We already know watchOS 27 is coming and not all Apple Watches will support it. So if you’ve been holding off on upgrading an older Apple Watch or you’ve been thinking about getting your first one, then you don’t need to wait until Amazon Prime Day 2026 to score a great deal because the mainline Apple Watch Series 11 has just hit its all-time low price in Australia.

That’s right, Prime Day in Australia is still a little over a week away and Amazon is already discounting the wearable by 32% to just AU$447 for the 42mm GPS model.

While we’ve always recommended the more affordable Apple Watch SE 3 as the best for most people, we reckon this discount for the Series 11 is currently the better buy, especially if you value battery life, screen brightness, a slimmer chassis and more health monitoring.

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

Battery capacity increased 9% for the 42mm and 11% for the 46mm model, with Apple rating both for 24 hours of typical use and up to 38 hours in Low Power Model. Our reviewer found the claim to be realistic, getting a full day and a half of battery life with light use.

On the software side, health tracking is more comprehensive with heart-rate alerts, ECG, wrist temperature, respiratory rate and cycle tracking, with blood pressure monitoring and hearing health as new additions. A Sleep Score feature has also been added (across all Apple Watches) to provide more easily digestible sleep tracking data.

Admittedly, the Apple Watch Series 11 won’t be much of an upgrade over the Series 10 as it’s very similar hardware, but upgrading from the Series 8 or older models, or even the Watch SE and SE 2, the performance jump will be a substantial boost.

And while we’re at it, marathon season is still in full swing in Australia, so this deal is worth a look as it can keep up with even the best running watches from the likes of Garmin.

Oura Ring 5: Two minute review

I've been going around in circles writing this Oura Ring 5 review. On the one hand, I find the health insights equally fascinating and motivating just like the best smart rings, and its discreet design is without a doubt comfortable to wear all day long.

But it's worth noting that when you stack up the monthly subscription and optional charging case on top of the starting price for the standard finish, you're looking at the better part of $600 / £600 / AU$750 to own it for a year.

That said, its ability to track more than 50 health and wellness metrics, such as sleep quality and stress levels, is undeniably enticing for anyone wanting to be more aware of their body — and the launch of this newest model brought a whole host of new insights.

The Oura app does include a lot of context about how these measurements can be interpreted and how they contribute to‚ for example, determining how prepared your body is for the day ahead based on a range of metrics, which Oura calls your 'Readiness Score'. But, this only scratches the surface of understanding how your body actually functions.

Sometimes these assessments can trigger misguided concerns For example, I got 'major' warnings from a feature called 'Symptom Radar', which tracks your respiratory rate and body temperature to flag signs of strain. What it didn't take into account was that a woman's body temperature naturally rises after ovulation, making its assessment unnecessarily worrying for anyone who didn't know that.

I can't deny that its claim to be the world's smallest smart ring at launch really does hold up — its lightness makes it disappear on your finger, making it ideal for everyday wear. With six stylish finishes and an even more scratch-resistant titanium surface, it's no wonder it's made headlines in the wearable tech space, with plenty of influencer reviewers fawning over the all-new Oura Ring 5.

But Oura has been facing increasing backlash after deepening its partnership with the Department of Defense in the US last year, although it doesn't use data from any of its users other than specific military personnel as part of this arrangement. It's also worth keeping in mind that there have been studies raising concerns about 'health data anxiety', and Oura's attempt to bring new biomarkers into play have given us a whole new category to worry about.

By now you've definitely noticed my to-ing and fro-ing as I work through every side of the Oura Ring 5 to reach an honest and fair review. I won't say it's the most perfect smart ring on the market — that would be ignoring too much — but I will say it comes close. At the end of the day, I'm a sucker for brilliant tech — which the Oura Ring 5 definitely is.

Oura Ring 5: Price and availability

• $399 / £399 / AU$649 (each) for two base finishes
• $499 / £499 / AU$799 (each) for four premium styles
• $5.99 monthly subscription (priced in USD across all regions)
• $99 / £99 / AU$159 for the Oura Ring 5 travel case

The Oura Ring 5 costs an extra $50 / £50 / AU$80 — or $100 / £100 for a premium finish — compared with the Oura Ring 4, which launched in 2024. (Australian pricing doesn't appear to carry the same premium finish gap.)

Beyond the high-gloss gold and silver finishes, you're paying an extra $100 / £100 / AU$150 for any of the four premium styles: a softer gold, brushed silver, matte black, and — the color I tried — deep copper rose.

Add the $5.99 monthly subscription, and you're looking at up to $670 / £670 / AU$1,029.88 to own an Oura Ring 5 for a year, if you go for the most expensive finish plus the travel case.

That's no small sum when most smart rings on the market cost less and many don't require a recurring subscription. There are also plenty of wearable alternatives that track the same health vitals, which makes this very much a luxury purchase.

• Value score: 2/5

Oura Ring 5: Design

• The closest a smart ring has come to looking like luxury jewellery
• Extremely low-profile and light, making it comfortable to wear all day
• An easy-to-use companion app with a clean UI

By far the best justification for the Oura Ring 5's high price tag is that it could easily pass for a piece of jewellery. That's largely down to a 40% decrease in size from the previous model, the result of Oura redesigning the entire core.

That freed up space to drop multiple sensors, but it hasn't made the Ring 5 any less accurate — Oura has increased the efficiency of the remaining sensors to offset the loss. The titanium surface is also more scratch-resistant; I can't compare it directly to a previous model, but it hasn't picked up a nick yet.

What I can say is that the Oura Ring 5 is significantly smaller than the Ring 4. Holding it up against a previous-generation ring (admittedly the bulkier ceramic finish), I was shocked at how noticeable the size difference is. It's lighter and far more comfortable to wear, since it doesn't protrude — and therefore doesn't rub against — my finger as much.

That same design ethos carries through to the Oura app, which has a minimalist interface that isn't cluttered with numbers and graphs. Instead, data is presented as scores with percentages and ratings for each health vital. It's easy to use, though it's worth noting that the app needs a certain amount of data to establish your health baseline, so you won't have access to every feature right away.

• Design score: 5/5

Oura Ring 5: Features

• Tracks vitals including body temperature, heart rate, and respiratory rate
• AI wellness assessments for sleep, stress, resilience, and more
• Activity tracking lags behind more dedicated fitness wearables

After two weeks of wearing the Oura Ring 5, I've unlocked most features — sleep, resilience, and activity scores — which now populate what was once a fairly bare home screen.

The Oura app works best with more data, so it's constantly prompting you to add new "tags" to your day's timeline. Some are automatic, like detecting exercise, while others — what you ate, or what kind of activity you did — require manual logging.

The app's other three main sections cover your vitals, a health assessment area, and an LLM chatbot you can talk to about your data. That last part matters, because as I mentioned above, there's plenty of room for misleading interpretations if you don't understand the many factors behind your body's vitals.

I got a lot out of learning more about my sleep quality and general heart health (the app has a neat feature that lets you feel your heartbeat throughout the day via your phone's haptic feedback), but what I'm most interested in unlocking next are the new women's health features, such as Hormonal Birth Control, which builds on the existing Cycle Insights dashboard with what Oura calls a "first-of-its-kind" view into how biometrics shift across hormonal and hormone-free days.

While I find the wellness insights genuinely useful, the ring is nowhere near as practical as a dedicated fitness tracker. Without GPS — it relies on a paired device for location — and limited to activities compatible with wearing jewellery on your hand (so no weightlifting without a third-party silicone band over the top), it falls short, even with the addition of real-time tracking — which, again, you can only view through a paired device).

• Features score: 4/5

Oura Ring 5: Performance

• Battery life has increased to seven days
• Automatic activity tracking has been accurate
• Sleep and heart rate tracking data is in line with our benchmark device

One of the biggest improvements that the Oura Ring 5 brings over the Ring 4 is that has managed to squeeze out a whole extra day of battery life, despite the ring itself being redesigned to be 40% smaller.

During my testing, I found it lasted a whole seven days on one full charge. But I was more impressed with was how quickly you can charge the smart ring. From a fully drained battery, it took less than an hour until it was all way back up to 100%, which means it's very easy to top it up throughout the week whenever you're, say, washing dishes or having a shower.

For the most part, I kept the Oura Ring 5 on throughout the day, allowing it to track my vitals as I moved from home to work to seeing friends, exercising and cooking, which it does very well. Most of the automated tracking suggestions were accurate, allowing me to quickly confirm all of the day's activities when I next checked into the app.

This same accuracy extends to the sleep data, which is the absolute highlight of the Oura Ring 5's feature set. I found the insights both enlightening and motivating, especially after getting my first sleep score as (like any gamification effect) I began trying to reach a new higher level. My testing also confirmed this when my readouts for my average heart rate managed to be within 3 BPM of the Polar H10 chest strap, which is the gold standard for consumer heart rate and workout accuracy as it uses actual ECG (electrocardiogram) technology.

Average heart rate

Oura Ring 5

115

Polar H10

112

037.575112.5150

Average heart rate Data

Product	Value
Oura Ring 5	115
Polar H10	112

• Performance score: 5/5

Oura Ring 5: Scorecard

Oura Ring 5: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

How I tested

I wore the Oura Ring 5 for two weeks, draining the battery completely (despite the app advising against letting it go below 30%). I have some gaps in my data from forgetting to put it back on, but I mostly didn't take it off. I tested the ring's heart rate monitoring accuracy against the Polar H10 chest strap, and compared its design to a ceramic Oura Ring 4.

• Real-life experiment shows bug spray can kill Fitbit Airs
• It's to do with the chemicals inside the repellent
• Spray carefully, as you won't be covered under warranty

Here at TechRadar we've been rather impressed by what the Fitbit Air has to offer, but one unfortunate user has found out the hard way that you shouldn't use bug spray when the fitness tracker is wrapped around your wrist.

The problematic incident was recorded on Reddit (via Phandroid), and it seems that a thorough and protective application of bug spray has eaten into the plastic component of the Fitbit Air, stopping it from functioning.

"Went on a hike this weekend with my Fitbit Air," reads the original Reddit post. "I've had it for 14 days now, and I found out that bug spray will destroy it. I had put some on the cuffs of my hiking shirt and it transferred over to the device and broke down the plastic."

To make matters worse, the user reports that the same fate befell his wife's Fitbit too (though it's not clear if that's also a Fitbit Air). The original post ends with a recommendation to "save your cash for something built better".

Little sympathy

Fitbit air and bug spray don't mix from r/fitbit

The Reddit detectives went straight to work, determining that it was likely the chemical DEET (N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) causing the problem. It's widely used in insect repellents, and is pretty harsh on plastics as well as bugs.

And sympathy seems to be in short supply on the Reddit thread. "The documentation very clearly states that it shouldn't come in contact with sunscreens and bug sprays," writes one poster, while another says: "This is on you buddy."

Google isn't being particularly sympathetic either, telling the affected user that the damage counts as environmental or accidental damage, and so isn't covered under the warranty. No replacement Fitbit Air will be forthcoming in this case.

There have been other stories like this in recent days, so it seems a substantial number of people aren't aware about the damage that insect repellent can do. As ever, always read the small print — on both your fitness trackers and your bug sprays.

It's a tale as old as tech time: a new flagship device appears on the scene, which means the device it's replacing gets a price drop, and potentially offers better value for money for the discerning gadget buyer.

For this guide, we're going to be looking specifically at the Oura Ring 4 (which launched in 2024) and the Oura Ring 5 (launched in 2026). The Oura Ring 4 is likely to see some great Amazon Prime Day deals, but should you go all in on the latest and most expensive model? Or is the older model the better investment when bought at a discount?

• Browse the full Amazon Prime Day sale

There's no doubt that both models qualify as two of the best smart rings on the market right now, but which one is right for you depends on your budget and what your priorities are. Here's how they compare.

Oura Ring 5 vs Oura Ring 4: pricing

While pricing varies as special offers come and go, the Oura Ring 5 launched for a starting price of $399 / £399 / AU$649, with some finishes costing extra at $499 / £499 / AU$799 – that's a little more expensive than the original Oura Ring 4 (note that the prices for Australia are for third-party resellers, not from Oura directly).

There's an upgraded charging case available for $99 / £99 / AU$159 for the Oura Ring 5, and then there's the monthly subscription: $5.99 / £5.99 / AU$9.99 a month or $69.99 / £69.99 / AU$109.99 a year. While a subscription isn't technically necessary to use an Oura Ring, you do need one to access the bulk of its features.

So what about Oura Ring 4 price drops? At the time of writing, the starting price is $349 / £349 if you go through the official channels, and we're seeing some good deals on the Oura Ring 4 already, which you can find below. Given that it's an older model, you're much more likely to see discounts on this smart ring on both the Oura shop and third-party retailers like Amazon.

Oura Ring 5 vs Oura Ring 4: specs and features

What you need to know first is that the Oura Ring 5 is notably slimmer than the Oura Ring 4: for the most affordable finishes, it's 6.09 mm (0.24 inches) wide and 2.28 mm (0.09 inches) thick, down from 7.9 mm (0.31 inches) and 2.8 mm (0.11 inches), which is a reduction of about 40%.

That can make a difference when it comes to comfort and day-to-day wear. The new model is lighter too, with those reduced dimensions, weighing 2 grams rather than 3.3 grams. Both models are available in a variety of ring sizes to fit your finger, though the Oura Ring 5 introduces a new sizing scheme that doesn't match its predecessor.

The Oura Ring 5 is also more scratch resistant, while both models offer the same level of waterproofing (down to a depth of 100 meters). Battery life has been improved on the new model too, with the official estimates standing at 5-8 days for the Oura Ring 4, and 6-9 days for the Oura Ring 5.

As for sensors and health tracking features, this is where the rings are mostly tied. Oura says the fifth-generation model is more accurate because of a change in the sensor layout, but the core sensor tech is the same between the two models, and the software experience through the app is the same for tracking steps, activity, heart rate, and more.

Oura Ring 5 vs Oura Ring 4: Verdict

There's clearly a lot that's new and improved in the Oura Ring 5: it's slimmer and lighter, and offers better battery life. Oura says it's also more accurate, though that's not something we've finished testing ourselves just yet. That said, the tracking capabilities, sensors, and app features are more or less identical between the models.

Where the Oura Ring 4 really has the potential to outdo the newer model is in terms of pricing. As time goes on, you're likely to see bigger and bigger discounts on the fourth-generation model — and don't forget that we awarded it our Health & Fitness Device of the Year award for 2025. It's a seriously impressive bit of kit, and if the right discount comes along during Amazon Prime Day, it'll certainly be a better-value package than the Ring 5.

Regardless, you'll need to weigh up what's most important to you for your next smart ring, and how much you're prepared to spend to get it. Both of these premium smart rings from Oura will give you years of use — so we might be talking about the Oura Ring 6 before you need to think about upgrading again.

More Prime Day deals in the US

• Amazon Devices: Fire Sticks & Echo from $18
• Amazon Haul: viral gadgets, tech & appliances from $1.99
• Apple: MacBooks, AirPods & AirTags from $29
• Beauty: 50% off toothbrushes & hair tools
• Cheap TVs: smart TVs from $69.99
• Garden: tools, mowers, planters from $24.99
• Headphones: 50% off Beats, Bose & Samsung
• Laptops: Apple, HP & Dell from $199
• Mattresses: Sealy, Serta & more from $186
• Patio: outdoor furniture, rugs & decor from $19.99
• Sports: 50% off fitness gear, treadmills & clothing
• Vacuums: Dyson, Shark & Bissell from $34

More Prime Day deals in the UK

• Amazon Prime: sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Amazon Devices: Fire TV, Ring & Blink from £24.99
• Amazon Haul: up to 30% off
• Apple: AirPods Pro 3 for a record-low price
• Appliances: up to 45% off Ninja, Tefal & Sage
• Beauty: up to 60% off Philips & Oral-B
• Essentials: household goods from under £10
• Fashion: up to 50% off
• Headphones: up to 50% off
• Laptops: from £149.99
• Tablets: Samsung & Lenovo from £125
• Toys: up to 25% off Lego and Tonies
• TVs: from £129.99
• Vacuums: up to 40% off Eufy & Roborock
• Wearables: Garmin & Huawei from £36.99

• A leaker claims there will be a Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 this year instead of a Watch 9 Classic
• They shared renders of the Ultra 2 and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 9
• They also claimed there will be beige, black, and silver colors for them

This year it looks like we might get a successor to the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra, as a new leak has revealed fresh details along with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 9.

Over on X (via 9to5Google), leaker Galaxy Techie has claimed that these are the two new Samsung smartwatches we’ll see this year — and that there won’t be a Classic. That post has also now suspiciously been removed.

That’s at odds with some earlier leaks which suggested we might get a Classic instead of or as well as a new Ultra, so we’d take this with a pinch of salt. But it would make sense, since Samsung usually only launches new Classic models every other year, and we already got one last year with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic.

A successor to the 2024 Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra is certainly due — and according to this source, the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 will have a slightly boxier design than its predecessor, along with thinner bezels and an orange outline on the side button, rather than it being all orange.

Three colors and some software changes

The leaker also claims that both the Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 and the Watch Ultra 2 will have new band designs and colors, listing beige, black with a bluish band, and silver with a green band variants — though it’s unclear whether they mean both models will come in all three of those shades.

Finally, they’ve also shared some renders which — while lacking in detail — do give us a look at the possible design of these wearables, along with the redesigned Samsung Health app and what looks to be a new watchface picker, as you can see above.

In any case, we probably won’t have to wait much longer to get an official look at whatever wearables Samsung is cooking up, as this year’s Galaxy Watches will probably launch in July.

The Garmin Fenix 8 is a good activity watch by every conceivable metric, and rated our best Garmin watch in the premium category. I gave the Fenix 8 five stars when I reviewed it in September 2024, and I've been wearing it on and off ever since, while testing other wearables in between.

It's accurate in terms of GPS and heart rate, it's fast, it's eminently customizable, and stuffed with neat, handy features. It's got everything from some of the best navigation software I've ever used to advanced training plans courtesy of Garmin Connect. It's tough, built with titanium and either hardened Corning Gorilla or Sapphire glass, and has a battery life lasting around two weeks, depending on the model and size. It's been my daily driver, and frankly, even as a wearables and fitness tester, it's probably too much watch for me. I don't use all the features regularly, but I love big shiny Garmins.

• Browse the full Amazon Prime Day sale

So, two years on, would I get it in 2026? The answer is definitely yes, provided you're someone who will get the most out of it. If you love (and I mean, really love) a whole variety of outdoor pursuits, be they hiking, running, cycling, swimming, orienteering, or a combination of the above, plus other indoor fitness activities like gym sessions, you'll love this watch and consider it good value for money.

If you dabble in activity rather than living and breathing it, you might be better off saving yourself some money and buying a lower-power, lower-feature device like a Garmin Forerunner or Garmin Instinct 3. But for dedicated outdoor enthusiasts, I struggle to imagine a better watch.

If you're in the market for a new Garmin, some of the Prime Day deals (like the ones below on the 43mm Garmin Fenix 8) might look pretty appealing. However, unless you spot a particularly good deal (say, under $700 / £600), I'd actually recommend waiting. Here's why.

The rumor mill is churning...

As we reported earlier in the year, Garmin CEO Cliff Pemble reassured investors that he expected "stronger performance in the back half of the year due to the timing of product launches" and that it would be "a very active year for outdoor". Garmin's outdoor line of watches had a high-profile refresh with the Garmin Instinct 3 release last year, so a big outdoor watch launch for 2026 is likely to mean only one thing — the Garmin Fenix 9.

The timings make sense. Two years after the Fenix 8 launches is ample time for users to get excited about a Fenix 9, just as the 8 came two years after the Fenix 7. I must admit, I personally don't think there's going to be too much change under the hood: a Fenix 9 will cost more due to the recent supply chain price increases, and is unlikely to boast an enormous performance upgrade.

However, what the new watch will do — if it launches this year — is to drive down the price of the old one, just as the Fenix 8 has done with the Garmin Fenix 7 and Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2). These incredible watches can now be found at better-than-half their original prices, and at that sort of price cut, I'd certainly recommend the Garmin Fenix 8 over the likes of a fully-priced Garmin Forerunner 570.

So, if you're holding out for a Fenix 8, it might be prudent to skip the Prime Day deals this year and wait till a sales event in the back half of the year, such as Black Friday, in case the Fenix 9 comes along to knock the 8 off its perch.

However, don't be dissuaded from browsing the rest of the Amazon Prime Day deals, just in case you do find something you're looking for. For Fenix 8 shoppers, that might be the Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): another of my absolute favorite running watches I used to train for, and run, the London Marathon. It's got an up-to-date heart rate sensor so remains accurate, and a whole host of adventure-ready features. I stand by my 4.5 star review.

At under $500 in the US, and a frankly ridiculous £300 in the UK, it's better value than the newer Fenix 8 unless the latter drops to under $700 in the US. In the UK, this deal simply can't be beaten.

More Prime Day deals in the US

• Amazon Devices: Fire Sticks & Echo from $18
• Amazon Haul: viral gadgets, tech & appliances from $1.99
• Apple: MacBooks, AirPods & AirTags from $29
• Beauty: 50% off toothbrushes & hair tools
• Cheap TVs: smart TVs from $69.99
• Garden: tools, mowers, planters from $24.99
• Headphones: 50% off Beats, Bose & Samsung
• Laptops: Apple, HP & Dell from $199
• Mattresses: Sealy, Serta & more from $186
• Patio: outdoor furniture, rugs & decor from $19.99
• Sports: 50% off fitness gear, treadmills & clothing
• Vacuums: Dyson, Shark & Bissell from $34

More Prime Day deals in the UK

• Amazon Prime: sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Amazon Devices: Fire TV, Ring & Blink from £24.99
• Amazon Haul: up to 30% off
• Apple: AirPods Pro 3 for a record-low price
• Appliances: up to 45% off Ninja, Tefal & Sage
• Beauty: up to 60% off Philips & Oral-B
• Essentials: household goods from under £10
• Fashion: up to 50% off
• Headphones: up to 50% off
• Laptops: from £149.99
• Tablets: Samsung & Lenovo from £125
• Toys: up to 25% off Lego and Tonies
• TVs: from £129.99
• Vacuums: up to 40% off Eufy & Roborock
• Wearables: Garmin & Huawei from £36.99

I'm currently testing the Garmin Forerunner 170 Music to see if it merits inclusion in our best Garmin watch list. It's a recent release and stands as the successor to the excellent Garmin Forerunner 165, positioned as one of Garmin's cheaper watches, costing $299 / £259.99 / AU$479 for the version without music storage and $349.99 / £299.99 / AU$549 for the version with music storage.

As a more affordable device (for Garmin, anyway), it's made some concessions during construction, such as a cheaper plastic body without a metal bezel or back, and an older heart rate monitor, Garmin's Elevate V4 model. The more accurate Elevate V5 is reserved for more expensive watches, such as the Garmin Fenix 8.

This did concern me. The Elevate V4 is getting a little long in the tooth, and I wanted to make sure the Forerunner 170 Music was still up to snuff in the accuracy stakes. After all, what's the point of a running watch that isn't accurate?

To find out whether it was accurate, I ran on the treadmill for 25 minutes while wearing both the Garmin Forerunner 170 and the Polar H10 electrical heart rate monitor, which I wore across my chest. The H10 is considered the gold standard of heart rate measurement, far more accurate than the Garmin Forerunner 170, and is my go-to when testing wearables.

Here are the results:

Garmin Forerunner 170 Music vs Polar H10: accuracy test

As you can see, they're actually very close together in the heart rate categories, which is very encouraging. The Polar H10 chest strap read 154 bpm (beats per minute) as the 'average' heart rate across the workout, and 182 bpm as the maximum.

The Garmin Forerunner 170 Music recorded similar data, with a 150 bpm average and 182 bpm maximum. Both measurements were within 5 bpm of the Polar, a very acceptable margin of error.

Calories were a little different, but not by much. The Polar H10 recorded 344 calories burned, while the Garmin Forerunner recorded 316. This is under 10%, and other factors come into play here, such as the Garmin watch's accelerometer, which the Polar doesn't have — heart rate is only part of the story.

Based on these readings and the last few days of testing, I'm happy to say that the Garmin Forerunner 170 Music has proven very accurate so far. Stay tuned for my full review.

It would be fair to say that AI and the rise of chatbots have kicked off a colossal gold rush for fitness apps. The combination of generations' worth of training knowledge packed into a device you carry to the gym in your pocket meant the best workout apps were already popular, but now they can adapt on the fly to your needs or queries.

Fitbod is one of those apps, and it’s one this writer knows very well, having used it for a couple of years. It’s a workout app with a big focus on generating plans for your chosen goal, whether that’s powerlifting or weight loss, and blends cardio exercises with an impressive catalog of strength exercises.

I caught up with Allen Chen, Fitbod’s cofounder and CEO. He’s a UCLA computer science graduate who’s also a NASM-certified personal trainer, making him something of a unicorn in the space.

A decade under the influence

Fitbod launched in 2015, long before the letters ‘A’ and ‘I’ were shoehorned into just about any product. I asked Chen what the biggest changes in the development of fitness apps have been in the last 10 years.

“The biggest shift is the move from generic training plans to truly personalized strength training, but the most striking thing is actually what hasn’t changed,” he said.

“Resistance training was the core of health and fitness when we started, and it remains the core today. It transcends trends. You’re seeing gyms actively swap out cardio equipment for free weights and functional training spaces because that’s what members want.”

“What has changed is how people relate to their workouts. When Fitbod launched, most users were following generic programs they found online, the same templates everyone else was running. Today, people expect personalization. They want a program that reflects their individual schedule, available equipment, recovery status, and fitness goals.”

“What’s new is that they also expect understanding and support, not just a recommendation. It’s no longer enough for an app to tell you what to do. People want to know why they’re seeing a certain exercise, weight, or workout structure, how it connects to their goals, and what to do when progress slows down. That’s the direction the category is moving in, and it’s a big part of where we’re investing.”

Chen says Fitbod is tied to real strength-training inputs, and not generic broad-knowledge prompts. “The foundation of Fitbod has always been adaptive workout planning. The first version of the app was about solving a hard algorithmic problem: given your workout history and muscle recovery state, what’s the optimal workout today? That was genuinely novel in 2015.

“The recent AI acceleration has dramatically expanded what’s possible on top of that foundation. We’re moving from simply generating the right workout to helping members understand their data, interpret their progress, and get more active coaching inside the app.”

Fitbod doesn’t offer a chatbot like the Google Health Coach, but that’s going to change soon, with an upcoming feature called Coach Chat.

“We think about [Coach Chat] in four roles,” Chen explains. “First, as an interpreter, it helps explain things like, 'How does Fitbod help me improve my squat?' Second, as an analyst, it can summarize patterns and help diagnose issues like, “Why has my squat plateaued recently?”

“Third, as a coach, it can guide the next step: 'How do I break out of this plateau?' And fourth, as a motivator, it can reinforce progress and help users stay consistent when they feel discouraged.”

Coach Chat is one part of a salvo of improvements that also includes Workout Insights. This will help users understand why exercises and weights are recommended. Chen says AI can make Fitbod feel “much more human, more transparent, and more supportive”.

“When users hear ‘AI,’ they sometimes expect instant magic. The reality is that the system gets materially better with more user data. Someone with six months of logged workouts gets a fundamentally different experience than someone in week one. Keeping users consistent long enough to see that compounding effect, that’s still the real product challenge.”

“This year alone, we’ve rolled out and expanded features like Focus Exercises, Exercise Percentiles, Injury Mode, Plate Calculator, Live Heart Rate, and broader localization work. We’ve also been developing prototypes and internal tools, including Coach Chat, Chart Generation, Insights M0 and M1, an Internal Evaluation Tool, and a Pydantic Insights Tool, all aimed at making the product smarter, more explainable, and more useful.”

Next steps

With AI becoming an increasingly common part of daily life, Chen says it’s going nowhere.

“In two to three years, AI will have crossed the threshold from novelty to expectation. Users won’t just want an app that generates a workout, they’ll expect it to explain itself, adapt in context, and support them through the inevitable ups and downs of training.

“Systems that can interpret training history, diagnose patterns, explain recommendations, and motivate users in a way that feels timely and personal. In other words, the best products won’t just say, 'Here’s your workout.’ They’ll also be able to say, “Here’s why today looks different, here’s what to focus on, and here’s what your recent data suggests.”

Can users trust programs build by AI? Chen, unsurprising, says yes — and he also doesn’t think trustworthy AI coaches as a concept will devalue personal trainers or traditional programming.

“Trust is a huge issue in AI fitness. If a user can understand why they’re being asked to squat lighter today, or why a plateau might be happening, they’re far more likely to stay engaged and consistent.

“As for devaluing traditional programs, I’d argue the opposite. AI handles more of the science, interpretation, and day-to-day adaptation, which frees coaches to focus on what they’re uniquely good at: judgment, accountability, and the human relationship. The best coaches will become more valuable, not less.”

That trust is important when Fitbod (or another app) recommends you go for a PB when you’re ready, but how does the company balance the need to push a user to a new goal witb the risk of injury?

“It’s something we take seriously. Any system generating workout recommendations at scale carries injury risk if it isn’t built with the right constraints,” Chen acknowledges.

“Most common failure modes are volume spikes, too much, too fast, and failing to respect recovery signals. Fitbod’s architecture is specifically designed to guard against that. The muscle recovery model tracks fatigue at the muscle-group level, and the system adapts recommendations based on training history, recovery, performance, and user feedback.”

“We’re conservative with newer users, and the app is built to adjust if someone struggles with a weight, takes time off, or changes exercises.”

“That same philosophy carries into newer product work. Features like Injury Mode are part of a broader push to make Fitbod more supportive when real life interrupts training. And with future coaching features, we want to help users understand not just what to do, but when to scale, when to modify, and how to train more responsibly.”

“Responsible AI fitness isn’t about pushing people harder at all costs. It’s about helping them progress safely and sustainably.”

Apple’s Health app and Android’s Health Connect functionality will have a role to play in that future, too.

“The long-term vision is a system that knows not just what you lifted last Tuesday, but how well you’ve been recovering, how your heart rate is responding during training, and what that means for what you should do today. Over time, better data infrastructure makes it possible for coaching to become more proactive.

"Instead of only reacting to what a user logged after the fact, the app can become better at helping them understand what’s happening in the moment and what adjustment makes sense next.”

Finally, I wanted to ask how best to take advantage of Fitbod’s feature set. I’ve been using it for a while, but it never hurts to learn more.

“Treat setup the way you’d approach your first session with a personal trainer. Give it real information: your actual fitness level, your real goals, your actual schedule, and your real equipment. The quality of what Fitbod generates is directly proportional to the quality of your inputs.”

“Second, log consistently, especially when you change something. When you swap exercises, adjust weights, change reps, or work through a plateau, that data helps the system learn. The program compounds with use.”

“Third, use the features that make progress visible. Focus Exercises [like squats, bench press, and other cornerstone lifts] are a great example because they help users stay anchored to lifts they care about most. Metrics, percentiles, charts, and insights all matter because they turn vague feelings into something measurable. That’s especially important on the days when progress feels invisible.”

“And more broadly: strength training is one of the highest-leverage health investments most people can make. It affects metabolism, bone density, injury resilience, longevity, and day-to-day quality of life. If you’re not doing it, start. If you are, get more systematic about it. That’s exactly what we’re building Fitbod to support.”

• Google Health 5.02 is now rolling out to users
• It comes with several new features and bug fixes
• The reaction online is becoming more positive

The big switch for Fitbit app users to the Google Health app could've gone a lot smoother than it has, but with the latest update that's rolling out to devices now, Google seems to be gradually addressing a lot of the complaints that have been aired.

As spotted by Android Police, Google Health 5.02 is heading to phones now. There's also a forum post outlining some of the changes: the ability to put more metrics on the Today view and an easier way to rearrange them, fixes for editing and deleting sleep sessions, and a return for the Hourly Activity chart.

There are also numerous "bug fixes and stability improvements", as well as improvements to nutrition logging. A lot of these changes focus specifically on parts of the app that users had complained about, so it seems Google is listening to feedback.

We also have the promise of more updates "in the coming weeks", so Google Health should continue to get better over time. There was also a significant update earlier this month that dealt with several problems that had been reported in the app.

User reactions

Google Health app 5.02 update - June 2026 from r/fitbit

There's been plenty of reaction online to the revamping of the Fitbit app as Google Health. Many of the old features were changed, moved, or cut out entirely — while the change understandably frustrated those who had been using the app for years.

Based on the feedback we're now seeing, Google is slowly winning people over again, though there's still a lot of work to do. "It seems they're genuinely working hard to improve it," says one Redditor, while others are praising the Google team for "solid work" and generally being more positive.

That doesn't mean everyone is convinced yet though. One post says there's "no fixes to the real issues" (like better syncing and importing), while others point out that the algorithms used by the app are still unreliable.

The new AI coach is still getting criticized as well, for being too intrusive and verbose: "Nobody wants two paragraphs after a walk through the park," says one user on Reddit. "A one-liner and the ability to expand is needed here."

Last week, Apple unveiled Siri AI across all its devices at its annual WWDC event. While much time was given to how you'll be able to use Apple's new virtual assistant on iPhone, iPad and Mac, the Apple Watch was overlooked — despite the fact that, according to Apple, it's "the most convenient way to interact with Siri" more often than not.

That quote comes from Apple's own David Clark, senior director of watchOS software engineering. I had the opportunity to ask Clark, as well as Cait Dooley, Apple Watch and Health Product Marketing Manager, about how they see Apple Watch users interacting with Siri AI on their wrists.

Clark said one of the goals of watchOS 27 was "to expand the intelligence story on Apple Watch and make it a true co-partner to Apple Intelligence". It's doing so by being a first point of contact, as a wearable is a convenient place to house a microphone for asking Siri questions.

"We really wanted to make sure the Siri experience is a singular and consistent experience, whether I decide to ask Siri on my wrist a question, or whether I have my phone in my hand and I decide to interact with Siri there. We really wanted to feel like it’s one Siri, that has access to your data and is able to personalise it in a consistent way.

"One of the things that Apple Watch brings to the picture is the fact that it’s on your wrist all day, [so] oftentimes it’s the most convenient way to interact with Siri. You can imagine you’re on the go, your hands are full, you have that quick question for Siri and you can interact with Apple Watch. Of course, with the new Siri app, if you want to continue that conversation or go more deeply into some topic you’re interested in, later on you can pull out your phone and pick up right where you left off.”

Clark gives me an example of a grocery list in a store: with hands full, he's able to ask Siri on Watch for the ingredients he needs for a particular recipe. When he gets a moment, he can then open his phone to view that ingredients list in an easier-to-read way. "Working together is that superpower," he says, "and having it all being consistently driven by your data."

The elephant in the room: watchOS 27 and compatibility

As the announcements were rolling out, however, there was a pall over watchOS 27 as it was announced that five older models — the Apple Watch Series 6, 7, 8, the SE 2 and even the original Apple Watch Ultra — won't get watchOS 27, and so won't get the new Siri AI features. They'll only receive basic security support going forward.

I asked the watchOS team exactly why so many watch users have been left high-and-dry.

"With every software release across every single one of our platforms, we always want to ensure that you have the best experience, so we make power and performance a priority," said Dooley.

"The great new features in watchOS, including the capabilities of SIri AI and the new tap gesture, work best with the processing power that is in Apple Watch Series 9 and later, Ultra 2 and later, and SE 3. Older devices can still be paired with iPhones that are running the latest software and continue to receive security updates, so they can continue to have a great Apple Watch experience."

So while you'll be able to use older your watch with iPhones running Siri AI-powered software, you won't be able to access the new and smarter assistant on your watch. Although Dooley and Clark wouldn't confirm this is the case, it's likely only Apple Watches running Apple's powerful S9 and S10 chips can handle the technical demands of Siri AI.

• The Jaye Band is a new, minimalist smartwatch device
• Its primary job is showing you your most important phone notifications
• There are no on-board apps or sensors to get in the way

Left unchecked, the phones we carry around with us at all times can become overwhelmingly distracting. A new wearable called the Jaye Band wants to do something about that, acting as a simple filter for everything that happens on your phone.

It's now raising funds on Kickstarter (via Android Authority), and sells itself as "the minimalist smartwatch designed for the modern attention crisis". It promises to "reclaim your brain" and give you "a wearable built to filter your distractions, not add to them".

The idea is that the band becomes a discreet window for your most important notifications, while everything else gets left on your phone. You can set blocks of 'do not disturb' time, and there's no tracking or health monitoring.

In theory, your phone stays in your pocket for much more of the day, so you're not constantly checking for new alerts, switching between apps, and scrolling through feed after feed on social media to find a new distraction.

Pricing and shipping

Hardware wise, the Jaye Band sports a small, monochrome OLED display, intended to be shown on the inside of your wrist. The device measures just 38mm x 14.5mm x 7mm (that's 1.5 inches x 0.6 inches x 0.3 inches), so it's very lightweight.

The wearable has already gone through three rounds of design and refinement, the developers say, and now needs funding for the production push. It's already blown past its $5,000 goal, and has raised $35,749 at the time of writing.

There's an early bird price deal currently available which lets you reserve your band for $129 (about £97 / AU$184, though shipping to Australia doesn't seem to be offered). When the device launches fully, it'll retail for $249 (about £188 / AU$355).

Shipping is scheduled for December 2026, but as always with Kickstarter, there may be delays and production problems along the way. If you're looking for a more minimal tech experience day-to-day, the Jaye Band could be the answer.

• Wear OS 7 is rolling out now
• It's initially available for the Pixel Watch 4, 3, and 2
• Three major changes are available now, including live updates, but Gemini Intelligence features are coming later

It’s a big day for Google — and anyone with a device running Google’s software — because not only has the company launched Android 17, we've also been treated to Wear OS 7.

This smartwatch update doesn’t contain quite as much new stuff as Android 17, but there are three major new features and improvements on day one — with more to come over the next few months.

So it’s worth downloading, and it’s initially available for the Google Pixel Watch 4, the Pixel Watch 3, and the Pixel Watch 2. Below, you’ll find full details of what it includes now, and what’s coming later.

Day one Wear OS 7 features

The following three features are available now with the Wear OS 7 update, so you’ll be able to try them out as soon as you download it.

1. Live updates

The biggest Wear OS 7 feature that’s available now is live updates, meaning that you can track things like deliveries and sports scores live on your wrist, just like you already could on your phone.

You’ll be able to see an icon at the bottom of the watch face which you can tap on to view live details.

Similarly, there will also be a card at the top of the notifications feed which can display some information — such as the estimated arrival time of a food delivery — but which when tapped on will provide other details too, such as the delivery code you’ll need to give.

2. Improved battery life

Google has also worked behind the scenes in Wear OS 7 to deliver power optimizations, which the company claims will increase your watch’s battery life by up to 10% compared to on Wear OS 6.

The exact improvement will probably depend on which watch you have, but Google hasn’t got more specific than that.

3. An audio switcher

The third and final day one Wear OS 7 feature is a new audio output switcher, which lets you use your watch to choose which of your devices you want to play audio through — be it a speaker in your home, your phone, your headphones, or whatever else.

You can already do all this from your phone, but this is a potentially convenient alternative if you don’t have your phone to hand.

Coming soon

The following two features are also classed as being part of Wear OS 7, but they’re not available quite yet. Instead, they should arrive over the next few months once Google adds Gemini Intelligence to its smartwatches.

4. Create My Widget

Create My Widget is one of the big features that Gemini Intelligence is set to power, with this allowing you to create “custom dashboards” for your smartwatch simply by describing the functionality you want and leaving Gemini to create them. A similar feature is also coming to Android, as pictured above.

5. Task automation

Task automation will allow you to ask Gemini to do things for you, such as placing an order on a food delivery app, and this isn’t just coming to phones — you’ll also soon be able to ask for and track task automations from your wrist.

• The Garmin Enduro 4 has appeared as a reference in the back-end code of the Garmin Connect app
• The code doesn't specify a release date, but it's a new addition in the app's latest update
• It points to a launch for the Enduro 4 and Fenix 9, as previous versions of both devices have launched together

I've been devouring every crumb of news we can get about the Garmin Fenix 9 range, and when it will launch. After all, the Fenix 8 quickly made our list of the best Garmin watches after it launched, and is Garmin's preeminent premium watch.

The Enduro series, meanwhile, is effectively a powerful, battery life-focused version of the Fenix watches, and the Enduro 3 launched alongside the Garmin Fenix 8 in 2024. In our Garmin Enduro 3 review we said "the Enduro line puts battery first, all while offering most of the features from the Fenix series", with our reviewer getting almost a month's worth of battery from a single charge.

So it's exciting to hear our first whispers about the Garmin Enduro 4, as it suggests the full Fenix 9 range could be coming soon.

How the Garmin Enduro 4 leaked

The latest information comes courtesy of Gadgets & Wearables, which did an APK teardown examining the code of version 5.26 of the Android Garmin Connect app, and spotted 'Enduro 4' in a device registry.

This was reportedly not in version 5.25, suggesting it's a recent addition — and that a launch could be imminent.

It only adds weight to recent rumors that the Fenix 9 is coming soon. Garmin CEO Cliff Pemble reassured investors earlier this year that he expected "stronger performance in the back half of the year due to the timing of product launches," and that it would be "a very active year for outdoor".

Garmin's outdoor line of watches includes the Garmin Fenix series, alongside other high-profile entries such as the Garmin Instinct series. Given that the Garmin Instinct 3 arrived last year, and that the Fenix 8 is now a few years old, it's not hard to connect the dots. More soon.

• TechRadar is running a live Q&A in the lead-up to our Oura Ring 5 review
• Leave a comment with what you're most interested in hearing about below
• You can ask questions all week before the Q&A closes

The Oura Ring 5 only started shipping just over a week ago, but it's already causing a stir, with early impressions mostly positive across the board — thanks to being such a substantial, visible upgrade over the previous model.

I'm currently testing what Oura claims to be "the world's smallest smart ring", and while I can't yet access every feature in the app — some require at least 30 days of continuous wear to establish personal health baselines — the ring design itself is a big step up.

It's significantly more petite than the Oura Ring 4, both in form and weight, which gives it a much better fit and makes it more comfortable to wear. While I'm still in the process of determining a final verdict on its performance, accuracy and value, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Want to know if it feels noticeably different compared to the Ring 4? If you can still wear it while typing or lifting weights without it feeling bulky? Or how long the battery really lasts? Drop your question in the comment box below, and I'll get back to you.

This live Q&A will remain open until early next week, when my Oura Ring 5 review will be published. Because I won't yet have unlocked every new feature that's available, my verdict will be based on an early assessment of what I have been able to test in just over two weeks.

That's why I'm opening this testing period up to you. I want to know what your biggest questions are about what could be the best smart ring available. Of course, I'll be looking at its price, design, features, and performance to determine a final value score, but I know that won't cover everything.

There are countless questions I imagine many of you will likely have before clicking buy on a $399 / £399 / AU$649 smart ring — or $499 / £499 / AU$799 if you're considering one of the more premium finishes — so let me know what you're weighing up, and I'll try to help where I can.

What are TechRadar saying about the Oura Ring 5?

I already know from the early results of the poll above that most TechRadar readers don't want to spend the extra $50 / £50 / AU$80 that the Ring 5 costs over the Ring 4, but many of you said you would wait to see what the reviews say.

If that's you, this is your chance to get a behind-the-scenes look at the testing process. As I noted above, I haven't yet been able to explore all the new features Oura Ring 5 brings, but some of the basic features are unlocked after 10 days of wear, so I can give you early answers on whether they're actually useful.

Which brings me to another caveat, because I live in the UK, I don't have access to every new feature that Oura is currently rolling out, which means I won't be able to test the new 'Lab Uploads', 'Brain Health Study,' and 'Health Radar' at all.

That's a shame because those three features are among the most sought after, judging by the results of the above poll, which shows that the majority (40%) of TechRadar readers are most excited to try 'Health Radar: Blood Pressure Signals'.

'Brain Health Study', 'Nighttime Breathing', which is part of 'Health Radar', and 'Lab Uploads' also ranked highly among readers, raising the question of whether the Oura Ring 5 is most suited to those who live stateside.

Let me know if missing out on those new features is a deal breaker for you? I'll be considering all aspects, like these regional limitations, in my review.

Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro: One minute review

Three years after the release of the Cheetah Pro smartwatch, Amazfit has finally released its successor, the aptly named Cheetah 2 Pro. Designed for serious road runners who rely on structured training plans, the smartwatch is a solid offering that competes admirably with the best running watches on the market right now. It doesn't hit the dizzying heights of Garmin's top-range alternatives, but Amazfit has definitely closed the gap. The Cheetah 2 Pro has a bigger sibling, the Cheetah 2 Ultra, which is slightly larger, more expensive and comes with trail running profiles with gradient and terrain features not present here.

The high price tag for a watch without trail features will put a lot of people off, especially considering Amazfit is still an unknown brand to many and a budget brand to those in the know. On closer inspection, the cost is mostly justified. The bright 1.32-inch AMOLED display is super-sharp and covered with scratch-resistant sapphire crystal glass.

The display is housed in a high-end grade 5 titanium alloy case, which looks and feels premium, but the 15.6 mm thickness and large sensor bump make the watch uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time.

The Cheetah 2 Pro includes an impressive set of features, including structured training plans and AI-driven adaptive workouts. It also tracks comprehensive health data, including 24/7 heart rate, blood oxygen, and skin temperature, all making it possible to generate a daily "Readiness Score" for monitoring fatigue. The watch reaches a high level of accuracy across most tested metrics.

As you’d expect for a watch at this price, the Cheetah 2 Pro boasts offline color maps and navigation tools such as automatic rerouting and point-to-point route planning. It’s an extensive set of features, but the implementation is lacking finesse. Due to limited hardware, panning and zooming maps is laggy.

When it comes to running smartwatches, Amazfit is closing the gap on Garmin, but they’ve still got a long way to go, especially when it comes to dedicated running tools.

Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro: Specifications

Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro: Price and availability

• $499.99 USD / £449.90 UK / $729 AUS
• More affordable than the Garmin Forerunner 970
• Impressive set of features for the price

The Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro costs $499.99 USD / £449.90 UK, which represents a significant 50% increase over the price of the original Cheetah Pro. Amazfit justifies this huge jump by offering high-end hardware, including a titanium bezel, sapphire crystal lens, and up to 20 days of battery life.

Its position in the market is as a budget-friendly alternative to Garmin's flagship elite tier, specifically the Garmin Forerunner 970. While both watches boast premium titanium bezels and crisp AMOLED screens, the more expensive Garmin boasts superior features, especially when it comes to offline maps and ECG functionality.

• Value score 4/5

Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro: Design

• Premium materials and a bright AMOLED display
• Touchscreen interface and physical buttons
• Overly chunky design

The Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro boasts a gorgeous premium grade-5 titanium alloy case finished off with a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal glass. The 1.32-inch AMOLED display is brilliantly sharp, with an impressive 3,000 nits of peak brightness which guarantees clarity even on sunny days.

If you were wondering why the watch costs so much, the material make-up and AMOLED display are two of the reasons. Compared to the cheap, plastic feel of a lot of sports trackers, the Cheetah 2 Pro is a high-end piece of hardware, only let down by the bundled silicone strap, which feels like an ill-considered afterthought.

Alongside the touchscreen interface, the watch features a four-button layout with tactile aluminum buttons. The presence of physical buttons proved valuable, in my experience, especially when using the watch with sweaty hands or in the rain.

As much as I love the design of the Cheetah 2 Pro, it's let down by its over-large 15.6mm thickness. It absolutely dwarfed my wife's smaller wrist, and due to the size and weight I found it uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time. If Amazfit could work out a way to reduce the thickness of the underside sensor bump, then a lot of these problems would go away.

• Design Score: 4/5

Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro: Features

• Excellent structured training, especially with Zepp Flow AI
• Offline maps and turn-by-turn navigation
• An extensive set of sensors

At the heart of the Cheetah 2 Pro are the structured training plans and purpose-driven workouts. It's like having your own personal running coach or using a platform such as Runna, but without the ongoing cost. There are workouts and plans for half marathons, full marathons, and Fartlek runs, and every session helps extend endurance, build strength, and ensure appropriate recovery, all done via Zepp Coach AI.

In addition to dedicated training plans, the Cheetah 2 Pro boasts an extensive set of navigation features which help keep you on track, however hard you're pushing. I was pleased to see the presence of offline maps and turn guidance, and it's even possible to import courses so you can confidently navigate through routes you're not familiar with. Beyond this, the watch includes automatic rerouting, points of interest search, and point-to-point route planning.

The upgraded optical sensors comprise 5 photodiodes and 2 LEDs, providing continuous 24/7 monitoring for heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and stress levels. All of these sensors, and more, feed the data so the watch can provide a daily Readiness Score for evaluating training fatigue and overall status. Additional environmental sensors include a skin temperature sensor, barometric altimeter, gyroscope, accelerometer, and geomagnetic compass.

In comparison to the Forerunner 970, the Cheetah comes up short in most areas. The Garmin features a more comprehensive set of tools, including its localized crowd-sourced popularity routing database, granular analytics, and ECG functionality. If you want the very best, Garmin is still the brand to turn to.

• Features Score: 4/5

Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro: Performance

• Spot on GPS and heart rate performance
• Excellent map functionality but a little laggy
• Top-level activity tracking and health monitoring

Serious runners require accurate on-board GPS, and the Cheetah 2 Pro provides exactly that. Courtesy of its advanced positioning systems, the watch is able to deliver accurate tracking and pacing even when the signal appears to weaken. I compared it with the same route run with my accuracy benchmark, the Garmin Tactix 8, and the Huawei Watch Ultimate 2. It tracked these runs to within one or two per cent accuracy and was able to cope with varying surroundings, including high-rise buildings and forests.

Map functionality is extensive enough for most runners, although the subjective experience wasn’t perfect. Any amount of panning and zooming resulted in a stutter, and if I were cycling, the map wouldn’t update particularly smoothly. These problems are not game-changers, but if you’re after the smoothest map interactions, then the Cheetah 2 Pro doesn’t have the hardware to deliver that.

The Cheetah 2 Pro is a solid running coach on the wrist. It is able to provide specific metrics such as ground contact time, stride length, and cadence. The ability to track in real-time my VO2 Max level and running power is super-helpful to know if I am doing well (or not, as the case may be).

An extensive set of health metrics is available, including heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, heart rate variability (HRV), respiration rate, lactate threshold, VO2, and more. The heart rate was an exact match to a dedicated heart rate monitor band. The heart rate zone feature is a nice addition for knowing when you’re building endurance, improving speed, or pushing too hard.

Amazfit positions the watch as a long-distance runner's dream, and that requires outstanding battery performance with every feature and setting turned on. They claim up to 31 hours with accurate GPS mode enabled, which is more than enough to perform a long-distance run, assuming it doesn't span multiple days. When you're using the watch in between trainings, you can expect up to 20 days of battery life with typical use.

The Cheetah 2 Pro is much more than a running watch, though. Its general smartwatch features are comparable with the very best from Apple, Google, and Samsung. You can make and receive Bluetooth calls, read and reply to texts, and utilize Zepp Pay for NFC contactless payments. All in, it’s a very useful watch for day-to-day living.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro: Scorecard

Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

How I tested

I’ve been wearing the Cheetah 2 Pro for the better part of six weeks. In this time I have used it while running, cycling, walking, relaxing, and more. I tested it against a Coros heart rate monitor as well as competitor devices for accuracy. It has also acted as a companion device to my smartphone, keeping me up-to-date with everything going on in my world.

First reviewed: June 2026

• The90 Gem necklace measures UV rays in your surroundings
• It then gives personalized advice on how to stay safe
• The high-tech device is styled as a pendant necklace

It often doesn’t take a lot to burn your skin if you’re out in the sun, and even just a few minutes of exposure can do damage if you’re not properly protected. Instead of guessing the best course of action, a new wearable device from The90 could help you know exactly what to do.

Dubbed the Gem, the product rather grandly describes itself as “The first personal sun intelligence system” that helps you “protect your skin's future in real time.” Despite that, it looks like a simple pendant at first glance. Worn around your neck, it could easily be mistaken for a piece of jewelry to the untrained eye. But there’s a lot more to it than that.

The main pendant is actually an ultraviolet (UV) light sensor that can measure the levels of both UVA (ageing) and UVB (burning) that you’re subject to. It combines this with your personalized skin profile, which covers your skin type, current clothing, and whether you’ve already applied sunscreen.

Once the device has all of that, it can give you advice on when it’s time to apply more sunscreen, cover up with extra clothes, or get under shade and out of the sun entirely. It does this through the company’s companion app, which is available for free.

Actionable insights

Plenty of weather apps provide data on UV rays in your local area, but the issue is they’re always going to be relatively inaccurate since they cover broad areas. A device like the Gem, on the other hand, can measure UV levels in your direct vicinity, giving you potentially more accurate information.

And because it takes variable factors into account — such as your clothing and skin type — it might be able to give you more valuable and actionable insights than something that just gives out blanket advice.

Still, it has a couple of limitations. It only comes in one style, for one thing, and that might not appeal to everyone. When you have a device that doubles up as both a health tracker and a wearable necklace, it could be a risk to only offer one appearance.

As well as that, the Gem is priced at $299, which makes it a fairly expensive — and therefore fairly niche — device. That’s perhaps reflected by its positioning as a piece of high-tech jewelry rather than a simple UV tracker. Still, it could price more people out than a simpler product would.

Despite all that, though, the Gem has promise. Founded by a Fitbit/Google veteran and with plenty of interesting ideas, it could certainly be one to watch.

I’ve been testing the best fitness apps for many years now, and while I’m very grateful they all exist (after all, no one app will work for every user), it’s hard not to feel as though things have stagnated somewhat.

The AI boom (or bubble that could burst, depending on who you ask) means we have more options for AI fitness algorithms to pore over data than ever before, whether you’re using them on a phone or one of the best smartwatches.

BetterMe is a more holistic app that I’m used to, wrapping in just about every tenet of fitness and wellbeing, and while it’s a little overwhelming at first, I’ve slipped into a nice rhythm with it.

Not just curls and squats

My go-to fitness app is Fitbod, and it has been for years. I appreciate its relative simplicity, its regular updates, and the fact that I can track how each muscle set grows in strength (plus the Spotify Wrapped-alike end-of-year review is always fun).

BetterMe, in many ways, dwarfs Fitbod and other rivals in terms of its sheer scale. This Ukrainian app has existed for almost a decade, and it shows — it’s absolutely packed with features that run the gamut from food plans to guided challenges, and a more traditional way of using it as a digital notebook to track reps and weights.

Workouts themselves are easy to follow, with rest stops between sets built into each program, along with warm-ups. You can also stream your workout info to your TV or Mac, which is a nice touch if you want a larger canvas for your metrics.

I also appreciate the “Common Mistakes” section. If you’ve not used a particular piece of gym equipment before, for example, this can highlight the best way to do so safely. For leg extension (one of my favorites, for example), it advised against heavy lifting, high reps, going too fast, or locking the knees.

If you are looking to use BetterMe without a membership, you can use many of the workout tracking tools without needing to pay anything, but you’ll have access to an encyclopedia of exercises if you want to pay for a one-week plan or above, like the paid tiers of many other fitness apps like Google Health Premium.

That’s where BetterMe’s ambitions will be tough to take for some: by incorporating so much under one umbrella, it’s fairly pricey, especially once you start adding additional options like Mindfulness to the standard plan framework that you can get for $14.99 (around £11 / AU$21) a month.

It’s also not always entirely clear how much each extra option will cost, because payment information is obfuscated in the app and on the BetterMe website. This is a design choice that, admittedly, makes me feel a little uneasy about using the app. There is, thankfully, a week’s free trial to test BetterMe.

Value packing

And yet, if I wanted a one-stop shop for fitness, this is where I’d lay my money. BetterMe offers calorie and hydration tracking, meal plans, meditation, and exercise guides.

It’s not uncommon for a fitness app to have a sort of ‘Dashboard’ view with key metrics, but BetterMe’s relatively minimal colors and visual stylings make it much easier to see a week’s worth of workouts at a glance.

One of my favorite parts is the way each day is mapped out like a sort of task list. It begins with mindfulness exercises, then logging calories, a workout, a weigh-in, water intake, and more.

I’m also a big fan of the workout categories. Some apps dump a whole bunch of exercises into a list and call it a day, but I appreciate that there are Micro Workouts for those days where time is limited, pilates plans (including wall variants), and more focused exercises like boxing, chair yoga, and kegel for sexual wellness.

Many of these can then be splintered off into specific muscle categories, meaning there’s a ton of value here for those who like to mix things up regularly and keep their body guessing.

There really is so much content here that, after weeks of testing, I’m still not sure I’ve seen the bottom yet. While I’m not entirely sure BetterMe is the workout app I’d choose given how many features I wouldn’t use regularly, if you’re looking for something that offers a mind-boggling all-in-one solution, it’s one of the slickest, most comprehensive fitness apps I’ve tested.

In your 30s? Years of sitting — at a desk, in a car, on a sofa — gradually teach the body to stop recruiting the glutes properly. It could be that your hip flexors feel a little tighter, or that your lower back picks up the slack when other muscle groups should be working.

Then, one day, that back starts aching for reasons that seem to come from nowhere.

For elite performance coach and Hollywood trainer David Higgins — whose client list spans everyone from Scarlett Johansson and Margot Robbie to Samuel L. Jackson and David Harbour — this is one of the most common and most preventable patterns he sees. The fix, in his view, starts with a single back-to-basics movement: the hip bridge.

David Higgins also recommended the farmer's walk as his go-to muscle-building exercise for over 50s.

What glute dysfunction actually looks and feels like

The trouble with glute dysfunction is that it rarely announces itself clearly. It tends to show up as something else — tightness in the hip flexors each time you lace up your running shoes, persistent lower back tension, hamstrings that feel perpetually strained, or a vague instability when you're standing on one leg.

“Desk-bound lifestyles teach the body to live in hip flexion, which switches the glutes off over time,” says Higgins. The glutes aren't beyond repair; however, they've simply been trained out of the habit of engaging.

One of the clearest tell-tale signs is which muscles dominate during lower-body movement. “During a bridge, for example, you should feel the glutes initiating and finishing the movement, not cramping in the hamstrings,” he says. If your hamstrings are dominating and your lower back is doing the heavy lifting, the glutes aren't contributing properly.

The connection between weak glutes and lower back pain is equally well established. “The glutes help stabilize the pelvis,” Higgins explains. “When they stop doing their job, the lower back overworks to create stability. Where you feel pain is often not where the real problem lives.” Treating the back when the glutes are the underlying issue is, at best, managing symptoms, while the hip bridge can address the source.

Why the hip bridge is the right starting point

The hip bridge works because it isolates the glutes and retrains the pattern of proper activation without requiring any equipment, any particular fitness baseline, or any complex technique. It’s accessible enough to work for someone returning to exercise after years away, while being specific enough to be useful for people who train regularly but have never consciously addressed their glute function.

For desk-bound adults who commit to it consistently, Higgins says the results come faster than most expect. “If someone's desk-bound but consistent, they can usually begin restoring proper glute activation within 2–6 weeks,” he explains. “The body adapts to repetition — both good and bad.”

His coaching cue is the cornerstone of the whole thing: “Ribs down, squeeze the glutes before you lift.” Not arch, or thrust — squeeze. The movement should come from the glutes extending through the hips, not from the lower back overextending to create the illusion of range. Most people get this wrong. They flare the ribs, overarch the spine, rush the reps or push through the toes rather than the heels. Higgins is clear: “Posture dictates muscle recruitment.”

How to perform the hip bridge

• To perform the hip bridge, lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor, hip-width apart.
• Brace your core, squeeze your glutes and drive through your heels to lift your hips until your body forms a straight line from shoulders to knees.
• Pause briefly at the top, then lower with control and repeat.

For beginners, Higgins programmes the bridge with a pause at the top.

“I want people to own the top position, not just fling their hips upward,” he says. In practice, that means either 10–15 controlled reps or short holds of 3–5 seconds at the top — both approaches force you to actually be in the position rather than simply passing through it.

You should feel the bridge primarily in the glutes. Some hamstring involvement is normal, but if the hamstrings are doing most of the work, either the feet are positioned too far from the body or the glutes aren't yet firing as they should. Adjust the foot position first, then focus on the squeeze cue before you lift.

Once the bodyweight bridge is consistent and the glutes are clearly initiating the movement, progressions include single-leg bridges, adding a miniband above the knees, or incorporating longer holds.

What the hip bridge alone won't fix

“Hip bridges are brilliant, but on their own they're not enough for most desk-bound people,” Higgins says. “You also need hip mobility, breathing work, walking mechanics and postural correction,” he says, noting that the body “works as a system, not isolated parts.”

With Higgins’ guidance, try to think of the bridge as the foundation — restoring the basic capacity for the glutes to switch on and do their job. From there, the work expands outward: opening up the hip flexors that have been shortened by years of sitting, retraining walking mechanics so the glutes are actually loaded during movement, and building the postural habits that keep the whole system honest.

Start in your 30s and the work is preventive. “Simple exercises done well will always outperform complicated training done badly," he explains. Getting the fundamentals right now is the most efficient thing you can do for your back, your hips and your long-term ability to move freely.

You can also check out three stretches from a desk yoga expert to undo the damage of sitting at your desk.

• This Whoop hack matches heart rate to meeting attendees
• It can link coworkers with higher levels of stress
• The unofficial hack was made with the help of Claude Fable 5 AI

We've seen several examples of people hacking their Whoop bands before (including recently), but nothing quite on this level: one enterprising user has hooked his Whoop up to his meetings schedule on Google Calendar, and can now work out which of his coworkers raise his stress levels the most.

Developer Pankaj Tanwar posted his custom-made setup on X, and it's clearly something a lot of other people are interested in — at the time of writing there are more than 10 million views registered on the post.

We don't get too much in the way of detail about how this was done, but Tanwar says he used the Claude Fable AI model to reverse engineer his Whoop and extract the heart rate data. That was then matched up with calendar meetings, and the colleagues attending.

"I now have a leaderboard and I think about it daily," says Tanwar, who has sensibly edited his screenshot so that we can't actually see which people get his blood boiling more than others. It's a really neat idea and a great example of a hardware and software hack that produces some genuinely interesting data.

More please

Of course this isn't an exact science — heart rate can vary for all kinds of reasons, including time of day and eating and drinking routines. It's possible that it's the subjects of the meetings that are getting Tanwar's heart rate spiking, rather than the coworkers that are sitting in there with him.

Still, it's a fun experiment, and even if the Whoop isn't correctly identifying the colleagues that cause the most stress, the data can be used to manage health and well-being during the working day, in and out of meetings.

It's something I'd love to have on my own fitness tracker: the sort of insight that these AI-enhanced trackers should be giving us. Which colleague annoys me the most? What parts of my commute are the most stressful? Which TV shows calm me down?

This is also more evidence for the increasingly capable AI models that we're all getting access to. Fable 5 has only just been released to the world at large, and is already being used to produce next-level apps and tools with just a few lines of prompting — see also these alternative Fitbit apps.

• Apple’s Walkie Talkie feature seems to be missing from watchOS 27
• It lets you chat to a companion via your Apple Watch
• Users have reported it’s nowhere to be seen in the first watchOS 27 beta

When Apple announces new software, as it did at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 8, the usual procedure is that the company adds new features. But this time, eagle-eyed sleuths have noticed that an enjoyable feature has been removed from watchOS 27 — and there’s no indication that it’s coming back.

The feature in question is called Walkie Talkie, and it lets you raise your wrist and chat with another connected Apple Watch user. It’s a fun little way to communicate with other people and can be especially entertaining for younger children.

Yet it appears that Walkie Talkie is entirely absent from the watchOS 27 developer beta that Apple recently released. Although Apple hasn’t made any official announcement on this topic, Walkie Talkie appears to be missing from the first watchOS 27 beta.

Users have taken to social media to voice their disappointment, with user ra4oasis lamenting: “Well that sucks. My son and I use it all the time.” User Loupetron_Primal, meanwhile, explained the usefulness of the feature: “My best friend and I live in a split-level apartment. He’s upstairs and I’m downstairs. We’ve used this feature for years instead of shouting.”

A sadly neglected feature

While I can’t say that I’ve been a frequent user of Walkie Talkie, it’s had its moments over the years that I’ve owned an Apple Watch. It’s a great retro throwback and has genuine utility for those times when you don’t need a full-on phone call or text conversation.

Yet Apple has barely given it a second glance since launching Walkie Talkie in 2018. It’s had no significant updates in the years since, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that many Apple Watch users don’t even know it exists. That suggests this could be a deliberate app retirement from Apple rather than a mistake or oversight.

As well as that, Walkie Talkie has been the subject of complaints and criticism over its occasional unreliability. On Reddit, for example, user nate390 argued that it was always a little flawed: “It was a really nice idea, but in my experience, it didn’t work well. Well, it did when both parties were on cellular, but not so much when one or other end was connected to an iPhone via Bluetooth.” With that in mind, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised to see it fail to make the cut in watchOS 27.

Still, it’s disappointing that this feature has apparently been removed entirely — perhaps Apple felt it wasn’t worth the effort to fix it up. While there’s a small chance that Apple could change course before watchOS 27 launches to the public in the fall, don’t bet the farm on it.

• Strava has just unveiled a suite of new hiking features
• These include revamped Maps, available to all this summer...
• ... and premium-exclusive features like off-route alerts

Strava users are getting an updated suite of hiking features, with almost all of them available now. Most of the new features are exclusively for Premium subscribers, although there are a few additions available for free users too.

Top of the list — and the only feature that's been delayed until later this summer — are style improvements to Strava's map software. According to Strava, "athletes will be able to view richer trail surface data, along with clearer points of interest like trailheads, picnic areas, and campgrounds that makes dense trail networks legible at a glance."

This feature is coming to both free and premium users. It represents a big quality of life update, helping even free users plan routes ahead of time, while Premium users will be able to use it alongside route creation tools, which have been updated with dedicated trail features too. If you're planning a big hiking trip and you're already a Strava user, you could get a lot of mileage out of signing up to Strava Premium temporarily, as you get a 30-day free trial.

Other new additions include off-route alerts, a feature that "notifies athletes when they stray from a planned route, so they can course-correct before getting lost", according to Strava. This is already used by rivals like AllTrails, and has course-corrected me more than once during a hike, so it's nice to see it here.

Activity Replays is a new feature that provides an animated loop of your hike when you share it — this is also something AllTrails does, but what AllTrails doesn't have is Strava's massive userbase of people who love to share their workouts. I can imagine many power users will get a real kick out of posting a flashy video flyover of their hike.

Premium users can download routes ahead of time for low-signal areas. This isn't a new feature, but it's especially relevant for hikers. Users with one of the best Apple Watches can also follow the routes on their wrist, without a phone.

Aside from the Maps revamp, all the features mentioned above are available now. Strava Premium is becoming increasingly good value as an all-encompassing fitness app experience, and it's working hard to eat the lunch of the likes of AllTrails and Komoot.

• A certification listing has been spotted for a device believed to be the Garmin Cirqa
• It lists Bluetooth as the only connectivity option, suggesting this won't have Wi-Fi or GPS
• That puts it in line with rival screenless wearables

If you’ve been looking forward to the Garmin Cirqa, we’ve got some slightly disappointing but unsurprising news — it seems this screenless wearable will lack ANT+, GPS, and Wi-Fi.

This is according to a certification listing for a device believed to be the Cirqa found on the Integrated Regulatory Information System (IRIS) in Singapore, as spotted by The5kRunner (via NotebookCheck).

The listing reveals just Bluetooth for connectivity, which means the Garmin Cirqa — assuming that’s what this is — would need to be paired with a smartphone in close proximity in order to track things like distances and routes when running or cycling.

So if you prefer to work out without your phone, this rumored wearable might not be the one for you.

Putting it in line with rivals

While that’s a shame, it’s not really surprising considering that rival screenless devices like the Fitbit Air and Whoop 5.0 also lack built-in GPS.

But that means the Cirqa will probably fall in line with them, rather than rising above them. This could have been a clear differentiation that would help Garmin’s upcoming device beat its key rivals, but the brand seemingly hasn’t taken that opportunity.

Still, for those who already wear a Garmin watch, or simply like the Garmin brand but want something without a screen, the Cirqa will probably still be the obvious choice, so there’s likely to be a built-in audience for it.

We’ll probably find out exactly what the Garmin Cirqa has to offer — and whether it has any other ways of standing out — soon, with previous leaks pointing to a mid-2026 launch.

Today's WWDC 2026 conference has given Apple fans something they've craved for years: a powerful, agentic version of Siri, with its own dedicated app. The new Siri AI is designed to work across the entire suite of Apple tools, from powerful Macs to the smallest watch. But the AI health features we did see were lacking compared to Google's.

One of last year's headline Apple Watch features, Workout Buddy, has been improved: users can now get guidance and encouragement in their ears during exercise while just wearing a watch, and they don't need to bring their phone, as they did in watchOS 26. Plus, new insights, such as heart rate zones, will be built in.

Other expanded health and fitness features include the inclusion of menopausal and perimenopausal conditions in cycle tracking (a significant and helpful addition for many women) and improved accuracy of treadmill metrics. Siri AI's health capabilities were also shown off on the watch, using its ability to look for healthy recipes and describe stretching routines based on its broad intelligence.

However, despite rumors saying an AI model specifically dedicated to health and fitness was in the works, nothing materialized this year. Which is a shame, as I've already been using the Google Fitbit Air and its accompanying AI health coach, and I've seen how powerful such a feature can be.

Watch: Marques Brownlee gives his verdict on Siri AI

Despite existing Fitbit fans bemoaning their loss of community features, I ended up liking Google's Health Coach. Unlike the Apple Watch, the Google Fitbit Air is screenless, with all chatbot interaction taking place on the phone in the Google Health app.

To be honest, this works well: if you're going to read reams of text about stretching or your metrics, you want to do it on a proper 6-inch screen oriented specifically for readability, not a 1.9-inch squircle as was demonstrated in Apple's keynote speech.

What's more, the Google Health Coach works with its own library of Fitbit workout and meditation content, allowing you to custom-build workouts just by asking the chatbot, and getting demonstrable, video instruction rather than just a block of text. It also takes your illness or injuries into account, as I found out when I got sick, and the Coach changed my workout plan to recommend rest days and shorter runs.

Apple already has a vast library of fitness content through its premium Apple Fitness+ service, and I expected a health coaching feature to be rolled into that subscription as part of the Siri AI revamp. Maybe that's a feature we're more likely to see at WWDC 2027. But its absence wasn't quite as much of an own goal as Apple's decision to only roll out watchOS 27 to a handful of modern watches.

We've been waiting a long, long time for Siri to get the AI glow-up it sorely needed, but at WWDC 2026, it finally happened: Siri AI is real.

That wasn't the only thing Apple announced at its annual developer conference, but it's fair to say that it was the main event, with more than half of the relatively short (only 75 minutes!) show dedicated to it.

Still, there were several other notable reveals both on stage and afterward. Here are the big things we learned.

1. Siri AI is the smarter, AI-powered Apple assistant we've been waiting for

It’s been a long two years, but we're nearly at the end of the winding road leading to Apple’s AI-powered, next-generation Siri — or at least we will be soon.

At WWDC 26, Craig Federighi ushered in Siri AI, an entirely next-generation personal assistant that delivers on what Apple originally set out to do at WWDC 2024, while adding some new tricks and a slightly updated look.

There’s a lot here to unpack — check out our first thoughts on the new Siri AI for more — but whatever you think of it, Siri AI is a big upgrade.

The assistant will now extend out from the Dynamic Island on the iPhone, creating a more integrated experience. Apple has also greatly expanded Siri’s world knowledge and contextual understanding, plus it's also multimodal: it can see what’s on your screen to gain broader context for a given request, and it can use your camera view as a set of eyes to help answer questions or respond to queries in real time.

That’s just scratching the surface. For instance, Siri’s voice has been updated to sound more expressive (see more on that below), and the assistant can now be customized to better suit your preferences.

Safe to say it took a while, but if you’ve already taken the leap and downloaded the Developer Beta, you can join the Siri AI waitlist now.

• READ MORE: Apple just gave 'Siri AI' its biggest upgrade ever — whether iPhone users asked for it or not

2. But Siri AI isn’t coming to the EU… because Apple says it needs to protect your privacy

The 27 EU countries won’t get Siri AI in iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 because of the EU’s “extreme interpretation of the DMA [digital markets act]” that means that if it offers Siri AI’s features there that access your personal data (but process it on the device), it must also allow other AI tools on your iPhone to access your data too, but with no restriction on where that data goes (other than the EU’s data laws, of course).

Apple says it tried to create workarounds that balanced the EU’s aim for less lock-in with Apple’s aim of privacy, to no avail: “Apple designed a solution called Trusted System Agent — an intermediary that would allow virtual assistants to safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI for devices in the EU… The European Commission said no.”

• READ MORE: iOS 27 and Siri AI compatibility explained — confirmed device requirements for Apple's new software updates

3. You’d better buy a new device if you want the best version of Siri AI

The new Siri AI is going to quietly have two different flavors. The regular version is available on iPhone 15 Pro or later, iPad mini (A17 Pro) or later, iPad models with M1 or later, Mac with M1 or later, Apple Vision Pro, Apple Watch Series 10 or later, Apple Watch Ultra 2 or later, and Apple Watch SE 3.

However, Apple says that its “most powerful on-device model and the features it enables, like expressive voices and more advanced dictation”, are only available on super-new devices. That means iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPad (M4) or later with at least 12GB of memory, a Mac with an M3 or later with at least 12GB of memory, and Apple Vision Pro (M5).

All of this means that a lot of pretty recent and expensive devices are being left behind by Siri AI altogether, including the iPhone 17, iPhone 14 Pro, and the original Apple Watch Ultra. The brand-new MacBook Neo isn’t powerful enough for the best Siri model, either.

4. You can make Siri AI’s voice way less annoying…

…or more annoying, if you want! The point is that it’s now really customizable, in a way that rivals Alexa+ by letting you make your voice assistant your kind of vibe.

You can choose from five basic (and much more natural) voices, and then you can change the pace and expressivity within each of those voices.

Fast and simple expression for efficiency’s sake? No problem. Slower and more expressive because the kids like interacting with it? Go for it. It should help make you want to interact with Siri’s voice more — at least it would, if it were actually coming to Apple’s HomePod smart speakers…

5. Apple's also expanded its AI-powered photo editing chops

If you’re a fan of Clean Up in Apple Photos, you’re going to be pleased to know that Apple’s expanding its AI-powered photo tools… though it’s not a throw-anything-at-the-wall approach, as the design is that these tools respect the original photo.

Firstly, Clean Up will be faster and able to tackle larger removal jobs, and will sit alongside two new features. Extend will let you stretch the borders, and only the borders, of an exciting image. This can help you achieve a rule-of-thirds shot with a portrait or rebalance an image.

More intriguing is Spatial Reframe, which, with a pinch-to-zoom or a twist of your finger on the screen, lets you adjust a shot's perspective. It’s really neat, and the demo looks impressive, as it lets you adjust the camera's position after you’ve taken the shot.

6. All of which means that Apple’s changed its approach to AI and images

Before today’s upgrade to Siri AI and Apple Intelligence, Apple was pushing the line that its approach to AI images was unique. It told us it wanted to preserve the original moment when it came to photos, so it didn’t try to make any AI image generations or image edits look too realistic, and the images you could make with Image Playground looked like AI images, not real ones.

Now, with the new Apple Intelligence features, Apple seems to have abandoned that approach entirely, and with new features such as the Extend, Clean Up, and Spatial Reframing described above, it's letting you make AI enhancements to images that look very real indeed. Image Playground now also features the ability to create realistic images.

So why the switch? Well, maybe that now that Apple has had longer to get user feedback, it has realized that this is what people actually want from AI images, or maybe it’s that until it switched to its new Gemini-powered foundation models for its AI, it really didn’t have the ability to deliver this level of realism. Either way, it's a big change in approach.

7. Siri AI in Vision Pro gives us a glimpse of what Apple AI Glasses could be

One of the most interesting examples of using Siri AI was in Vision Pro, where the user could look at a floating virtual browser window with a shopping site and ask a question about how a product would fit into their life, and the system knew what they were looking at and could give a totally context-aware answer.

It’s thanks to the eye-tracking camera in the Vision Pro, and it’s easy to see this as being the long-term goal for the much-fabled Apple Glasses. Cameras on smart glasses right now see so many things at once; it’s not an elegant system to just ask a question about what you’re facing — you could actually be looking at 20 different things.

Combining cameras on the outside of the glasses with eye detection would mean that your eyes become a way of directing the AI to one specific thing — literally, your focus becomes the software’s focus.

We’re a long way from moving it out of goggles and into glasses, but it’s easy to see that this is the future… maybe.

8. The next macOS is… Golden Gate

Seeing what Apple’s crack marketing team comes up with as a name for the next version of macOS is now something we look forward to annually, and after a bit of a runaround between the team and Craig Federighi — including some excellent visuals— we finally learned that macOS 27 is called macOS 27 Golden Gate.

It will arrive with some changes to Liquid Glass, mainly a slider to adjust the overall transparency level (more on this below). This is good news, especially since on the Mac it could be a bit hit-or-miss in macOS 26.

As with the other platforms, Apple is also taking the opportunity to fine-tune a bunch of macOS features under the hood to make it feel a bit smoother. And as the name hints, there’s a really nice new wallpaper on the horizon. Lastly, Siri AI will be supported here on Macs — or at least those that can support it, of course.

• READ MORE: macOS 27 Golden Gate announced at WWDC 2026 — here's everything you need to know

9. Search on Apple devices is about to get much better

Apple's on-device search is getting a major overhaul for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, with a fully revamped experience in Spotlight, Photos, and Mail that should make it far easier to find what you're looking for.

The key, Apple says, is the 'device index' — essentially Apple's catalog of everything on your device, whether in Photos, Mail, or saved somewhere. This index has been made "more stable, more efficient and more comprehensive of content both old and new," Apple says, and that in turn should mean you get better results when you search — and that you get them more quickly.

It's a quality-of-life improvement rather than a big update, sure, but it's the kind of thing that Apple has traditionally excelled at getting right, so it's no bad thing in our eyes.

10. macOS 27 is the end for Intel Macs

As you might expect, Macs with Intel chips won't support Siri AI — but there's worse news still for owners of those devices: Apple confirmed that macOS Golden Gate is the first version of the software to work only on Apple Silicon.

Yes, it’s the end of an era for sure, with the announcement meaning that the clock is officially ticking down for the many, much-loved Intel Macs out there.

Apple will keep updating previous versions of macOS for a while with core security updates and basic maintenance, and macOS 26 in particular will get quite a few releases along these lines — but this will be it for new features, and we can expect Intel versions of software to stop being supported in many cases, too.

• READ MORE: Apple quietly kills off support for Intel Macs and MacBooks

11. AirPods are finally getting an EQ

It seems incredible that we’ve never been able to tinker with AirPods’ sound profile, given that they’re approaching 10 years old as a product. But a custom AirPods EQ is finally coming as an option in iOS 27.

You’ll be able to use a super-simple interface to adjust the frequencies, with a waveform on the screen, and you can play a song right from that interface as you’re changing things to hear instant results.

• READ MORE: AirPods are finally getting a custom EQ in iOS 27, this is not a drill!

12. Apple admitted it got it wrong on Liquid Glass (sort of)

Apple was very proud of itself when it launched its Liquid Glass design update last year, using superlatives such as "delightful", "elegant," and "beautiful" to describe it. Well, exactly a year later, it seems it wasn't quite so elegant or beautiful after all.

That's because iOS 27 and Apple’s other software updates will introduce a new slider that lets you adjust how transparent the Liquid Glass elements are, from completely clear to fully opaque.

Now, Apple didn’t actually say it had got it wrong the first time round with Liquid Glass; obviously not. Instead, it said that all users are different, and so it was offering the slider so that people could choose what worked best for them. But come on — a fully opaque Liquid Glass is not Liquid Glass. It's, I don't know… solid perspex or something. Still, if it makes iOS easier to use, then we won't complain.

• READ MORE: 7 new iPhone features coming to your phone in iOS 27 — from the new Siri AI to big Liquid Glass upgrades

13. Apple is taking online safety very seriously

Apple took a surprisingly large chunk of time out of its presentation to focus on parental controls, highlighting new tools that allow parents to manage which apps children can access, how long they can spend on different apps, and encouraging app developers to adopt tools it has developed to help keep kids safe online.

It also showcased new tools to protect children from messages from strangers and from explicit content, and Apple placed such importance on the topic that Tim Cook even used his closing remarks to discuss it yet again.

These announcements come in the wake of governments all over the world focusing on legislation designed to protect minors online, with this segment feeling like Apple proving it’s ready to proactively respond to parents' concerns rather than waiting to get pushed by laws.

14. Apple's Password app is about to get better still

Apple might be using its next-generation of Apple Intelligence to power one of the most useful features ever, and it will likely make you switch to the Passwords app if it works as promised.

It’s already a safe haven for all your usernames and passwords, and when the time comes to change the latter, the app easily creates a new one. It will even warn you when it might be time to update, for instance, if your password appears in a data breach.

Now, though, with iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, the Passwords app will actually handle the step of changing the password for you on whatever service it’s for. We’ll need to see exactly how this works, but I've been dreaming of this for years.

15. tvOS is getting some small changes

Apple didn’t really mention tvOS in its keynote, but there are some changes coming to the Apple TV 4K. These include a bunch of speed improvements — including when launching apps, using Control Center, and connecting over AirPlay — plus a few smart home upgrades, including Thread 1.4 and on-device processing of HomeKit security camera footage.

There will also be a redesigned Podcasts app, support for Hi-Res Lossless in Apple Music (previously limited to the Lossless tier), and the ability to use AI to auto-generate subtitles for shows that don’t have them, which is one feature we’ve been hoping for for a few years.

Notably lacking from the list? Siri AI. It seems like it would be really useful, enabling you to ask all kinds of questions about movies you’ve seen, where you know an actor from, what kind of show you watch next… but there are rumors that a new Apple TV 4K is coming later this year. Perhaps that will have a beefier processor capable of running the new and smarter assistant.

16. But Home is missing out almost entirely (again)

Apple made a few soft-touch improvements to Apple Home, with grouped event notifications, searchable AI-generated summaries for security camera footage, and improvements to Shortcuts — but that was about it.

Did we get Siri AI for Home? We did not. Were we surprised? We were not. And unless we get new hardware in September, it seems unlikely we'll see any genuinely worthwhile updates to the platform now.

• READ MORE: Siri AI’s new voice customization could have trumped Alexa+, but scant HomeOS updates stall the win for Apple

17. Tim Cook signed off as CEO, but without much screen time

This was Tim Cook's final WWDC as CEO — and presumably his final Apple event, given that John Ternus will have taken over by September. It was therefore a little strange that he spent so little time on screen, with Craig Federighi and a cast of a thousand (just about) Apple employees instead taking us through the updates to Siri and iOS.

Nor did Ternus appear; this is perhaps not surprising, given that he's a hardware guy, but all the same, it felt like Apple missed an opportunity to mark the end of one era and the beginning of the next.

Again, there was plenty of that kind of thing around Apple's 50th birthday earlier this year, and maybe Cook (and Ternus) didn't want to take the focus away from Siri AI. And let's face it, he's always been more content to let Apple's devices and software do the talking, rather than hogging the limelight himself. Either way, it is the end of an era — and one that Ternus will have a tough job to surpass when it comes to success.

UPDATE 09/06: This article has been updated to reflect that the Apple Watch Series 9, which was originally missing from Apple's list of watches compatible with watchOS 27, has now been added.

Another WWDC, another set of operating systems. This year's WWDC 2026 keynote has been chock-full of highly-advanced AI-powered features, led by a revamped Siri AI designed to work across the whole Apple ecosystem — but these advanced features need devices capable of running them.

Because Apple updates its software each year, users of older versions of the best iPhones, MacBooks and, of course, the best Apple Watches worry their old technology may not get the new update, and thus official support for it would end.

Although there was no mention of compatibility in this year's keynote speech, the official Apple website confirms it that five watches that support watchOS 26 won't be able to make the upgrade to watchOS 27 — presumably because those models can't handle the new Siri AI.

Here are the watches that will still be supported when watchOS 27 lands later this year:

Which watches will get watchOS 27?

The full list of compatible models are as follows:

• Apple Watch Series 9
• Apple Watch Series 10
• Apple Watch Series 11
• Apple Watch Ultra 2
• Apple Watch Ultra 3
• Apple Watch SE 3

These are the recent models without support for watchOS 27:

• Apple Watch Series 6
• Apple Watch Series 7
• Apple Watch Series 8
• Apple Watch Ultra
• Apple Watch SE 2

The Apple Watch Series' 6, 7, and 8 do not appear on Apple's list of compatible devices. Users running those watches can only expect to receive basic security and maintenance upgrades in the future.

The first-generation Apple Watch Ultra — which is only four years old and was, let's remember, quite a premium product — and Apple Watch SE 2 are also included in this list.

This will be a blow to so many users. Traditionally, Apple has ended support for watches after six or so years, not three or four — to place this in context, last year's watchOS 26 supported Apple Watch Series 6, which was originally released in 2020.

First-generation Apple Watch Ultra users will also be incredibly irate — spending $799 / £849 / AU$1229 on a watch that was only supported for four years will be seen as a very predatory move by Apple, and may drive some customers away to competitors such as Garmin. After an exciting WWDC speech for AI fans, this news will leave a sour taste.

All the above watches' core features will still work, although users will run into problems as the watches reach the end of their lives. For example, you may be unable to update apps which are designed to work with the latest software features.

Series 9 is now the oldest watch to receive new versions of watchOS.

How to download the watchOS 27 beta

If you do have a supported watch and can't wait until September to try out all the new features, you can sign up to beta test Apple's latest OS. To do so, you'll need to enrol in Apple's beta program, which you can do either on Apple's developer portal here for the developer beta, or wait until the public beta next month, which most users will want to do. Remember to always back up your devices before doing so.

On your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Software Update > Beta Updates, , and action the software update when available.

Once the update is installed, you can go to the Watch app on your phone and use a similar pathway: My Watch > General > Software Update > Beta updates, enter your passcode and away you go.

Shokz OpenDots 2: One Minute Review

Shokz, the company specializing in bone conduction and open-ear buds, returns to the clip-on form factor with the Shokz OpenDots 2. It’s worth noting that the OpenDots 2 are one of two pairs released at the same time: they arrive alongside the cheaper Shokz OpenDots Air, which are missing a few features like wireless charging, waterproofing and bone conduction mics.

The clip-on earbud form factor offers both pros and cons. On the one hand, the shape is light and comfortable to wear day-to-day, and doesn’t interfere with glasses in the same way an over-ear hook might. They look almost jewellery-like, with my testing pair sporting a metal-and-pearl off-white sheen, sitting like a helix piercing over my ears.

On the other hand, they’re much less stable than over-ear hooks, with some brands being very wobbly or prone to dislodging. While the OpenDots 2, like most clip-on headphones with big drivers at the back, do suffer from being easily dislodged by the accidental brush of a hand or a hood (you’ll want to take extra care during commutes if you’re crammed into someone’s armpit on the train), they tend to stay in when left alone.

You might think that without a seal around your ear canal the OpenDots 2 might come up short on sound, and compared to market leaders like Apple’s AirPods that’s largely true. However, for open-ear headphones, the sound quality is excellent, with powerful bass despite the lack of a seal, and very little leakage. A dedicated Private equalizer mode also reportedly works to reduce leakage, although during my tests, even on Standard my office colleagues couldn’t hear any sound leakage at all, even when I had the volume turned up to Spinal-Tap-11 levels. Other EQ modes in the Shokz app include Vocal and Bass, and a Smart EQ option also exists, with users taken through six ‘A or B’ comparisons to find their optimal EQ mode.

Battery life is strong, with Shokz citing “up to 40 hours” from a full charge of the case. Wireless charging takes 3.5 hours, and a full wired USB-C charge takes two hours.

The launch of the OpenDots 2 sees Shokz attempting to push its way into a crowded category. One Shokz representative told me the company was hoping to eventually ‘replace AirPods’, and while I can’t see that happening anytime soon, the OpenDots 2 are probably the strongest clip-on earbuds I’ve ever tried; certainly in terms of sound quality, they’re up there with the Bose Ultra Opens while surpassing them in the fit stakes. They’re high-quality, durable, attractive-looking, and stable when left alone — just be careful when pulling your hood down.

Shokz OpenDots 2: Specifications

Shokz OpenDots 2: Price and availability

• $199.95 in the US
• £179.99 in the UK
• AU$339 in Australia

The Shokz OpenDots 2 cost $199.95 in the US, £179.99 in the UK, and AU$339 in Australia. That’s not cheap, and comparable to the cost of AirPods 4 with ANC ($179 / £179 / AU$299) — and the OpenDots 2 aren’t as versatile, considering that they’re effectively always in ‘transparency mode’ due to their design. If most people are going to drop this sort of money on a pair of wireless earbuds, it’s likely to be on a set that can both block out noise entirely and allow it to filter through when needed.

That being said, they’re not badly pitched (sorry) in value, being cheaper than the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, which cost $299 / £299 / AU$449.95, at launch, and of similar quality. If you’re looking for cheaper options, the Shokz OpenDots Air are available at $129.95 / £129.99 / A$219, or you could opt for the Huawei Freeclip series.

• Value score: 3.5/5

Shokz OpenDots 2: Design

• Clamshell case
• Comfortable fit
• Some instability if knocked

The Shokz OpenDots 2 are designed in a similar way to most clip-on earbuds now: there’s a battery cylinder at the back featuring sensors with a tactile button, a driver designed to hover over the ear, and a band connecting the two, and gripping the device to the ear’s helix. In the case of the OpenDots 2, the speaker is in fact a sphere with two 11.8mm drivers facing inwards towards each other, creating a ball of sound, and a hole from which the sound is projected towards the eardrum.

From an aesthetics standpoint, the OpenDots 2 look very similar to the Bose Ultra Opens, right down to the mix of plastics and metallics on the buds and the clamshell case. That’s not a bad thing; they look very premium, and are extremely comfortable to wear. As a glasses wearer, I experienced none of the chafing or earache over-ear hooks give me, even when wearing the OpenDots 2 for long periods or during sweaty workouts. As mentioned, they can be knocked loose easily, and there’s no getting around this, as it’s simply a design issue with almost all clip-ons. Pulling a hood back immediately risks pulling out your expensive earbuds and sending them clattering to the floor.

The controls are intuitive — you can pause, play, adjust volume or cycle through tracks by pinching the barrels or tapping the bridges of the earbuds. The OpenDots 2 pack IP55 waterproofing, meaning they can withstand sweat, rain and dust but are unlikely to survive prolonged submersion or high-pressure washing. The case isn't waterproof either, so don’t leave them in your pocket and put them in the washing machine!

• Design score: 4.5/5

Shokz OpenDots 2: Features

• Four EQ modes
• Multipoint connectivity
• Custom EQs to tailor sound to your liking

Despite being focused on open-ear products, Shokz is clearly working on sound and pitching the OpenDots 2 at everyday audiophiles rather than athletes. With four equalizer modes — Standard, Bass, Vocal and Private — plus a Custom EQ option, you’re able to tweak the sound to suit your needs and preferences.

After going through the custom EQ setup, which asks you six times to choose between two different versions of the same track, I noticed only a very minor difference to Standard, with slightly more powerful bass and clearer mids. This probably speaks to the quality of Shokz’ already excellent sound mixing, particularly on an open-ear bud.

Multipoint connectivity allows for two devices to connect via Bluetooth simultaneously, and I’ve been switching seamlessly between my phone and laptop with no issues. The option to use wireless charging is nice too. AI-powered call noise reduction with dual bone-conduction and ‘air conduction’ microphones makes calls sound nice and clear.

The OpenDots 2 are not packed with features such as live translation and heart rate sensing like Apple’s AirPods Pro 3, but they’re certainly not bad for the price.

• Features score: 4/5

Shokz OpenDots 2: Performance

• Great sound
• Stable fit, apart from on contact
• Good battery life

The sound delivered by the Shokz OpenDots 2 is excellent, considering that these are open-ear headphones: they’re meaty and bassy, with minimal leakage even at higher volumes. In the office, I wore them comfortably all day while using my laptop, transitioning to my phone when I left the office, and only removing them to show curious colleagues, or pausing via a tap to have a conversation. Most outside sounds were blocked in a way that they aren’t with bone conduction headphones, as you have a driver sitting right over the top of your ear canal pumping vibrations down to your eardrum, whereas with the likes of the OpenRun Pro 2 your canal is left truly open.

However, while on a 10K run I kept my headphones on a low-to-middle volume, and I was still able to hear the bells of passing bikes and the occasional twitter of birds, so the open-ear design still does its job admirably. On my very sweaty run, the buds didn’t feel like they were pendulously wobbling, and I was able to pound the pavement and even shake my head without being afraid that they would dislodge. Only a nudge of my hand would cause them to come loose.

I find the OpenDots' listed battery stats to be largely accurate: I’ve been using these headphones for the better part of a week as I write this review, and only now is the case at 10% battery, with the buds themselves still on a full charge, and good for a further 10 hours.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Shokz OpenDots 2: Scorecard

Shokz OpenDots 2: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

How I tested

I wore the Shokz OpenDots 2 for a week in different scenarios. I used them on my commute, in work, on a 10K run, in the gym, and even while sleeping, making use of the custom EQ functionality, asking colleagues if they could hear the audio I was listening to at various volumes, and testing their multipoint connectivity features.

First reviewed: June 2026

• There's now an open source app available for Whoop bands
• You can install it for free on Android and macOS
• Whoop has yet to respond, but may block access to its trackers

If you own a Whoop band or have read any of our Whoop reviews, you'll know that the premium fitness tracker comes with a monthly subscription attached. However, thanks to the efforts of an independent developer though, you can now get at your Whoop data without paying anything.

The app is open source, available for Android and macOS, and called Noop (via Android Central). You do need to do a little bit of work to get it set up (it needs to be sideloaded on Android), but instructions are provided on the GitHub page. It should work with the Whoop 4.0, Whoop 5.0, and the Whoop MG bands.

"I built it for one reason," the app creator Kabir Khalil said in a post on Reddit. "To read my own data, off a strap I own, on a machine I control, without it living in someone else's cloud. That's the whole idea."

As Whoop's own algorithms aren't available to the developer, Khalil says he's used "my own maths" based on "published methods" to come up with fitness scores and data interpretations from the raw figures that are grabbed from the tracker device.

Positive feedback

WHOOP with no subscription, no cloud, no account — it's OUT today. Fully open source, Mac + Android. from r/whoop

While the idea of a cloud-free, offline experience will appeal to many, it's the zero cost that Whoop users will be most interested in. Whoop subscriptions start at $199 / £169 / AU$299 per year, though the device itself is included in that cost.

And users seem to be keen to give this a try: "this looks awesome" one Redditor has commented, in a thread that's full of positive feedback (as well as some requests for technical help from those who are having trouble getting the app working).

We've contacted Whoop about the app and will include the company's response here if we get one, but it clearly won't be happy about users sidestepping the need for a subscription on their hardware. It's possible that future updates to the bands will lock out access for third-party apps like this one.

Noop does seem to be part of a small trend however. A similar app called Goose has also just popped up, though it's at an earlier stage in its development than Noop, and another one called Whoof has apparently been running for a little while now — so if you want an alternative Whoop app, you've now got several options.

Garmin made a massive U-turn this week when it announced that Garmin inReach users who suspend their subscriptions will receive free SOS access for up to 12 months.

Garmin inReach is a service which allows you to signal emergency services and send two-way messages without mobile service. This can be done from some of the best Garmin watches like the Fenix 8 Pro, Quatix 8 Pro or D2 Mach Pro 2, or more affordably on one of Garmin’s dedicated inReach pocket-sized satellite communicators, such as my inReach Mini 2 pictured above. Only the sender needs the inReach device, as others can receive messages and reply via SMS, email or the Garmin Messenger app. The service also provides GPS navigation, location tracking and weather updates.

As an outdoor and travel journalist, my inReach Mini 2 comes with me on all of my backcountry adventures – I’ve taken it to Everest Base Camp, the Swiss Alps and on three long-distance trails through remote sections of the UK over the last year.

Previously, users had to hold an active subscription costing anywhere from $7.99 / £7.99 to $49.99 / £49.99 a month to send SOS alerts, which drives up the price of Garmin's already-expensive smartwatches and pocket communicators. With over 10,000 SOS alerts from inReach devices each year, the move reveals the increasing pressure to stay competitive against brands such as Apple and Google, as the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Google Pixel Watch 4 both allow device users to contact emergency services via satellite when they’re out of signal.

This news means big savings – you could, in theory, only pay for one month a year now, or even suspend the service during the free trial and still get SOS connectivity – and makes the dedicated Garmin inReach devices a more appealing buy for outdoorsy types. But with these devices starting at $249.99 / £249.99, you might also be wondering if you can’t just rely on your phone instead.

Here I’ve shared three things I really like about my Garmin inReach subscription and my inReach Mini 2, plus one I don’t, to help you make up your mind. That price tag is a lot more palatable when you get a year’s worth of SOS messages for free.

1. Peace of mind

My favourite adventures take me well off the grid, over days or weeks at a time, and I’m usually alone. The wilderness can be a dangerous place, and while I’ve never got myself into a situation I couldn’t get out of, there’s always a chance I could break an ankle or pick up a bacterial infection that could render me immobile miles from the nearest town.

Yes, I have a Google Pixel 9 Pro in my pocket and here in the UK, that now means I can send a text via satellite. But like Apple’s service, that’s currently only available in select countries (North America, Western Europe and Australia), whereas Garmin’s reach spans the entire globe.

Knowing that as long as I’m conscious, I’ll be able to call for help with the simple press of a button really does give me peace of mind and more confidence in the wild.

2. Keeping in touch

Hiking is about getting off screens and back to nature for me, but because I tend to travel solo, I love being able to keep in touch with family and friends no matter what.

In the Himalayas, I sent an excited text to my editor when I met the son of the famous Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay in a Buddhist monastery, and my parents appreciated being able to track my progress over the 11 days using the MapShare web feature.

When I arrived at an alpine hut in the Alps last summer to discover there was no WiFi, I was still able to check in with my partner and parents, letting them know all was well. Sometimes, it’s frivolous, but I enjoy being able to stay a little connected and share my adventures in the moment, while not being able to access my full suite of apps.

3. Staying power

I use my phone and my Garmin Fenix 8 watch a lot more than my inReach device, but those devices both have limited battery life, and if I do have an accident, they could easily end up with shattered screens. The inReach device is a hardy piece of equipment that’s got real staying power.

The inReach just bounces when I drop it onto rocks from height, thanks to rugged materials like impact-resistant polymer, chemically strengthened glass and shock-absorbing rubber buttons. With a waterproof rating of IPX7, it can sit in a pool of water up to a metre deep for up to 30 minutes and still work.

It’s also got an incredible battery life. If I were using it constantly, I’d get 14 days between charges, but since I only occasionally turn mine on, I can go months (though I check it before every outing). I never have to worry about carrying a portable charger, running out of juice or finding an electrical outlet on my travels.

What I don't love: Tedious texting on the inReach Mini 2

The only thing I don’t love about most inReach devices, such as my Mini 2, is that it isn’t as easy to type a message on as your phone. I have to use arrows to scroll up and down through the alphabet and select each letter; it’s like searching for a YouTube video on a smart TV, except the screen is tiny. It’s not a dealbreaker, and I can get around it by using the Garmin Explore app on my phone, but it is a tedious task.

That said, the Mini 3 has solved this problem with a full keyboard on the touchscreen, so if all of this has convinced you to take the plunge, it may be worth going with the latest tech.

I've been reviewing the Google Fitbit Air this week, testing all its features in a bid to figure out where it sits among our lists of the best fitness trackers — and those features include the new Google Health app and its premium Google Health Coach service.

Fitbit users have been furious at the changes, and Google has rolled out a number of quality-of-life fixes, but there's no deviating from the nature of the app. Like it or not, Fitbit Premium has transformed into an AI-first service — and Samsung is apparently next.

When I began testing it, I was fully prepared to go all-in with my inherent dislike of chatting and interacting with AI via text. Outside of testing, I wasn't a regular Fitbit user, so I didn't have the rug-pull removal of community features, such as badges and challenges, factoring into my process. I was judging the app purely on its own merits.

But by the end of the testing period... I actually quite liked it. Below, I've outlined exactly why. There are things I disliked about the premium portion of Google's controversial new app — so for transparency's sake, I've outlined those too.

Google Health Coach: The pros

1. Flexibility

The base Google Health app has features spread across four tabs, and looking for features and metrics meant trawling through the entirety of the app, which I didn't love. It wasn't intuitive to use. Unlike apps like Whoop and Oura, there wasn't a 'tag' system to record extenuating factors like jet lag or illness.

This is where I actually enjoyed using the AI coach, by using it to compensate for this lackluster design. After a gym session, during which I noted my sets, reps and amount of weights lifted, I copied and pasted my notes into the Google Health Coach's 'Ask Coach' field and told it to log that session. Not only did it do so with the correct moves and amounts, but it also recommended a workout for me to do later in the week to hit alternating muscle groups.

I asked it to design three gym sessions for me based on a 5x5 set-rep structure, focusing on pushing, pulling and legs as my key muscle groups, and it did just that. I told the Coach I was feeling ill, and it incorporated this into future feedback on exercise and rest. You can use this one feature as a 'macro feature' to operate the rest of the app, and it's incredibly flexible.

2. Memory and context

While the coach is overzealous with the summaries it provides, hiding vital information in reams of text, it did at least provide useful content and context. When I logged a short 2.5K run, for example, the Coach said "this is a solid way to test your lungs after that cold", remembering that I had been ill and placing a shorter run in that context.

Anything you tell the Coach is logged and remembered, from your gym goals to asking it to dial down its sycophantic tone, and this is a useful tool for a fitness app when it comes to surfacing important context. If you failed to complete the prescribed bench press reps on set 3 of 5, for example, the Coach might point to your recent illness or low readiness score as the reason why.

3. Food Logging

By simply snapping a photo of your food and uploading it to the AI, the Google Health Coach can log food and drink. The Google Health Coach provided exact measurements of packaged food that I photographed, including sugar, salt and fat content, with just a photo and the instruction 'log this'.

It also provided reasonable estimations of home-cooked meals, provided I added some context like "Log this lentil-potato curry", along with helpful information such as the average fiber content of lentils and macronutrient estimations for the meal. It's not going to be pinpoint-accurate when working off a photo, but if you're interested in losing or gaining weight, it's a useful baseline to go off. The more detail you can give it, such as weights or portion sizes, the better.

Google Health Coach: The cons

1. The sycophantic tone

An ever-present issue with chatbots is the sycophantic "Great job getting after it!" style of overly cheery yet somehow very corporate enthusiasm that rings hollow coming from a glorified predictive text machine, and it's no different here. The ersatz friendliness and desire to please you is everything I loathe about interacting with chatbots.

Fortunately, a simple request to the chatbot can remind it to be less encouraging and more neutral in tone, although this can take multiple tries before it gets the message.

2. The fact that it's Google

If I were being cynical, Google's decision to force former Fitbit Premium and current Google Health Premium subscribers to interact with an AI chatbot mirrors the decisions of its business as a whole. AI Mode is a constant in Google Chrome, while Google Search's AI summaries cannot be bypassed or turned off.

Google is a data and ad company that is now AI-first as a rule, with interactions going towards improving its AI services. Google has pledged not to use Fitbit data as part of its Google Ads service — but it's only done so because it was forced to by a European Union directive when it bought Fitbit in 2020, and those commitments are legally binding for 10 years. I think in a few short years, it's conceivable that our health data will be feeding Google's algorithms and helping to 'personalize' our new agentic internet. In short, to feed us ads.

That doesn't change the fact that the Google Health Coach is a good service in its current form, and the best health-focused AI assistant I've ever used. But do go into any such usage agreements with your eyes open, especially as Google is keen for you to upload medical records into the app.

Marathon season in Australia is in full swing, with a few events already out of the way so far and more coming up in the next few months, including the prestigious Sydney Marathon in August.

The EOFY sales couldn’t come at a more perfect time for runners looking to upgrade their gear, and we’ve spotted a few tech deals that should fit the bill, like the record-breaking Garmin Forerunner 55 to track your runs and this massage gun for recovery. But the best one I’ve found is for the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2, which we called our best headphones for runners here at TechRadar.

Amazon has the OpenRun Pro 2 discounted by 25% to bring the price down to AU$239, which is also the lowest we’ve seen it from the retailer. It’s also even made it to the bestseller list under the electronics category.

As a seasoned cyclist and occasional runner, I love using bone conduction headphones for solo training sessions, where I can blast some tunes to get the blood flowing or listen to a podcast, all while being fully aware of my surroundings.

I’ve found that open-ear headphones like the Shokz OpenFit range deliver better sound quality, but they struggle in windy conditions and during bike rides. Bone conduction, on the other hand, sends sound vibrations through the bones in your skull instead of through the air, making it more resilient in those instances.

What Shokz did with the OpenRun Pro 2 is bring both technologies together to improve audio quality so it won’t vibrate too aggressively at higher volumes, which happens in pure bone conduction headphones like the OpenRun. It also has an option to switch to purely bone conduction mode in windy conditions.

Speaking of the base OpenRun, the Pro 2 has a USB-C charger instead of the proprietary magnetic one found in the latter, which I would consider a quality-of-life upgrade.

That said, the OpenRun is also discounted to AU$149 on Amazon if you’re not too fussed about audio quality, and it also has a better IP67 rating for dust and water protection than the Pro 2’s IP55, which can’t be fully submerged in water and won’t be fully dust-tight.

• Google has rolled out its first Google Health upgrades following user backlash
• It includes improvements to food logging and activity accuracy
• Despite the 14 new upgrades, it still hasn't scratched the surface for users

Ever since Google Health became the new app for Fitbit users, it’s been met with a tidal wave of criticism for its clunkiness and lack of vital features — but Google has rolled out a huge update after promising to make improvements a few weeks ago.

Yesterday (June 4) Google unveiled version 5.01 of the Google Health app, marking what the company says will be “the first of many improvements to come”. The update will continue to roll out over the next week in phases, and will depend on your carrier and device type, Google says.

The new upgrades are designed to fix a number of pain points which users flagged when they first made the switch from the Fitbit app. In total, there are 14 new improvements split across four different categories, starting with nutrition.

Building the negative feedback to its food logging functions, Google has upgraded this tool allowing you to view and log previously-created custom foods, as well as improved handling when transferring food logs from third party apps like MyFitnessPal. Additionally, Google has added more explanations and guidance for setting your personal macronutrient goals, which also comes with a more accurate nutrition and calories charts.

Exercise tracking has been another persisting issue for Google Health users, particularly with tracking and labelling runs. Google says it’s now fixed this issue and new and previous workouts will now be labelled correctly. It’s also fixed an issue where users reported missing splits in their runs, and Google says these have been restored — as has the Sleep Score tab, which a handful of users reported had disappeared.

Google hasn’t just patched up its fitness tracking tools, but is also rolling out general app improvements, including one for your Today Tab on Android where users reported seeing out-of-date metrics. You can view the full list of Google Health’s new updates on Google’s support page.

Is this enough of a crowd-pleaser?

Given the level of ferocity expressed by users who’ve been forced to abandon the Fitbit app for Google’s new fitness platform, it’s a good thing that Google is acknowledging these issues — especially for those who have just purchased the new Google Fitbit Air . However, it turns out that the 14 new upgrades only scratch the surface.

Since Google announced version 5.01 users have stormed Reddit once more to air their thoughts — one user called the app “an utter downgrade from Fitbit”. At the same time, others have flagged more functions that are still missing from Google Health.

One user in particular expressed their dislike for Google Health’s thumbs up/ down icons which they say appear on every item in the homescreen. This is understandable, it’s not supposed to be like Strava where fitness meets social media. In addition to this, another user flagged that when they’re recording an activity in Google Health, they’re unable to use any other part of the app, which seems bewilderingly restrictive.

As Google said, version 5.01 is just the first stage in its plans to give the Google Health app an overhaul, but how long it’ll be before the next stage arrives we don’t know. That said, if Google doesn’t want Fitbit users to make the switch over to rivals like Garmin, it needs to make these changes sooner rather than later.

Google Fitbit Air: One minute review

For a simple device, there’s a lot going on with the Google Fitbit Air. People feel very strongly about it, for better or for worse, and there’s been a lot of chatter and interest surrounding its release. My experience actually wearing the device has generally been very positive, with tracking accuracy comparable to that offered by my Apple Watch Ultra 3, which is pretty much the gold standard for wrist-based health tracking. Metrics relying on the tracker’s onboard heart-rate monitoring are reliable, matching the Apple Watch closely during work, rest, and exercise during my week with the Fitbit Air.

Set-and-forget trackers are clearly having a moment. Oura has released the Oura Ring 5 just one year after the Ring 4, and Whoop’s success has given rise to a number of copycats from brands looking to recreate the experience of a distraction-free screenless ‘focus band’ for a less premium price.

Google is one such copycat, but the screenless, slender form factor suits the Fitbit brand — the original Fitbit was a digital pedometer — down to the ground. It speaks to the core of what Fitbit used to be, before it became just another company churning out mediocre smartwatches running a limited proprietary operating system. Your Fitbit was always meant to be a discreet little device, and devices don’t come more discreet than the Google Fitbit Air. Weighing just 12g and using a very slender 17mm-wide band, the Fitbit Air is a lovely and (crucially) comfortable device to wear and use. It’s much more comfortable to wear during sleep than any full smartwatch I’ve ever tried (and I have tried a lot), or even the Whoop.

However, it’s hard to separate the Fitbit Air from the Google Health app, with Google’s redesign of the Fitbit app causing particular ire amongst Fitbit users. The app is a bit of a mess, and not intuitive to use, with features dotted all over the place. It feels like it’s designed to primarily function as a home for the AI Health Coach chatbot, which is very intelligent and perhaps the best in-app AI assistant I’ve tried, but it’s not the best way to operate a health app. Whoop’s balance of AI and on-page metrics is much better.

If you’re looking for a consistent screenless focus band to track different sorts of workouts like gym, sports, and yoga, alongside sleep, heart health and general wellness, you can use the Google Fitbit Air as is, paying just the up-front price, and keep your tracking simple.

Whether or not you can get onboard with the Premium option will depend on how much you like chatbots — I found its flexibility immensely helpful, but its constant chirpy summaries and insistence on hiding my data inside walls of text became annoying, so it’s a mixed bag for me. Overall, though, this is the best, most interesting Fitbit to have been released in years.

Google Fitbit Air: Price and availability

• $99.99 in the US
• £84.99 in the UK
• AU$199 in Australia

The Google Fitbit Air costs $99.99 / £84.99 / AU$199, and for that you get the tracker, a band of your choice, and a charger specific to the Google Fitbit Air — proving once again that Google seems to be allergic to making a charger that’s compatible with more than one device.

The Google Health Premium subscription, which gives you access to Google’s AI Health Coach, costs $9.99 / £7.99 / AU$14.99 a month, or $99.99 / £79.99 / AU$140 annually. Existing Google AI Pro members get it at no extra cost.

For comparison, the cheapest Apple Watch SE 3 starts at $249 / £219 / AU$399, while Whoop’s complex pricing structure begins at £169 / $199 / AU$299 per year for the lowest tier. The Google Fitbit Air’s pricing is cheap for what you get, with the Health Coach as an optional add-on rather than a mandatory subscription.

• Value score: 4.5/5

Google Fitbit Air review: Design

• Simple, screenless and elegant
• Light and comfortable
• App design is chaotic

The Google Fitbit Air’s design can be split into two components: the physical device, which is excellent, and the new Google Health app, which is a bit of a misfire.

Let’s start with the positives. The Fitbit Air comprises the tracker itself, and a wraparound band in a choice of three styles — a silicone Active band, the woven Performance Loop, or the polyurethane (pleather) Elevated Modern band. Each comes with their own color options, and a plastic clasp. On the underside of the tracker are the optical heart rate sensor, skin temperature sensor, and an accelerometer and gyroscope for counting steps.

It weighs just 12g, even with the Performance Loop strap, so it’s light and easy to wear, which is crucial for sleep tracking. I wore it on my right wrist, with a watch on my left during the day, and I didn’t feel like an obnoxious techie: unless someone looks closely, it just looks like a wristband, with the lack of a screen helping here. The Performance Loop strap that came with my review unit is the best-looking of the three options in this respect, but none of them look bad.

The tracker also has a haptic vibrate function — if you set an alarm in the app, this can be disabled with a tap on the top of the device. And that’s pretty much all the interaction you have with the sensor and band as a whole; everything else, as with one of the best smart rings or other screenless tracking options, is done via the app.

The app is where Google’s design falls down. Split into four tabs — Today, Fitness, Sleep and Health — the Google Health app features a dashboard with key metrics at the top, and insights or libraries of content below it.

But with information scattered across a quartet of tabs, it’s hard to find certain granular metrics or content you’re looking for compared to the old Fitbit app. I searched for Mindfulness content for 10 minutes before finding the five-minute meditation I was after, for example, and I often ended up starting new chats with the AI coach rather than resuming a chat from my history. It’s just not intuitive to use.

What is right in your face, for Premium users, is the AI coach, which cloaks your metrics in paragraphs of cheery text, so it takes longer to get to your information. It’s clever, and we’ll get onto its functionality in a moment, but I wish it summarized and contextualized less, and just offered more 'glanceability'.

• Design score: 3.5/5

Google Fitbit Air review: Features

• Set-and-forget tracker with a haptic alarm
• Good metrics
• AI Health Coach is a flexible macro-feature

The Fitbit Air records the usual metrics you’d expect with a modern fitness tracker, including step count, heart rate, floors climbed, sleep stages, and so forth. Fitbit’s Daily Readiness score shows you how prepared your body is for exercise, based on recent activity and sleep scores, while it also surfaces weekly cardio goals, hydration, and basic food logging. It can offer irregular heart rate rhythm notifications, which is great for potentially diagnosing atrial fibrilation, and allows you to take an ECG scan manually to monitor your heart health.

Basic tracking is all the free version gets you; there’s no workout builder, mindfulness content, way to log sickness, or any other extras beyond the numbers. It doesn’t add any special metrics for runners, such as stride or cadence, as many of the best running watches do. For some users who just want the numbers, this will be fine, with no need to subscribe to the Premium tier.

For Premium users, food logging can be done via the AI Health Coach, by taking a picture of your food. It’s very good at logging packaged food (it was bang on logging a crinkled package of chips with the message ‘log this’ as a 74kcal snack, also breaking down macros and salt content) but can struggle with plates of homemade food, although a basic description such as ‘log this lentil curry’ is enough for it to provide an estimation. The more information you can provide (weights and measures, etc), the more detailed it gets.

Those without the Health Coach can log food manually, as you can in other apps like MyFitnessPal.

The app also has access to Fitbit’s library of workout and meditation content, including individual moves, which you can use to build your own workout. Again, this is only available through the Premium subscription.

Through it all runs the AI Health Coach, which I actually found to be useful. Although there was no field to input illness as such, I typed my cold symptoms out to the Health Coach, and it remembered I was ill and adjusted its messaging and advice throughout the rest of the week based on my symptoms. I went to the gym without following one of the app’s pre-prescribed workouts, typed my sets and reps into the Coach’s ‘Ask Coach’ field, and it not only logged the workout, but suggested complementary routines to work different muscle groups for the rest of the week.

The AI Coach is a flexible ‘macro-feature’ that works well in conjunction with the rest of the app, and almost allows you to bypass the chaotic layout: you can just ask the Coach to serve you up what you need, which I’m sure was Google’s intent. Your use of the Coach will depend on your tolerance for chatbots: those who use Gemini or ChatGPT for everything will get a lot out of it, while those who loathe AI and just want numbers will likely loathe the Premium tier.

• Features score: 4/5

Google Fitbit Air review: Performance

• Performed well compared to the Apple Watch Ultra 3 in most scenarios
• Poor run estimations
• Battery life as described

As I noted when I compared the Google Fitbit Air against the Apple Watch Ultra 3, the tracker performed well during my 10K test run, at least for the metrics like heart rate and calorie count, which it can use its onboard sensors for. The metrics it uses my phone's GPS to estimate, like distance, were off significantly.

I’ve embedded the results below, but generally there was no statistically significant difference between heart rate or calorie estimations from the two devices. I'll be updating the review with confirmation of heart rate scores tested against a new Polar H10 chest strap, as my old testing unit has malfunctioned.

Previous

1 / 4

Next

Average heart rate

Google Fitbit Air

158

Apple Watch Ultra 3

161

050100150200

Average heart rate Data

Product	Value
Google Fitbit Air	158
Apple Watch Ultra 3	161

Average Pace

Google Fitbit Air

5.37

Apple Watch Ultra 3

5.47

01.534.56

Average Pace Data

Product	Value
Google Fitbit Air	5.37
Apple Watch Ultra 3	5.47

Calories burned

Google Fitbit Air

773

Apple Watch Ultra 3

750

0200400600800

Calories burned Data

Product	Value
Google Fitbit Air	773
Apple Watch Ultra 3	750

Distance

Google Fitbit Air

10.43

Apple Watch Ultra 3

10.03

03.757.511.2515

Kilometers

Distance Data

Product	Value
Google Fitbit Air	10.43
Apple Watch Ultra 3	10.03

My experience of tracking my sleep with the same two devices — I wore one on each wrist — was similar to the above, with close enough metrics but slightly different outcomes.

The Fitbit Air’s total sleep time estimation was within five minutes of the Apple Watch, and sleep stages were similar. However, while my sleep score was 90 with the Apple Watch, Fitbit registered it as only 81, citing a 10-point difference in sleep quality. However, the Google Fitbit Air’s sleep tracking has consistently registered my wake-up times during testing, successfully recording my early-hours bathroom trips and my cat jumping on my legs at 5am.

Because of the lack of a screen, GPS, and specialist metrics, regular runners won’t get a whole lot out of the Fitbit Air. Compared to my usual wealth of data from Apple or the best Garmin watches, I found it lacking, and my GPS map — imported from my phone, as the Air has no GPS of its own —- inaccurate, off by 400m compared to the Apple Watch.

Battery life is excellent, exceeding the seven days the device promised. Charging is fast, with just five minutes delivering a full day of battery life, and a full charge taking around an hour. The device is very comfortable to wear, as previously mentioned — I’ve barely needed to take it off all week.

• Performance score: 4.5 / 5

Google Fitbit Air: Scorecard

Google Fitbit Air: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

How I tested

I wore the Google Fitbit Air for eight days straight. I ran a 10K while wearing an Apple Watch Ultra 3 and (malfunctioning) Polar H10 chest strap, and a shorter run with a Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro, as comparison testing alongside my usual workout routines. I also wore the Apple and Fitbit side-by-side during sleep. I tested its alarm, tried the features of its premium Health Coach, and used the app's workout and mindfulness content.

First reviewed: June 2026

• Samsung Galaxy Watch users are getting a completely redesigned health app with new features
• These new features include Vitals, Cardio Load and a dedicated Heart Health score
• The app is now AI-first, designed to turn Galaxy Watches into 'AI-powered health companions'

Samsung Galaxy Watch and Samsung Galaxy Ring users are going to see some big changes in the Samsung Health app. Referred to as 'a new experience' by Samsung press material, the redesigned health app includes new metrics and AI-powered summaries to break it all down for you.

Samsung says the new app 'uses AI to translate overnight and daily biometric data into personalized health guidance, helping users better understand everything from recovery and heart health to training load and overall wellbeing'.

This sounds familiar. Fitbit has recently undergone a complete AI-first redesign, too, including a name change to Google Health. It's not all been sunshine and roses, as many Fitbit users intensely dislike the forced pivot to AI, with what was Fitbit Premium now entirely revolving around its new AI Google Health Coach tool.

Samsung Health already uses AI in the background, such as using machine learning to calculate stats like your Energy Score, but this redesigned app is also shifting generative AI to the forefront. The timing of this move is likely to draw serious ire from Samsung users.

Don't panic, Samsung users

Fortunately, it's not as bad as all that, despite Samsung's similar AI-forward messaging and app redesign, so Galaxy Watch users can lower their pitchforks (for now). For one thing, Samsung hasn't introduced a paywall to Samsung Health; otherwise, there would be riots in the streets.

Second, on closer inspection, the redesign is also slightly less drastic than Google's: rather than being entirely oriented around an AI chatbot, as Google Health has chosen to do, Samsung has instead decided to use GenAI to summarize and explain your metrics, adding new ones so the user can drill down into different aspects of their health in more detail.

Existing tools such as Samsung's Sleep Score, Energy Score, and Antioxidant Index remain, and Samsung hasn't announced that it's removing any features — again, unlike Fitbit and Google, which removed features like Badges and Challenges.

I've listed all the new features below. Each of these features will get contextual AI summaries, explaining what the numbers mean and, where necessary, how to improve them.

• Vitals: Similar to Apple Health's feature, Vitals will analyze 'five key overnight bio-signals — heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, skin temperature, and blood oxygen — against their true resting baseline'. Essentially, Samsung will notify you if one or more of these metrics are abnormal, indicating you might be getting sick.
• Heart Health Score: Combining Samsung's Vascular Load metric with the Body Composition features on its watches, which can measure muscle and fat in the same way as the best smart scales. If you've got low Vascular Load and an in-range body fat percentage, your Heart Health Score is likely to be good.
• Daily Cardio Load: Accumulated strain based on recent cardiovascular exercise, like runs and cycle rides. Will contribute to your Energy Score.
• Fitness Index: A radar chart of five different metrics (Strength, Flexibility, Endurance, Cardio, Body Composition). The strangest so far: how Samsung intends to accurately measure flexibility with a Galaxy Watch remains a mystery to me. I've reached out to Samsung to clarify this.

The timing of this upgrade is certainly interesting: reports recently surfaced of a Samsung Galaxy Fit 4 that, when paired with this AI-powered Samsung Health upgrade, would make for a real Google Fitbit Air contender.

• Garmin just published a 'trends in running' report
• It tells us that Garmin Connect users in their fifties recorded the biggest distance tally with an average of 5.1 miles
• We also learn that runners sleep better, have a lower resting heart rate than non-runners, and have a good VO2 max

Garmin has just published a 'trends in running' report, which has revealed some surprising data.

Based on stats drawn from the Garmin Connect app globally, we're told that the average distance of a run across all users was 4.82 miles, but if you had to guess which age range ran the furthest, you probably wouldn't pick the 50 to 59 category.

Nonetheless, folks in their fifties racked up the biggest distance tally with an average of 5.1 miles. Those in their twenties ran slightly shorter routes at an average of 4.6 miles, only just ahead of runners aged 70+ who recorded an average of around 4.57 miles.

Care to guess the day of the week on which the most miles were collectively recorded? Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was a Saturday, and in terms of the month that witnessed the most running, that was August.

The time spent on a run was 46.3 minutes on average. As for weekly mileage, most Garmin runners — nearly 40% — did between 6 and 10 miles on average. The second largest group, representing 28% of runners, managed 11 to 20 miles.

What about the average pace? Across all runners, that was 9:21 per mile for men and 10:11 for women.

Sleep success

Garmin also noted that runners generally had a better sleep score compared to non-runners. The average sleep score for a runner was 73 for those who ran under 10 miles, and 74 for those who went further than that, compared to those who didn't run at all, hitting a score of 70 on average.

Resting heart rate was also better for runners, as non-runners had an average of 62 bpm, compared to 59 bpm for those who ran 0 to 5 miles weekly, and 55 bpm for runners who pushed over 31 miles per week.

Curious as to what the average VO2 max was for runners? Garmin says it's 50 across its entire user base. Not too shabby indeed! If you're unfamiliar with VO2 max as tracked by a smartwatch, check out our handy explainer.

• Garmin's feature update for Q2 2026 is now rolling out
• It brings a clutch of new features, including golf tag support, a stocks tracker and recovery feature — and more besides — for some watches
• However, some relatively recent Garmin watches miss out here

Garmin has announced a new feature update for its watches, although the catch is that only more recent devices will benefit.

As Gadgets and Wearables spotted, the Q2 2026 update pertains to not just Garmin watches, but also cycling computers, and it's rolling out from now (over the "coming weeks", and as ever with rollouts, the time it takes to arrive on your device may vary).

What new features are there? On the golfing front, one addition is Approach CT1 tag compatibility for certain watches, which means those devices can pair with Garmin's NFC club tags (to track the golf club used with the shot distance and other stats).

The following watches will benefit from this thanks to the Q2 update:

• Fenix 8
• Fenix 8 Pro
• Enduro 3
• Tactix 8
• Quatix 8
• Quatix 8 Pro
• D2 Mach

Other features already present on some watches are added to other Garmin models with this update, and that includes Premium Golf Features (via the Garmin Golf Membership), which will become available on the Garmin Venu 4, Vivoactive 6, and D2 Air X15.

If you own a Garmin Instinct 3, Instinct Crossover AMOLED, or Instinct E, you'll receive the Stocks Tracker and Mobility Activity features with this update. Those watches will also get the Workout Execution Score functionality, except for the Garmin Instinct E, which misses out here.

Troubleshooting bonus

There's also a new Recovery Mode feature — a troubleshooting function to recover the watch after a software glitch — which Gadgets and Wearables informs us is coming to several of Garmin's watch ranges. That includes the Venu 4, Venu X1, Vivoactive 6, D2 Air X15, Forerunner 570 and 970, along with Fenix 8 models, and the Fenix E.

On the bike computer front, the Q2 update provides support to connect compatible eBikes with Bosch smart systems to your Edge cycling computer to view info like the battery level, power and cadence data, and smart range routing. On-device Gear Tracking is also being added to those Edge bike computers.

Owners of relatively recent Garmin watches are going to be disappointed that they aren't getting these features, no doubt. For example, there's nothing for Venu 3 owners here, or the Vivoactive 5 or Fenix 7 models, and others besides.

That doesn't mean these slightly older devices are left completely out in the cold, as while they may not be visited with feature additions, they won't be left without software fixes. It's likely a small consolation, though, especially considering the substantial outlay for some of these gadgets.

• Global Running Day takes place on June 3
• Strava members who run a 5k are eligible for a two-week free Runna membership
• Apple and Garmin Watch users who log a running exercise will get a 'limited-edition' digital reward

June 3 marks Global Running Day, in which dedicated run clubs, one-off organized events, and individual people all around the world organize to lace up their best running shoes, strap on their best running watches, and take to the streets, trails, parks, or nearest treadmill.

I get a lot of emails about different 'holidays' I've never heard of before in my inbox (make sure you don't forget to send your National Avocado Day cards out to friends and family this year!) but Global Running Day is always easy to participate in and get a reward from, particularly if you're using a fitness tracker or a service like Strava to track your runs.

Strava users who log and complete a 5K run on June 3 get access to two weeks of Runna Premium for free. Runna is a personalized AI training plan service that adapts to your logged workouts, changing the plan based on your performance. We rated it an impressive 4.5 stars in our Runna review, so it's well worth trying to see if it's right for you.

You'll need to join the Strava challenge (you can do so through this link), and once you complete it, you'll receive a two-week offer of Runna Premium. Additionally, you'll score a digital Strava x Runna badge and contribute to Strava's attempt to beat its record for the most 5Ks completed in a single day.

More digital badges from Apple and Garmin — but no badges for Google Health users

Speaking of digital badges, the Strava x Runna award isn't the only special badge you can collect on Global Running Day.

As usual, users of the best Apple Watches and best Garmin watches can also get in on the act. Users who complete a running workout on either platform will receive a 'limited edition award', as Apple calls it, signifying the achievement. Apple sent us the image above of this year's Global Running Day award, while Garmin's 2026 award can be seen on the Garminbadges.com database.

Google Health users won't be able to join in the fun. With Google's pivot from Fitbit Premium to Google Health Coach, it has removed the Badges feature and any historical badges earned.

Instead, Google said on its removal of badges, that "if you have Google Health Coach, your coach will help to celebrate your progress and accomplishment," so no Global Running Day badge for Google Health users.

I suppose that's a lesson for all of us that love to add new digital badges to our library on our fitness app of choice — they could vanish at any time!

• A code leak points to three new Galaxy Watch models
• They might all get the Pixel's 'raise to talk' feature
• Users still have concerns about the battery life of the devices

We're expecting successors to the Galaxy Watch 8 and the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic from Samsung within the next couple of months, and a fresh leak gives us a better idea of the models to expect — plus one of the features they might bring with them.

The team at Android Authority has found three smartwatch codenames buried in the latest Google Wear OS app for Android: Fresh 9 (most likely the Galaxy Watch 9, based on past codenames), Wise 9 (the Galaxy Watch 9 Classic), and Project V2 (possibly the long-awaited Galaxy Watch Ultra 2).

Samsung's smartwatch launches aren't quite as easy to predict as they are for its smartphones, and we don't always get a Classic or an Ultra addition. We have previously seen a Pro model, too: the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro, from 2022.

This goes some way to settling the question of what we're about to see, though it'll be interesting to find out what the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 brings with it. The original Ultra made its debut back in 2024.

Raise to talk

The same digging into the Wear OS app code has revealed something else: these upcoming Galaxy Watch models may well feature the 'raise to talk' feature that's available on Google's smartwatches, including the Google Pixel Watch 4.

Changes in the code, including a "3p" tag that could mean third-party, suggest the feature won't be a Pixel exclusive for much longer. It enables the user to lift their smartwatch up towards their head, and Gemini will instantly launch — ready to receive voice commands.

As for the online reaction to Samsung's upcoming smartwatch refresh, there's approval of the current circular face design, but questions over battery life. Of the three rumored models, one Redditor says "none of them solve the reason I moved to Garmin" — the reason being weeks rather than days of battery life.

Another commenter suggests "we don't need annual releases of Samsung watches", saying "they evolve very little year-to-year". With the approval of Reddit or not, it looks like these wearables are on the way — and we'll bring you all the details when they arrive.

• Open ear headphones company Shokz is working on new products outside of bone conduction or sports headphones
• These include smart glasses, in-ear AI assistants and hearing aid solutions
• They are all in various stages of development, with none planned for release anytime soon

Shokz is well-known in fitness circles as the maker of some of the best bone conduction headphones and best running headphones in the world. Go to any running or cycling race event, and you'll spot more than a few Shokz users in attendance. While the company has branched out into true open-ear headphones for daily life such as the OpenFit and OpenDots series, Shokz' top brass has confirmed it's working on more pivots into smart glasses, hearing solutions and (of course) AI.

Smart glasses like the Meta Ray Bans and Oakley Meta Vanguard pack directional speakers and microphones into the arms of the glasses themselves. This use of open-ear audio tech might make the smart-glasses form factor a natural fit for Shokz.

At a press conference in China, CEO Ken Chen said: "Smart devices, especially smart glasses, are a significant challenge for everyone in the industry. For glasses specifically, we have already gone through several iterations, and we see AI glasses as a category that is still at a very early stage. It is a complex product that requires many elements to come together."

While Shokz debuted a very early concept for its smart glasses at this year's CES conference in Las Vegas, this is the first confirmation that several versions of the glasses are, or have been, in active development.

It's interesting to note the phrase 'AI glasses' mentioned there, too. Chen said Shokz is "closely following developments in AI, and we are actively exploring how they may shape future wearable products."

Vincent Xiong, head of North America, confirmed in a separate speech that Shokz was also working on AI open-ear headphones, stating "AI will further accelerate the trend towards prolonged headphone usage... For the AI assistant, people need audio input, and there are no better devices than headphones. I don't think people will be able to stay away from AI."

Xiong went on to describe an AI assistant that could "record everything you say" presumably to be used to add context to an AI chatbot's replies, adding: "because of [an] NDA, I can't give you a lot of detail, but what I can share now is that we are working with one of the industry leaders in the United States for AI headphones."

Bone-conduction hearing loss solutions

As a specialist company focusing on headphones that allow you to retain spatial awareness, Shokz is also looking at hearing aid solutions. Chen said: "we’ve been exploring hearing-related devices for quite some time, although we want to be careful with the term 'hearing aids', since that is a medical term and carries regulatory implications.

"We already have some activities underway in China and Australia, and we want to do more in other areas. The work is still at an early stage... we don't have a specific timeline to share at this point."

Shokz went on to show journalists a film of a US teenager who suffers from unilateral (one ear) hearing loss. After contacting Shokz, the company was able to create a device to help her overcome the hearing loss using bone conduction and a microphone.

As an over-the-counter solution, Shokz' future device could have similar functionalities to the Nuance Audio Hearing Glasses, which uses omni-directional mics to help users with bilateral (both ears) hearing loss.

This ties in nicely with Shokz' admission that it's working on smart glasses, although wireless earbuds like the Shokz OpenFit Pro would likely be preferred for those with unilateral hearing issues, as one bud or both could be worn depending on the user's hearing needs.

• Samsung could be developing the Galaxy Fit 4 for a 2026 launch
• It won't be showcased at Galaxy Unpacked 2026, and will instead go on sale in September
• We don't know how much it will cost or what its new features are, but Samsung could give it a GPS boost

Affordable fitness trackers are rising in popularity, and Samsung could be gearing up to launch its next Galaxy Fit model — just as Google launched its budget-friendly Google Fitbit Air.

SamMobile first reported on the rumor, who claims it received information that Samsung is currently developing the next gen device in its lineup of budget wearables, which it says will launch later this year. It would mark the first Galaxy Fit device since the Galaxy Fit 3 from 2024.

The Fit 3 made our list of the best fitness trackers, and it's easy to see why:, they’re solid options for fitness novices who want a simple device with enough health monitoring tools.

The original report says the Galaxy Fit 4 is due for a September launch around the time of IFA 2026, which is set to take place from September 4-8. That said, the outlet also mentions that it’s unlikely that we’ll see the device make an appearance at Galaxy Unpacked 2026 in July, and will instead go straight to launch alongside the Galaxy Tab S12 and the Galaxy S26 FE.

Despite the launch date information, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what improvements Samsung plans to make with the device, but we have a hunch at what it won’t be getting.

It’s unlikely that the Galaxy Fit 4 will be able to run Wear OS like its Galaxy Watch sibling range, and will probably still run on the RTOS system like its predecessor. This is because of Samsung’s cost-cutting strategy, skipping the full power of Wear OS so it can list the device for a more affordable price, though we don’t know how much the Galaxy Fit 4 will cost just yet.

As for health tracking features, it’s unclear if there’ll be any new additions joining its roster of basic functions, but we’re confident that it’ll allow you to make the most of tools such as step, heart rate, and sleep tracking, as well as control music playback and phone notifications. It may even get some more AI-powered Samsung Health features to steal the Fitbit's lunch.

The most likely upgrade would be the addition of GPS, which the Galaxy Fit 3 doesn’t have. If Samsung gave the Galaxy Fit 4 a GPS boost, it would not only allow you to track outdoor activity more precisely, but it would also mean you can use your on-wrist device without needing to have it connected to your smartphone.

As we’ve seen with the Google Fitbit Air, basic fitness trackers seem to be all the hype at the moment. I can see why this is; why spend money on a premium smartwatch like the Apple Watch Ultra 3 if you know you don’t need all the advanced bells and whistles?

Although Samsung’s Galaxy Fit devices aren’t screenless, they still sit in the same ballpark as screenless fitness trackers due to their limited, yet sufficient health functions, adequate smartphone controls, and affordable price points.

Now that everyone’s flocking to the Fitbit Air, it creates tough competition for Samsung to really pull through with the Fit 4. However, Samsung could have the upper-hand if it chooses to bestow GPS upon the Galaxy Fit 4 — which the Fitbit Air doesn’t have.

• Someone has allegedly found a Google Pixel Watch 5 prototype in the sea
• It was shared in an X post by Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford
• The device looks the same as its predecessor, but has 'Pixel Watch 5' printed on the back

Tech leaks are more common than they used to be, but this unannounced Google smartwatch has just taken first prize for the weirdest tech leak ever — the Pixel Watch 5 has been found at the bottom of the ocean.

Founder of video game company Gearbox, Randy Pitchford, came across a post on his X account from someone who claimed that a friend found the unreleased Pixel Watch 5 while scuba diving near the island of St. Martin in the Caribbean (see below). The Pixel Watch 5 is projected to launch later this year.

In the X post, Pitchford included two close-up images of what appears to be a Pixel Watch 5 prototype. Pitchford also shared that despite having an empty battery, the watch had enough reserve power to display the correct time. Additionally, the embeddings on the back of the watch heavily suggest that the device is, in fact, a model of the Pixel Watch 5.

Pitchford’s images show clear readings on the back of the device that say ‘Google’ and ‘Pixel Watch 5’, as well as readings listing the device’s health-tracking and monitoring tools.

As per the image, the device has several labels, including ‘SpO2’ (Blood Oxygen Level), ‘EDA’ (Electrodermal Activity), ‘Skin Temperature’, ‘Heart Rate Sensor’, ‘Pulse Sensor’, and ‘UWB’ (Ultra-Wideband). Additionally, the smartwatch has IP68 water and dust resistance.

Design-wise, the device looks pretty much the same as the Pixel Watch 4 — it has a similar round watch face, and the inscriptions on the back are also identical to its predecessor, but it doesn't mention any new health tracking tools.

This makes sense, as the Pixel Watch 4 was only released in October 2025 and came with a major design upgrade and advanced features, including a skin temperature sensor and an AI health coach.

As you can imagine, the reactions to this story have been hysterical, garnering hundreds of reposts and comments from users. “This is maybe the most Google thing to ever happen,” one user commented, while another described it as “an underwater time portal”.

Comment from r/PixelWatch

This is by far one of the whackiest tech leaks we’ve seen since an Apple software engineer left a prototype of the iPhone 4 in a California bar in 2010 — it’s hard to top finding a smartwatch at the bottom of the ocean like Kate Winslet’s 'Heart of the Sea' diamond necklace from Titanic.

But despite the absurdity of this discovery, it has left people scratching their heads and questioning the leak's legitimacy.

Just five hours after Pitchford’s original post, he shared another post to say the watch had been reunited with its owner “thanks to the magic of the internet” — but he didn’t disclose who the prototype belongs to and where they managed to get their hands on one.

Not only that, other outlets that have reported on this have flagged Pitchford’s history of boosting engagement metrics with shock-factor posts, or “engagement farming,” as Tech Advisor describes it. There’s also the question about whether a tech company as large as Google would imprint health tracking information on the device this early in the development process.

Since Pitchford hasn’t shared anything about the prototype's owner and given Google’s silence on the matter, it’s best to view this with skepticism, as there are more questions than answers. However, that doesn't take away from the fact that it’s one of the funniest and most unhinged tech leaks ever.

A huge chunk of our lives are spent online now — working, gaming, watching, reading, and communicating — and at the center of that is the router (or even mesh Wi-Fi system) that pipes the internet into your home.

While most of us are likely to forget about the router once it's set up, and get on with the business of getting online, there are numerous useful settings on these devices that are worth knowing about. And one of those is the guest network.

You'll find it on most modern routers and mesh systems, and its primary purpose is for guests, as the name suggests: you can give visitors to your home access to the web without letting them snoop around any other devices you've got hooked up to the Wi-Fi.

However, you can use this extra network for much more than just guests — it's suitable for any kind of device that requires internet access but is best kept away from your most important gadgets (like phones and laptops).

What to use your guest network for

When you go to look up available Wi-Fi networks on something you're using, a guest network shows up as a separate entry to your regular Wi-Fi network, though it's run through the same router or mesh Wi-Fi system (which handles the job of keeping the separate network running independently).

If guests connect to this additional network, they can get online, but they can't do anything else network-related: they can't look at your connected computers, tablets, or phones, they can't access networked printers or storage connected to the network, or start logging into and controlling your various smart home devices (from security cameras to smart speakers).

That kind of siloing is useful for other devices too, not just visitors. For example, you can put your kids on it: You can toggle the guest network off at bedtime, without interrupting your own access to the web. It's not the most advanced parental control feature, but it works (and it could be helpful if parental controls on your router are a paid extra).

Then there are TVs. These devices need internet access these days, but they also tend to do a lot of data collection for their manufacturers — including, perhaps, what other devices are on your network. Putting a TV on a guest network means it can't find out quite as much about you and your home.

It's also a good idea to put some smart home devices on your guest network too — the ones that it doesn't matter too much if your guests 'see' them connected (maybe a Wi-Fi plug or a smart coffee maker). The security protections on these devices can sometimes be less well put together than on other gadgets, and if they are compromised remotely, the potential threat is not as serious if they aren't connected to your main Wi-Fi network.

How to enable the guest network

There are a multitude of routers and mesh Wi-Fi systems out there on the market, so obviously we can't give you precise instructions for enabling the guest network on all of them. However, it shouldn't be difficult to find: most manufacturers put the feature somewhere pretty prominently in the settings.

Whatever is managing the Wi-Fi around your home will most probably come with an app that runs on your phone, and if that's the case, the guest network option should be somewhere in that app. You might also be able to enable the guest network through a web interface for your router or mesh Wi-Fi system, accessed through your browser.

If you get stuck, refer to the documentation that came with your hardware, or run a quick web search that includes the manufacturer and model name of your router. If you're unsure about this, a quick glance at the device itself should tell you — look for a brand name, and a sticker with a barcode and serial number on it.

We'll give you one specific set of instructions, for Amazon's Eero mesh Wi-Fi systems. If you're using the Eero app on your phone, open the Settings tab, then tap Guest wifi network. Turn on the Enable guest network toggle switch, then tap Save (top right). You can enable and disable the extra network as needed.

Configuring the guest network shouldn't be an involved process, whatever type of internet access device you've got installed. You'll typically have to specify a name for the network (which pops up as an option when someone tries to connect to it), and then set a password which is required to connect to it.

The Google Fitbit Air is here, and early adopters are getting to grips with the new screenless fitness tracker and its AI-powered premium Google Health Coach.

I've shared my early thoughts after a few hours of testing and we've covered existing Fitbit users' disappointment and anger over some of the app changes — but how does it compare against an Apple Watch, perhaps the best-known and certainly the most commonly-spotted fitness wearable on wrists everywhere?

To find out, I went on a 10-kilometer evening run (braving the UK heatwave) with the Google Fitbit Air on one hand, and the Apple Watch Ultra 3 on the other. I was also wearing the Polar H10 heart rate monitor, intending to use it as a litmus test for accuracy, but the chest strap malfunctioned so I don't have any meaningful results to publish here.

I'm primarily looking at metrics such as heart rate and calories burned. Both wearables use optical heart rate sensors — LED lights that monitor blood flow on your wrist to estimate your heart rate. The estimation of calories burned combines your heart rate data with movement data and other metrics to calculate your energy expenditure.

As well as calories burned and average heart rate, I've included the results for average pace here too. I'm expecting the Apple Watch, with its built-in GPS, to be more accurate than the Fitbit Air, which is piggybacking off the GPS from my iPhone as it doesn't have any GPS capabilities itself.

It's also worth noting I have not linked Google Health and Apple Health at the time of writing, so these results are separate.

The results

Below are the results from my 10km run. Tap the 'next' tab on the graph to cycle through all three metrics.

Previous

1 / 4

Next

Average heart rate

Google Fitbit Air

158

Apple Watch Ultra 3

161

050100150200

Average heart rate Data

Product	Value
Google Fitbit Air	158
Apple Watch Ultra 3	161

Average Pace

Google Fitbit Air

5.37

Apple Watch Ultra 3

5.47

01.534.56

Average Pace Data

Product	Value
Google Fitbit Air	5.37
Apple Watch Ultra 3	5.47

Calories burned

Google Fitbit Air

773

Apple Watch Ultra 3

750

0200400600800

Calories burned Data

Product	Value
Google Fitbit Air	773
Apple Watch Ultra 3	750

Distance

Google Fitbit Air

10.43

Apple Watch Ultra 3

10.03

03.757.511.2515

Kilometers

Distance Data

Product	Value
Google Fitbit Air	10.43
Apple Watch Ultra 3	10.03

As you can see in the graphs above, both heart rate and calorie readings are quite close. The average heart rate for my workout was just a 3bpm difference between the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and the Google Fitbit Air. It would have been nice to have information from my chest strap to compare this as well, but I'll try this again before my full review with a different electrical heart rate monitor.

However, on previous tests the Apple Watch Ultra 3 matched the electrical heart rate monitor exactly, indicating that the Google Fitbit Air is pretty dang accurate too.

Likewise, the calorie counts on both wearables were relatively similar, with the Google Fitbit Air exceeding the Apple Watch Ultra 3's calculation by less than 25 calories. No two wearables are going to be exactly alike here, but this is close enough that I'd feel comfortable using the Google Fitbit Air day-to-day.

Average pace is a different matter. As previously mentioned, the Google Fitbit Air has no onboard GPS of its own, and although it showed a lovely map of my route obtained via my iPhone's GPS, it also overestimated my pace and thought I was a whole 10 seconds faster per kilometer than the Apple Watch did.

I know how my paces feel — it was a hot day and I had steep declines and inclines at either end of my run, so I ran slower than my usual brisk clip. I'm far more inclined to agree with Apple's assessment than the Fitbit's pace estimation here. Apple also gave me far more detail about my run, such as stride length and vertical oscillation (how bouncy I was during the run), whereas the Google Fitbit Air collects no such information. What Fitbit does surface, however, is steps taken during the workout (9,342 to be precise), which the Apple Watch Ultra 3 doesn't.

Fitbit also massively overestimated my run at 10.43km rather than 10.03km, even though it shows exactly the same map as my Apple Watch, with an identical finishing point, as you can see below in the comparison pic. Unlike 3bpm or 23kcal, over 400 meters and 10 seconds of pace are big differences.

Apple Fitness

Google Health

Analysis

In terms of the metrics relying on the onboard heart rate monitor, the $99.99 / £84.99 / AU$199 Google Fitbit Air is very accurate compared to the $799 / £749 / AU$1,399 Apple Watch Ultra 3.

I wouldn't have expected the Google Fitbit Air to be as reliable for run tracking as one of the best running watches, considering it doesn't even have GPS — as long as it's consistent for casual users, that'll be fine for most people. Anyone (like me) who cares enough to want maps, technique information like stride length, and pinpoint-accurate pace will likely gravitate towards a dedicated running watch anyway. Still, I was hoping for a smaller difference here.

The Apple Watch Ultra 3 has proven itself to be a very accurate wrist-based optical heart rate solution, so far superseded only by dedicated heart rate monitors. Based on this, I'm happy the Google Fitbit Air cleaves closely to this standard — although it's a shame I can't rely on GPS data harvested from my phone for more than a rough estimation.

You might have noticed the furore around users being forced to switch from the Fitbit app to the Google Health app this month, and it's an update that's happened on my phone too now: five years after Google acquired Fitbit, the Fitbit app is now no more, though the brand name lives in with the new Google Fitbit Air.

I don't mind the new app too much, even if it's not quite as well laid out or as intuitive as the old Fitbit one, but it's the Google Health Coach that I have the biggest reservations about. This AI-powered helper promises to provide personalized, insightful advice on your fitness and well-being, and you can interact with it in an easy, conversational way.

So far I'm not convinced, and I'll explain why. Note that I pay for Google AI Pro (mostly so that I can write about its features for work), so I get all the features of Google Health Premium and the AI Coach included. Separately, a lot of the AI Coach add-ons will set you back $9.99 / £7.99 / AU$14.99 a month.

Google Health Coach really is here to help

No sooner had I switched to the Google Health app than I was being politely but firmly onboarded with the AI Coach, to give me that bespoke fitness advice that I've clearly been missing up to this point. My coach and I started with a rather awkward conversation where I got reams of text on what the AI could do, and I politely asked to keep the well-being tips simple and general for now.

I like to keep track of sleep, steps, and how much water I'm taking in each day, and to counteract the health impacts of a desk job by keeping active. Beyond that though, and a bit of 5-a-side, I don't really have any health goals — I don't run or cycle, and I'm not looking to hit any specific targets through the rest of 2026.

Right from the first day of using Google Health, I opened the app to find a long block of AI-generated text — in that familiar, polished, peppy AI style — telling me about my recovery wins and that I'd logged eight hours of sleep. I also got a weather report included. So it was essentially taking up two-thirds of the screen to give me the same information I could get from a glance at the widget at the top of the page and a quick weather check.

The AI advice was of course followed by some preset responses I could use to report how I was feeling and continue the conversation, but I declined. As far as I can tell, there's no way to turn this Health Coach off, which seems strange — though presumably if you don't have the full premium subscription, you'll see less of it.

I have to acknowledge that the AI may get better over time, and I'm writing this after just a few days with it — maybe in future months and years it'll serve up some dazzling fitness insights. For now though, it seems to do a lot of stating the obvious, and using a lot of words and screen real estate along the way.

AI can and does make mistakes

At the bottom of your conversations with the Google Health Coach you'll see a familiar warning: "Coach is AI and can make mistakes. Not for medical advice." It's similar to the caveats you'll see under chats with the regular Gemini bot, or with the AI Overviews that now constantly pop up when you're searching for something in Google.

The inherently flawed nature of generative AI seems to be something that many people are just accepting now — that it doesn't really matter if AI makes mistakes, or that it gets it right often enough that a few inconsistencies can be overlooked. But this technology does genuinely make mistakes and spread misinformation, pretty regularly.

When I was researching this article, Google's AI Overviews told me a Google Health Premium subscription in Australia was AU$9.99 a month, and I had to go to the official Google post to find the right number. So we're on zero days since AI last made a mistake. Is it therefore wise to be relying on it for fitness and health advice?

Exactly how often will the AI Coach make mistakes? In what kind of areas? Is it going to tell me I got more sleep last week than I actually did? Will it put me on a six-month strength building program that actually reduces my strength? I'm sure it'll work most of the time, as our fitness editor Matt Evans has already found out, but what about when it doesn't?

I'd rather check my sleep and step stats myself, if it's all the same thanks Google — just like I have been doing for years. If Google is looking for ways to improve the AI Coach in future versions of its app, I'd suggest giving us a way to hide it behind a separate tab, so we can look at the most reliable data first.

I'll give the last word to the last message my AI Coach sent me: "{'call_tool':'end_of_conversation')".

Ordo Squishmallows Sonic Kids: Two-minute review

The Sonic Kids Battery Toothbrush is Ordo's entry-level electric toothbrush designed for children aged 4+. My six-year-old daughter and I tested the Squishmallows-branded model, but there is also a Wicked version for a slightly older demographic. If you prefer rechargeable toothbrushes, then Ordo sells an almost identical model but with an internal battery and a charging stand.

The design of the toothbrush is unashamedly targeted at young children. This begins with the fun and playful Squishmallows branding alongside bright and bold colors, but it also extends to the free-flowing and curvy shape. My child loved having her own age-appropriate toothbrush, and when I told her that she had to go back to her regular 'boring' toothbrush, she was genuinely disappointed.

One of the standout features of the toothbrush is that the heads are replaceable. Unlike the best electric toothbrushes aimed at adults, in which replaceable heads are almost a given, this is far from guaranteed with children's toothbrushes. Some electric toothbrushes aimed at children, such as Colgate's Kids Battery Toothbrushes and others from the likes of Oral-B, will only last a few months before the bristles lose their strength and the whole device is consigned to landfill.

Replaceable heads, just like an adult's brush, sets the Ordo apart and will help to ensure the longevity of the toothbrush as a whole.

Despite the replacement heads which Ordo will recycle for you, free of charge, the toothbrush itself doesn't score particularly highly from a sustainability point of view. It's constructed of almost 100% plastic and is powered by a single AA battery, which lasts 60 days.

The toothbrush produces 18,000 pulses/vibrations per minute, which offers reasonable performance in terms of bacteria and plaque removal. Older children will benefit from a more vigorous clean, but the Ordo delivers just about enough for children aged around four or five.

My child's regular toothbrush has an oscillating head, and so the sonic motion of the Ordo took a little getting used to. She also found that the vibrations ran right through the handle, causing an uncomfortable feeling in her hand. Sonic versus oscillating is a long-standing debate, and if you're wondering which to go for, our sonic vs rotating toothbrushes guide is worth a look.

This Ordo toothbrush doesn't feature any additional modes beyond vibrating, and there are no timers in sight, not even a two-minute one. This was an issue for my daughter, who had no idea whether she had reached the magic two minutes and so relied on me to help her estimate that. The lack of 30-second pacing timers is unsurprising at this price point but would have been nice to have.

The features on offer and the performance delivered make the Ordo Sonic Kids Toothbrush a strong contender for a place amongst the best electric toothbrushes. If Ordo could integrate a two-minute timer and improve its sustainability credentials, then we'd have a five-star performer on our hands.

Ordo Squishmallows Sonic Kids: Specifications

Ordo Squishmallows Sonic Kids: Price and availability

• $14.99 US / £12.50 UK / $24.99 AUS
• 2-pack of replacement heads: $9.99 US / £8.99 UK / $15 AUS
• Reasonably priced toothbrush but expensive replacement heads

The Ordo Squishmallows Sonic Kids battery toothbrush is reasonably priced given its build quality and replacement head capability. In the box are the toothbrush handle, two heads, and an AA battery.

Each head will last around three months, which means the upfront cost will provide six months' worth of toothbrushing. A 2-pack of replacement heads is almost as expensive as the toothbrush itself, so you'll need to factor this ongoing cost into your buying decision.

If your child is into characters such as Barbie, Batman, Minions, or Pokémon, then Colgate is the alternative brand to go for. They are usually around half the price compared to the Ordo, but the head isn't replaceable. That means once the bristles wear down, you throw the whole plastic handle away, making Ordo much more eco-friendly and cost-effective in the long run.

• Value score: 4/5

Ordo Squishmallows Sonic Kids: Scorecard

Ordo Squishmallows Sonic Kids: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy if if...

Also consider

How I tested

My six-year-old daughter used the Ordo Squishmallows Sonic Kids toothbrush for one month. Her normal toothbrush is an Oral-B PRO Junior Electric with an oscillating head, although she has experience of a manual toothbrush as well. Her familiarity of both of these meant she was able to compare the Ordo to both ends of the spectrum of what's available for children.

First reviewed: May 2026

I’m 54 and while I’m reasonably fit, I’m finding my Brazilian Jiu-jitsu sparring sessions are getting harder and harder to complete. In short, my cardio sucks, and while I’ve never felt the need to do extra training sessions outside of my regular classes before, I’ve reached the age where I need to do something to improve it.

I could just start running, but I don’t really enjoy it. I also don’t want to end up with a knee injury, because that’s kryptonite for a BJJ practitioner. On top of that, I needed something that mixed in a bit of strength training because I’m starting to notice that without regular push-ups, my upper-body strength is beginning to deteriorate with age. That’s only normal — we all gradually lose muscle mass if we don’t maintain it.

Recently, I got an email from ChatGPT (yes, apparently it emails you now, too) called “Easy self-care you can start today.” Okay, I thought, I’ll bite. The email contained a suggested prompt titled: “I don’t belong to a gym. Make a no-equipment, 20-minute home workout.”

That immediately appealed to me because I have a pathological hatred of sterile gym environments and also a family that has no interest in navigating around equipment. I needed something I could squeeze into a spare 20 minutes at home without turning fitness into another logistical operation.

The 20-minute no-gym, no-equipment, home workout

If you click the link in the email it opens up ChatGPT and the actual prompt ChatGPT inserts is:

“Create a 20-minute, no-equipment routine for a home workout. Include mobility, light strength, and cardio. Include a quick cool-down. Ask anything you might need to know about me to finetune the plan.”

Of course, ChatGPT already knew I do BJJ, so it told me it would “lean toward something that improves joint mobility, balance, leg endurance, and cardio recovery without wrecking you for training”, which was exactly what I wanted.

After asking me a series of questions, including “How hard do you want this to feel on a scale of 1–10?” (I bravely opted for a seven…) and “How many days a week would you realistically do it?” (I went for two after deciding honesty was probably the smarter strategy), it produced my personalized 20-minute workout.

The routine was built specifically around improving my cardio, upper-body endurance without equipment, movement quality, and “not wrecking your joints,” which sounded good to me.

After a short warm-up, the main circuit began. It contained some predictable exercises, like push-ups, but also some surprises, including “Bear crawl hold + shoulder taps,” accompanied by the warning: “This one is deceptively horrible”, and a BJJ-specific one: “Sprawl to technical stand-up”, that I quite enjoyed.

There was also a surprising amount of advice woven throughout. One line in particular stood out: “A lot of older grapplers over-focus on flexibility and under-train recovery cardio.” I felt seen.

What ChatGPT got right about exercise

ChatGPT also suggested progressing the workout by adding density rather than complexity — increasing the amount of time spent doing each exercise instead of endlessly adding new movements. That felt sensible compared to the usual online fitness culture of turning every workout into an audition for a superhero movie.

In short, I’ve been doing the workout twice a week for two weeks now, and it genuinely does seem to be helping. My cardio feels noticeably better, and I feel stronger and more stable during sparring. More importantly, the routine feels achievable enough that I’ve actually kept doing it.

That might sound like faint praise, but consistency is probably the hardest part of fitness once you’re over 50. Motivation is powerful at the beginning, right up until something starts resembling a routine and your brain suddenly decides sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine sounds vastly more appealing.

The trick, I’ve found, is lowering the barrier to starting. If I don’t want to do the workout, I tell myself I only have to do the warm-up. Then maybe just one exercise after that. Once you’ve started moving, continuing usually feels easier than stopping.

And that’s the thing ChatGPT got right. It didn’t build me an aspirational fantasy workout designed for a 24-year-old fitness influencer with infinite free time and functioning knees. It built something realistic enough that I could actually imagine doing it again next week.

• The Oura Ring 5 has a smaller design, longer battery life and higher price tag
• Six new features are coming to the Oura app, but not for all members
• You can pre-order today and have it delivered by June 4

The Oura Ring 5 is officially here, and it’s a big step up from last year's model. Oura says it has completely overhauled the design, making it 40% smaller, lighter, longer-lasting, more accurate and its most scratch-resistant ring yet.

Almost everything has been completely redesigned, allowing it to last for up to a week (we noted six days of charge in our Oura Ring 4 review), take more accurate, consistent readings thanks to a new signal architecture that uses more powerful LEDs and sensors, and be less susceptible to scratches because of a new extra-strong 'physical vapour deposition' coating.

Even the portable charging case has had a nifty upgrade; while the previous generation was buttonless, there’s a new dedicated button to make it easier to see the battery status and quickly pair with your device. On top of this, Oura is also adding 'Locate' to help you keep track of where your smart ring is, which will also be available for the Oura Ring 4.

Priced at $99 / £99 / AU$159 for the case, and $399 / £399 / AU$649 for base finishes (silver and black) and $499 / £499 / AU$799 for more premium styles (there’s a new shade of gold and deep rose on top of the usual brushed silver and ‘stealth’ options), the Oura Ring 5 is more expensive than the previous generation and rivals, like the Samsung Galaxy Ring and Amazfit Helio Ring. Although the upgraded case will cost the same as last year's model at $99 / £99 / AU$159.

Pre-orders are available now, with shipping set to start on June 4. Because the smart ring is significantly smaller than the previous generation, Oura is encouraging existing customers looking to upgrade to use their dedicated Oura Ring 5 sizing kit, as the fit may feel different at the same size.

Membership remains $5.99 / £5.99 / AU$9.99 a month ($69.99 / £69.99 / AU$109.99 a year), which is great because there are various new features rolling out to different regions and generations. Not all of these will be available at the same time, though.

Every new app feature coming to Oura Ring owners

When the new smart ring launches, Oura Ring members will get several new features, including 'Live Activity Tracking' for seeing your health metrics in real-time while working out, ‘Menopause Insights’ for assessing sleep, mood, cognition and daily functioning symptoms, and 'Hormonal Birth Control', which builds upon its existing 'Cycle Insights' dashboard by offering a "first-of-its-kind" view into how biometrics shift across hormone and hormone-free days.

The two latter features have already been introduced in the US as part of Oura's continued expansion into women’s health data, making this a great free update for all existing subscribers around the world.

On June 30, 'Lab Uploads' will also launch globally, allowing members to import their lab and blood work directly into the Oura app to help compare lab results alongside their Oura biometric data.

With even more personal health data being tracked and stored in the app, Oura has added a new security protection tool that lets you delete your stored data from a specific time window without having to cancel your entire account, which will be available to all members at launch.

Those in the US are also set to get even more new features as part of the launch. Starting today (May 28), you'll have the choice to opt into a new 'Brain Health Study' to measure how your sleep, stress and behaviour relate to your brain’s cognitive function and body’s performance. The study has been developed with Cambridge Cognition, a neuroscience technology company in the UK.

Launching at the start of June is 'Health Radar', a new always-on data collecting feature for estimated blood pressure readings and nighttime breathing that builds on 'Symptom Radar' alert system, and 'Health Records', which builds on the new 'Lab Uploads' by letting you store all your clinical reports in one place.

These updates are all part of Oura's mission to help find more 'actionable' solutions from their health insights. Oura has partnered with an on-demand care platform called Counsel Health, that connects medical AI with licensed physicians so that you can ask questions directly in the app and get personalized medical advice from licensed healthcare providers .

Last but certainly not least, members can expect GLP-1 medication self-management to come to the app as part of an expansion of its metabolic health offering. Oura says that global adoption is projected to surpass 100 million by 2030, making this a great solution for patients that have to juggle several apps for tracking dosages and biometrics.

Oura’s chief product officer, Holly Shelton, says the "Oura Ring 5 is the most significant leap in smart ring history". Looking at the new specs and features announced, this could set a new standard in smart rings as it also delivers on almost every upgrade we wanted to see for the Oura Ring 5 (the price is higher than we expected). But of course we’ll have to test it out ourselves to confirm that.

Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro review: Specifications

Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro: One minute review

The Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro looks quite similar to an Apple Watch Ultra 3, only slimmer, and I get the feeling that’s very much the idea. The same raised bump on the titanium shell protects the digital crown, and houses an additional side button. It’s the same shape as the Ultra 3, the screen is bright and colorful, and as you can see from the TikTok video embedded below in which I compare the two, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s an Apple Watch at first glance.

However, just because Huawei’s stealing Apple’s lunch a little in the design stakes, that doesn’t mean this just a cheaper knockoff. Huawei has been making quality wearables with accurate metrics for ages now, and the Fit 5 Pro is another absolute win in my book.

It’s light and comfortable to wear, with the wide screen and slim design ensuring it sits flush and close to the wrist, like the Garmin Venu X1, making it perfect for more comfortable exercise, and not weighty or cumbersome to wear during sleep tracking. The tough ‘aerospace-grade’ titanium-alloy shell is a great get at this price, with the closest-priced Apple product, the Apple Watch SE 3, using aluminum, plastic and nylon. The whole aerospace thing is a bit of a gimmick, but titanium makes the whole package feel much more premium and stylish, and it looks as good as it feels.

The Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro battery is claimed to last up to 10 days in smartwatch mode, but with near-constant wear, multiple GPS workouts, and with the always-on display turned off, I got around six days during my testing. The LTPO AMOLED display is powerful, and nearly two inches wide with an adaptive 1-60hz refresh rate. In layman’s terms, it’s bright, smooth and powerful, and in such a thin smartwatch it’s a real battery sucker. Nevertheless, six days is still triple the usage I get from the Apple Watch Ultra 3 on a single charge, even though the latter is triple the price.

Like Apple, Huawei relies on its own walled-garden ecosystem, as a result of being a Chinese company and operating behind the ‘great firewall of China’, preventing its integration with apps like Google Maps, Spotify and others from major US tech companies, although it supports some select integrations like Strava and Komoot via the Huawei Health app. The AppGallery must be accessed from your phone’s internet browser and the apps downloaded from there, with no Play Store or App Store integration.

The Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro uses Chinese apps for its core functions, like Petal Maps for navigation instead of Google or Apple Maps, so to sync with your phone you’ll also start needing to use Petal as your primary map app. Lately, Huawei has been using the UK-based Curve digital wallet — this is good news, as it’s a feature that’s long eluded Huawei watches outside of China.

However, if you’re an Android or Apple user, your Google and Apple wallets don’t automatically work with your watch, although this is slightly less of a dealbreaker, as Garmin also uses a proprietary wallet system. WhatsApp can only be interacted with via notifications, not a dedicated WhatsApp interface. These pain points are not necessarily a dealbreaker for everyone, but it does make shelling out for the Fit 5 Pro in favour of the best Apple Watches or best Android watches that bit harder to swallow.

There are a bunch of interesting wellness features on the watch. Much was made at launch of the ‘mini-workouts’ feature, and there are 30 in total, for which you follow a cute panda avatar in stretching or light aerobic exercises lasting up to a couple of minutes, many of which you can do at your desk. These are targeted at specific body parts, used to correct posture or stretch your neck, spine, legs, or even face.

The Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro is built for fitness tracking, and it’s strong in this field. On a 5K test route around Paris, the Fit 5 Pro cleaved closely to the top-tier Garmin Fenix 8 Pro in terms of distance, pace and heart rate measurements, with just 1bpm between the different ‘average heart rate’ measurements. Having tested the Fenix 8 Pro against a Polar H10 heart rate monitor and being satisfied with its accuracy, I feel good about Huawei’s metrics here when compared to the Fenix 8 Pro, especially for its low price. I also tested it against the new Google Fitbit Air fitness tracker, which again recorded just a 1bpm difference in my average heart rate. Unfortunately, my Polar H10 heart rate monitor malfunctioned during testing, but I’ll update this review if any scores differentiate from a new device.

The Fit 5 Pro packs dual-band L1+L5 GPS, which supposedly means it’s more accurate when you’re among tall buildings. When I tested its GPS credentials against the Garmin, there was 30 meters between the estimations of the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro and Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro; the Fenix 8 Pro thought I’d run 5.04km, while Huawei calculated 5.01km. A total of 30/5000+ meters is to me a reasonable statistical difference, as it’s a less than a 1% margin of error, and perfectly fine for most amateur athletes. Huawei’s TruSleep sleep-tracking and TruSense heart rate algorithms are industry standard, and there are more sports modes to choose from than you could ever need. It’s a strong fitness tracking choice.

The Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro offers good battery life, accurate tracking, and lots of nifty features — and those who want Apple Watch Ultra aesthetics and performance at a budget price are going to love it. But if you want a smartwatch that can handle apps, calls, notifications, directions and other convenience features, be prepared to jump through a few extra hoops thanks to Huawei’s walled garden.

Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro review: Price and availability

• £249.99 in the UK
• AU$249.99 in Australia
• Not available in the US

The Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro costs £249.99 in the UK and AU$299 in Australia. It’s unavailable in the US due to the ongoing ban on Huawei consumer electronics.

It’s very well- priced considering it’s packed with features and packs a durable, premium build, as watches with titanium bezels and sapphire glass usually tend to retail for a lot more.

If that’s still too dear for you, the Huawei Watch Fit 5 (aka the non-Pro version) starts at £159.99 in the UK from Huawei’s website, and around AU$225 in Australia at third-party outlets. Rather than titanium alloy, its case is made of softer recycled aluminum, and its design is more akin to an Apple Watch SE rather than the Ultra series.

Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro review: Scorecard

Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro review: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider...

How I tested

I wore the Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro for around a week, draining the battery, sleeping with it on, and using it for exercise. I tested the micro-workouts feature, used the Emotional Wellbeing tools, and took the watch swimming, walking and running. To test its running metrics I compared it against the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro smartwatch, Google Fitbit Air fitness tracker and Polar H10 heart rate monitor, wearing multiple devices on runs.

I’ve only had access to the Google Fitbit Air and the new Google Health app for a few hours, at the time of writing, and already there are some interesting things to say about one of this year's biggest contenders for the best fitness tracker crown.

While the stats and numbers you get in the free tier are a little basic, they’re roughly in line with what you’d expect from a $99.99 / £84.99 / AU$199 tracker. But it’s the premium AI health coach that’s impressed me with its ability to incorporate contextual information and change your weekly plan just by chatting to it.

The tracker is light and comfortable, it’s got some cool features even at the free tier, and Whoop (the other big player in the screenless fitness tracker space) should be worried.

While Whoop offers more detailed metrics, it’s also prohibitively expensive and doesn’t allow you to buy the fitness tracker or use it for free after purchase in any form: it entirely relies on an expensive subscription service starting at £169 / $199 / AU$299 annually, and going up from there. Cancel that subscription, and it’s just an inert hunk of plastic. You can read all about it in my Google Fitbit Air vs Whoop breakdown.

My early impression of the Google Fitbit Air and its Google Health Premium AI coaching service is that it’s designed to help beginner-to-frequently-training athletes, with simple metrics, round numbers, and a friendly interface that does a lot of its calculations behind the scenes.

Those who are already heavily invested in Whoop’s ecosystem won’t get the granularity of data they are used to, and thus might not be tempted by the lower price of the Fitbit. However, for the rest of us, I think this is going to do very well.

Design and comfort

The Google Fitbit Air weighs just 12g. It’s light, slender, and the performance loop band I’m wearing is very comfortable, although it does have a tendency to get a little… dank during a very sweaty workout, such as my first test run completed during a heatwave here in the UK.

It offers no interaction on the device at all, just a charging LED. As I said in previous pieces, it’s almost like an older pedometer-style Fitbit that clipped to your clothes, just in a modern form factor and made by Google.

I have to say, it’s very unobtrusive, being around two-thirds the width of the Whoop MG. It’s very easy to wear this in conjunction with another device or a non-smart analog watch on the other wrist. Funnily enough, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

Early comparison testing

I immediately incorporated the Google Fitbit Air into my smartwatch testing routine. I went on two runs with the Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro on one hand (the device I’m currently closing out on testing, which on previous runs matched very closely with the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro), a Polar H10 chest strap, and the Google Fitbit Air on the other.

Unfortunately, the usually pinpoint-accurate chest strap malfunctioned, but the average heart rate between the two wrist-based wearables was just 1bpm apart. I know the Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro is quite accurate based on previous testing, so it’s a positive early sign, but before my full review I’ll be using a (working) chest strap to test the Google Fitbit Air.

What I was most impressed with was the Google Health Coach, the app’s flagship AI feature that encompasses everything else. After a brief chat about my goals, it set up an early plan for me, comprised of three gym sessions and two runs a week, to build muscle while maintaining baseline cardiovascular fitness.

After I completed my test runs, Google noted the extreme weather here in the UK, and mentioned it in the workout’s summary as something to take into account when viewing my metrics, as my heart rate was likely to be higher than normal. Very clever: exactly the sort of contextual information fitness trackers have been missing since their inception, pulled in automatically using location and weather data as well as fitness data.

Impressed, I tapped the ever-present blue ‘Ask Coach’ button and typed “I might swap one of my gym sessions for a long run this week. Can you update my plan?”

Hey presto: not only did it update my plan, but it also surfaced the Long Endurance Run activity profile for me to use on my next running day. I must admit, my early experiment with this AI Health Coach is a resounding success.

But at what cost?

All of this, unfortunately, comes at the expense of existing Fitbit badges and features. The app has been renamed, rebranded and redesigned overnight, with all badges and community features lost in favor of the AI-first approach.

Existing Fitbit users are not happy: on the Fitbit subreddit, one complaint thread garnered over 1,500 upvotes and over 600 comments, with users mentioning they are "beyond frustrated" at the changes and calling the app "slop", or a victim of "enshittification".

A particular target of criticism is the food logging feature, which I’ve not yet tried, but Google says "fixes are coming".

• Google Health is now replacing the Fitbit app for most users
• Many Fitbit fans are unhappy about the switch due to missing features
• Google has promised that regular updates and fixes are coming

We're now at the stage where the Google Health app has replaced the Fitbit app for most users on Android and iOS, and Google has just posted an update promising regular improvements and bug fixes, as well as committing to listening to feedback — and there's an awful lot of feedback to get through.

We got a hint of the user revolt that was coming when the Google Health update started rolling out, but now that everyone has the new app, the number of negative reactions has increased exponentially. Users are complaining about missing features, poor user interface choices, and AI they don't really want.

"It's just an atrocious app," is one of the reactions on Reddit that sums up the general mood. Other commenters describe the Google Health update as "unbelievably bad", "clunky", and repeatedly showing "incorrect data".

While a few bumps along the road are to be expected in a major switch like this, it seems users really, really don't like what they're seeing. Previously loyal Fitbit fans — many of whom have owned Fitbits since before Google acquired the company — now say they're switching to Garmin and other competitors.

Fixes and upgrades on the way

wtf is this bs app? I want a refund from r/fitbit

A lot of complaints center around the new look of the Google Health app, which is busier and more cluttered than the old Fitbit one. There's a lot of room given over to the Google Health AI Coach too, though advanced AI features are only available for those with Google Health Premium (previously Fitbit Premium) subscriptions.

According to the survey we ran earlier this month, only 20% of you will be handing over money for the extra AI Coach features, and that's a sentiment reflected in the feedback we're seeing online: most users would still rather analyze their stats themselves.

The food logging capabilities of the new Google Health app have come in for a lot of criticism too, and this is actually something Google says it will address. The ability to "add custom food viewing, creation, and logging" is included on a lengthy list of upgrades due to roll out starting this week.

Other bug fixes and improvements cover issues with exercise tracking (including runs that are inaccurately labeled), calorie tracking, and missing Sleep Scores, as well as making the AI Coach "more concise" in its answers. Google clearly has a lot of work to do with its new app, and that's reflected in the reaction from users.

• Apple’s AI-powered health coach has apparently been delayed
• It’s now not expected until “later in the iOS 27 update cycle”
• The news arrives in a new report from a reputable source

Apple’s WWDC event is just around the corner, which means we can expect a host of software announcements from the tech giant on June 8. One thing fans of the best Apple Watches might have been excited for is Apple's long-rumored AI health coach (AI) — but a new report has just put a dampener on those expectations.

According to Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman, Apple’s AI health coach — apparently dubbed 'Project Mulberry' inside Apple — might not be revealed at WWDC after all. That will come as a blow to anyone looking forward to this feature, but it’s not all doom and gloom.

Past rumors have suggested that Apple is building an AI helper that can study your fitness metrics and identify key areas of improvement, then give you tips and plans to help you get there. Another feature might involve using your device cameras to monitor your workouts and give you pointers to step up your posture and performance.

However, Gurman says this fitness coach won’t be shown off at WWDC. Instead, the reporter now doesn’t expect any of Project Mulberry’s features to arrive until “later in the iOS 27 update cycle,” meaning a key delay for the mooted health tools.

Rivals pushing ahead

This news comes after Gurman previously reported that Project Mulberry had been “scaled back,” with the company planning to include its features in its existing tools rather than offering a standalone app. Yet even that delay and restructuring wasn’t enough to get the feature ready for WWDC, at least according to Gurman.

It stands in stark contrast to the Fitbit Air and its Google Health companion app, which features an AI-based Google Health Coach that absorbs your health metrics, sleep data, nutritional intake, medical records and more in order to build a personalized plan to help you feel healthier, sleep better, and more. While Google’s effort has rolled out around the world, Apple’s is nowhere to be seen.

Still, Gurman has some more positive news for fitness fans who live in the Apple ecosystem. For one thing, he believes that watchOS 27 will bring improved heart-rate tracking, which could make the Apple Watch an even better fitness tracker for those who need these features.

As well as that, Apple is expected to overhaul its Health app at WWDC, and while Gurman said the AI fitness coach has been pushed back, he made no mention of similar delays to this Health revamp. That could mean the app gets a little more useful this summer, even if Project Mulberry is nowhere to be found.

Regardless, we’re hoping that Apple’s improved fitness offerings aren’t held up for too long. With rival companies pushing ahead with their own personalized metrics and analyses, Apple has its work cut out to draw level in this area.