the US, £89.99 in the UK or AU$149.99 in Australia, so you're saving a packet here.

Natural Cycles is unusual for a women's health tracking app in that it claims to be the 'only FDA-cleared, hormone-free birth control app'. Clearance from the US Food & Drug Administration is a badge of quality in the consumer health tech space.

The Whoop's recently seeing a new challenger in the screenless smart band form factor: the Garmin Cirqa. You can watch our video review of the device below.

One thing I’ve never been able to find is the perfect meditation app on my iPhone. All I need is a timer that counts down from 10 minutes, which is my preferred session time, and looks nice, but I just can’t find an app I like that does that.

The free apps I’ve tried either didn’t look right, had too many confusing features, or were full of ads that try to get you to upgrade to extra functions after 30 days.

I’ve ended up resorting to using the Timer function in the basic iOS Clock app from Apple. That works OK, but it doesn’t give off the vibes I’m looking for, and it doesn't have any additional features. It’s also a bit fiddly to use.

Maybe AI can help?

That’s when I thought that if you can’t find the app you want, then these days there’s nothing to stop you just making your own using AI. So why not?

A bit of research led me to the conclusion that Google’s AI Studio was the tool I needed for this, so I fired up my MacBook, headed over there, and clicked the Get Started button once it had loaded.

You’re initially presented with an empty prompt box, just like you would be in Gemini or any other AI chatbot. So, I started to type.

“I want a meditation app timer that will count down from 10 minutes when I press a button. It will have soothing graphics and play mellow beats when it counts down”, and then I noticed that Google was adding suggestions into the prompt for me.

It suggested, "and allow users to customize the background soundscapes and session duration settings.” That wasn’t a bad idea at all, so I accepted the suggestion.

AI Studio started to think about its task, and in just 38 seconds it had come back with a design preview for me to accept or change. Its initial immersive UI design looked perfect, so I accepted that.

The next thing it showed me was the actual finished app, and it looked great! It had everything I wanted — beautiful calming design, an obvious button to press, a session time selector, and it played chill beats during the session. But it had also added a lot of really useful options, like soothing theme choices, a lead-in time selector, a paced breathing guide, and interval chime bells. And all in a non-intrusive way that kept the app's core functionality simple. I was impressed.

The whole thing had taken just 238 seconds to produce. That’s under 5 minutes.

Deploying your app

The question now was: how to get the app from existing inside AI Studio and onto my iPhone? That is where I wanted to run it, not on my MacBook. That’s what the Publish button in AI Studio is for. It publishes your app to a unique website address. It’s public, so you can go there now and use my app yourself, if you like.

One option for running the app on my iPhone was to simply click on the URL in the iPhone’s web browser. Interestingly, it worked in the iOS Chrome browser, but not in the native Safari browser. Further research revealed that the reason for this was Safari’s default third-party cookie block. Safari blocks third-party cookies by default via Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP).

It turns out that this is pretty easy to fix; just go to your iPhone Settings > Apps > Safari. Turn off the toggle for Prevent Cross-Site Tracking.

I did that, and now my app ran fine in Safari as well as Chrome.

I could make a bookmark for my app and continue to run it in my iPhone’s browser if I wanted, but it’s much better to choose the ‘Add to Home Screen’ option because this makes your app feel much more like a stand-alone app on your iPhone. It runs it without any of the browser furniture on screen at all.

To do this, choose the three-dot menu in Safari > Share > Add to Home Screen. Now you’ve got a new icon on your iPhone.

An app I’ll use every day

My meditation timer app has quickly become something I use every day and has earned a coveted place on the first page of my Home Screen. But it’s just one possible application of using AI Studio — whatever app you want, you can build it easily.

Google’s AI Studio means that you can go from “I wish there was an app that did X” to “I’ll just build one” in seconds. You don’t need to learn how to code, and you don’t need to have really any skills, just the ability to write a description of what you want your app to do. And AI Studio will even help you with that.

The result isn’t going to replace the App Store. It’s a web app rather than a polished native iPhone app, and there are still limits to what you can build without coding knowledge. But for small, personal tools like this, that hardly matters. I didn’t need millions of downloads, regular updates, or a business model. I just needed one app that worked exactly the way I wanted it to.

That might be the most exciting thing about AI app builders. For years, when an app was almost right, you either tolerated its flaws or kept searching for another one. Now there’s a third option: describe the missing app, build it yourself and put it on your Home Screen before you’ve even finished complaining about it.

Patagonia is one of the biggest names in outdoor clothing, and especially impressive when it comes to sustainability — great news if you want to protect those beautiful natural landscapes you're planning on hiking over or camping in this summer.

I'm a big fan of Patagonia's products, but they don't come especially cheap. So I was particularly pleased, when hunting for kit for my next adventure, to uncover a goldmine of Patagonia discounts at Cotswold Outdoor. There are deals on a wide range of kit for every weather eventuality — important if you're planning on spending any time in the UK, where you can never be quite sure if you'll be facing sweltering heat or a torrential downpour.

Below, I've rounded up my pick of the best discounts across the men's and women's ranges, including fleeces, waterproofs, base layers, tees and shorts, with a few accessories thrown in for good measure. Happy exploring!

Outdoor kit for summer adventures

It’s hardly a surprise that Apple had to increase the prices of its iPads, Macs and other devices last month amid ongoing RAM and storage shortages, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the upcoming iPhones follow suit — but it’s not completely doom and gloom for Apple fans.

Apple’s wearables weren’t impacted by these price hikes, which is good news for anyone looking to upgrade to a watchOS 27-compatible device (as there will only be a select few left) or if you’re keen to get a swanky new watch to track your workouts.

The Apple Watch 11 was already going at a fantastic price of AU$429 during Prime Day last month, but surprise, surprise, it’s ever-so-slightly cheaper now, and it’s not even sale season! The Apple Watch Series 11 with the 42mm chassis and GPS-only option is now AU$2 cheaper, making this the lowest-ever price on Amazon Australia — that’s 37% off in case you were wondering.

Our Apple Watch Series 11 review called it “the most capable and best-looking” mainline Apple Watch yet, thanks to its larger battery capacity and brighter, more power-efficient and more scratch-resistant Always-On Retina LTPO3 OLED display compared to its predecessor.

Apple rates both the 42mm and 46mm models’ battery life at 24 hours of typical use and up to 38 hours in Low Power Mode, with battery capacity up 9% and 11%, respectively. Our reviewer found the claim checks out, with tests getting a full day and a half of battery life with light use, but the Low Power Mode makes it go even longer.

Health tracking is more comprehensive with the Series 11, adding blood-pressure monitoring to the usual arrhythmic heart-rate alerts, ECG, wrist temperature, respiratory rate and cycle tracking. Hearing health and Sleep Score are other notable additions, but these are also available on the cheaper SE 3 and have been rolled out to older models too.

Admittedly, the Apple Watch Series 11 won’t be much of an upgrade over the Series 10 because of the very similar hardware (and watchOS 27 compatibility), but upgrading from the Series 8 or older models, or even the Watch SE and SE 2, will see a significant performance jump and a longer support period.

And at this price, you don’t even need to wait till Black Friday as we don’t see it getting much cheaper than this in a few months’ time.

A new study from the University of Edinburgh suggests that workers over 50 may be experiencing a largely hidden sleep crisis. Since I’m well into my fifth decade, I’m comfortably inside that risk group, and like many people, my biggest obstacle to sleep is not always tiredness; it’s getting my brain to stop working.

The researchers found that nearly 70% of participants in its study (which admittedly was quite small at just 45 participants) experienced persistent, clinically significant sleep problems, despite having no known history of sleep disorders. Even more concerning, almost 92% met the clinical threshold for a sleep disorder at least once during the study.

Many of these sleep problems were closely linked to work-related stress, researchers said — which got me thinking about ways I could reduce my own work-related stress, and whether AI could help.

It struck me that there were three easily achievable things that I could do with AI to help me sleep better, so I tried them — and the results surprised me.

Task one: emptying your head

It’s difficult to sleep when you’ve got a million thoughts from the day buzzing around your head. What can help is writing them down. It makes you feel like you don’t need to keep them alive in your brain, because there’s a record of them somewhere. It turns out that AI can be very helpful for this. I used the prompt:

“I’m going to tell you everything currently occupying my mind. Sort it into things I need to do tomorrow, things that can safely wait, and things I cannot control. Keep the response short and practical.”

I then used ChatGPT's Voice mode to perform a brain dump into the AI. ChatGPT turned my vague mental noise into a finite list, and it felt like a weight had been lifted. I could then close the app and put down my phone knowing my thoughts have been “stored” somewhere and weren't going to be forgotten.

Task two: challenging the worry

For this one I took a real concern, like a deadline, unfinished article or packed schedule. Then I described it to ChatGPT, using this prompt:

“This thought is keeping me awake: [insert thought]. Don’t simply reassure me. Tell me what is factual, what I may be assuming, what I can act on tomorrow, and what I need to let go of tonight.”

That instruction to not simply reassure you is important, otherwise ChatGPT may produce soothing but meaningless encouragement. It worked for me, but if you find that still doesn't get you exactly what you want, you could also also ask:

“What is the smallest useful action I can take tomorrow that would make this problem feel more manageable?”

Using this prompt the AI reduces a large amorphous worry to one single action.

Task three: Voice Mode

My last idea was to get ChatGPT to help me wind down. ChatGPT has recently improved its voice mode, and that inspired me to use it to help me wind down at night. Listening to ChatGPT's voice is a lot more relaxing than looking at a screen of course, since you can close your eyes. I tried this prompt:

“Guide me through a five-minute wind-down exercise. Speak slowly, leave pauses, and do not ask me questions. Begin with breathing, then relax each part of my body, and finish with a calm visualization.”

If that doesn’t work for you then you can always get ChatGPT to tell you a story :

“Tell me a calm, deliberately uneventful 10-minute story designed to help me fall asleep. Nothing dramatic should happen, and there should be no questions or cliffhangers.”

I started the voice routine, placed the phone face down and treated ChatGPT like an audio player rather than continuing to chat with it. It worked for me, even if the voice I'd chosen to use wasn't quite as relaxing as it could have been. It's worth experimenting here to find a voice you like.

Best practice

I found all three of these prompts quite effective. The first one, which enabled me to turn all the thoughts spinning in my head into a practical list to deal with tomorrow, was especially helpful.

With all of these exercises, the key is to put your phone down after you’ve done one or more of them. You need to stop interacting with it; remember, the goal is closure, not an endless bedtime conversation.

Once you’ve closed down your day with ChatGPT, you need to close down ChatGPT, too.

When I got engaged a couple of years ago my wife asked if there was anything I’d want in return to symbolize it: she gets to wear a ring, would I want a new accessory or piece of jewellery to match her. My immediate answer was a watch, with the plan that it’d be the one I wear on our wedding day.

I’d need something smart and sophisticated. Something that I wouldn’t regret seeing immortalized in our wedding photos for decades to come, and something I’d want to wear often.

I had ideas for the watch I'd get, but as wedding costs grew the idea of splashing out on a pricey timepiece felt less and less sensible. Even less so when I was also considering grabbing a smartwatch — as my pre-wedding fitness regime kicked into high gear and a more sophisticated tracker than my smart ring was feeling increasingly essential.

That’s when my eyes settled on a gadget that I thought might be both: a classic I could wear to the gym and on my wedding day. My wife was skeptical, but after seeing it in person she agreed that it did look the part.

So she let me wear a Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic to our wedding. It might be my current favorite gadget, and I can’t understand why there isn’t a Galaxy Watch 9 Classic.

A winning design

The Classic doesn’t look like your basic utilitarian smartwatch. It dodges the simplistic look of the regular Watch 8, the Pixel Watch, or Apple Watch, and also the overly sporty designs of a Garmin or similar running companion.

Besides offering a larger screen size — 46mm vs the base model’s 40 or 44mm options — the Classic boasts a chunkier design than the regular Watch 8, and comes with a rotating metal bezel controller which provides some extra detailing and also a smoother way to navigate watch menus besides swiping.

Coupled with its band — the Hybrid which combines durable rubber with faux leather — and a watch face with moving hands you could very easily confuse the Classic for an analogue timepiece at a glance. And frankly, I just love how it looks and feels on my wrist (it puts my aged Fitbit to shame).

The design doesn’t just look impeccable, it can handle so many different scenarios too.

Besides wearing it for formal occasions I’ve taken the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic everywhere I go. To the office, on a 5K run, on hiking treks, to the gym, when I jump in the pool, and so much more. I even wear it in bed to track my sleep.

While the weight and size can be a little strange at first, after my first night sleeping with it I’ve had no complaints, and the trade off for the bulk is the Watch feels very usable and looks stylish.

Useful but not distracting

A similar effect could have been achieved with a smart ring and an analogue watch, wearing both to match the health tracking utility and sophisticated packaging. However I’ve been steadily growing frustrated with even the best smart rings.

The main draw of a ring is how simple it is: slip it onto your finger and it’ll follow your health and fitness metrics for days between charges. This simplicity falls apart, unfortunately, as soon as you want to access your data.

The apps of various rings I’ve tried have started to feel a little messy, and because I constantly have to check my phone to start workouts or understand my ring’s data I find I’m easily distracted by the plethora of other software and notifications I brush past on the way to my ring’s app. When I’m ready to run or hit the weights I want to focus, not succumb to a last-minute distraction.

With a watch I can start my tracking from my wrist at the press of a button. I can also see essential performance stats on the 46mm display, or (because it pairs nicely with my Samsung foldable) as part of the morning Now Brief on my phone.

I also love the non-fitness apps integration. I don’t text from my watch much, but I do often rely on wrist-based music controls and Google Maps directions — I can have a digital map while my phone can stay safely in my pocket where would-be biker thieves can’t snatch it.

My only gripe is I wish I could change the long press control on the bottom button. It defaults to opening Samsung Wallet and cannot be changed. I’m a Google Wallet user and while I could maybe move a couple of cards over I’m a) a bit too lazy, and b) weirdly nervous about paying for things with my watch.

Where’s my Watch 9 Classic, Samsung??

Given my Classic love I was hoping to see a Watch 9 Classic when Samsung debut its new lineup, but it was missing — replaced by a regular Watch 9 and a Galaxy Watch Ultra 2.

The Ultra 2 comes close to being a Classic — it adopts the bezel, though it doesn’t rotate — especially if you pick up the PeakForm Band, though it does also come at a more premium price.

And the lack of a rotating bezel is genuinely a major let down. You just have to trust me.

Though I doubt this means the end of the Classic. It has taken a break before to make room for the original Galaxy Watch Ultra, and I expect it’ll return next year as the Watch 10 Classic.