Fitbit Premium review: Dubious value at a questionable price
Google makes some odd choices when choosing what to hide behind its paywall
Google makes some odd choices when choosing what to hide behind its paywall
It’s easy to get caught up in all the pomp and glamor of the annual parade of smartwatches from Apple, Google, and Samsung. Still, unless you’ve been paying attention, you might have missed that the Chinese juggernaut Xiaomi has been steadily eating up global market share with its lineup of surprisingly good fitness-focused wearables.
It's not perfect, but the ScanWatch 2 offers digital features with an analog aesthetic
I’ve never really respected hybrid smartwatches. Companies slap analog hands on a digital watch and call it a hybrid, but the design still feels like a piece of tech on your wrist. To be a true hybrid, classic watchmaking and aesthetics must be given more than a passing nod. No one is expecting high horology, but more can be done to win the respect of watch enthusiasts. Withings attempts to strike that balance with the ScanWatch 2. It features a premium build quality and an ambitious array of smartwatch features, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it should wind up on your wrist.
Ray-Ban style meets Meta smarts to create a pair of almost perfect POV glasses for social creators
Have you ever wished you could document your life without needing to strap a GoPro to your chest or hold your phone up? For the past year, I've searched for a solution to capture my travels without being actively involved.
True life: I'm addicted to trying new fitness trackers. It's true; there's something about strapping a new wearable to my wrist that just appeals to me and makes me want to continue on my fitness journey. Over the last few months, I've gotten into running much more, and I like to see all the data associated with my runs, whether I know what it all means or not. I've been a fan of Garmin for a long time, and when the new Vivoactive 5 came out, I knew I had to get my hands on it to see what the company could pack into its latest $300 wearable.
Quality fitness tracking, more Google than ever
At a time when it seems like dedicated fitness trackers as a category are getting stale, the Fitbit Charge 6 feels surprisingly relevant. The Charge 6 is actually $20 less expensive than the last-gen Charge 5 was, but at an MSRP of $160, it's still approaching cheap smartwatch territory. It also packs in more Google-centric smartwatch-like functionality than Fitbit's previous trackers have, though, with support for both Google Wallet and Google Maps, all while maintaining the multi-day battery life central to the proper fitness tracker experience. If you can get past the tiny, narrow display, there's a lot to like here.
Unobtrusive health tracking without a fee in sight
Smart rings still aren't nearly as ubiquitous as smartwatches or other wrist-based fitness wearables. Still, the category has been slowly and steadily growing since Oura more or less defined it with its first-generation ring nearly a decade ago. The Ring Air is the first smart ring from India-based Ultrahuman, founded in 2019. Compared to the third-generation Oura Ring, the young company's entry into the smart ring market is a little rough and ready. But Ultrahuman's pricing model — a one-time payment with no monthly fee required for full functionality — might make it the smart ring to get for the subscription-averse.
Reliable battery life and improved fitness tracking, wrapped up in a near-identical package
The original Google Pixel Watch was my favorite smartwatch last year, but I've always felt that opinion was against my better judgment. Google's first smartwatch looked fantastic and performed very well, but at a premium price of $350, its weak battery life just took too much babysitting to make it a solid recommendation for most people.
Best-in-class heart rate tracking let down by a crummy companion app
Back in 1982, a small Finnish start-up called Polar Electro released the first consumer-grade, wireless heart rate tracker. It was one of the earliest wearable fitness devices on the market. By the 1990s, it had created not just software to analyze the data its heart rate monitors were producing, but software that could detect heart rate variability and software to help users target specific heart rate zones.
It might not work with Android, but Apple continues to place its claim on my wrist
Allow me to let you in on a little secret. Despite the fact that my position as the Phones Editor of an Android-focused website means I'm almost always carrying an Android phone (or two, or three) in my pockets, my wrist is usually adorned with an Apple Watch. After more than half a decade across three different Android wearables — dating back to the first-gen Moto 360 — I first picked up the Apple Watch Series 5 in 2020, finally giving in after Google seem bored with its own platform.
The second-gen Epix Pro brings some welcomed changes
Garmin is one of the most respected names in the fitness tracking space, and that's a reputation that the company has earned through years of creating some of the best smartwatches out there for tracking your progress and achieving your goals. There's no shortage of options when it comes to the best Garmin smartwatches, but picking the right one for your personal goals can sometimes be as simple as which one you happen to like the most.
A bit on the pricey side for an entry-level tracker, but it's got all the goods to get you started
Fitbit has been with us since 2009, when it brought the world of fitness tracking to the general public for the reasonable price of $100. Since then (and particularly since the Apple Watch in 2015), the market for smartwatches and fitness trackers has exploded bringing a staggering diversity of choices to the public. Despite this abundance, Fitbit’s current $100 offering, the Inspire 3, is still one of the better fitness trackers you can buy today.
Call it boring, but it’s still the best Android smartwatch, hands down
The tech industry’s 2023 can be sufficiently summed up in one word: iterative. Refining what’s already good, adding small tweaks, but no total overhauls or revolutionary changes — with the possible exception of the Moto Razr+. Samsung has been leading this charge, with the biggest product changes we’ve seen this year being a bigger Galaxy Z Flip 5 cover screen, and one small but so significant change to the Galaxy Watch 6 series. And no, it’s not the return of the fancy rotating bezel on the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic.
Mostly minor improvements from the Watch 5, but a fan-favorite feature returns
Back in 2021, after years of stagnation, Samsung and Google jointly kicked off a sort of relaunch of Wear OS with the Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. The watches were both Samsung's first to run on Wear OS and the first watches from any manufacturer to feature the redesigned Wear OS 3. With great performance and exciting new software, the wearables were a hit.
The TicWatch Pro 5 offers great performance and battery life, but it's not without its flaws
The past couple of years have been equal parts exciting and frustrating for Wear OS fans. While Samsung’s Wear OS-based Galaxy Watches and Google’s Pixel Watch have breathed new life into the platform, options from other players have stagnated, offering late and incomplete updates to the modern Wear OS 3.
The third-gen Oura Ring is good at what it does, but it starts at $300
In the decade or so they've existed, smart rings haven't experienced the same explosion in popularity as other wearable tech — size constraints make developing good smart rings to sell at reasonable prices a tall order. Oura's been making smart rings since 2015, and the Oura Ring, now in its third iteration, is one of the most refined and popular options today.
The Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition favors style over substance, which leads to shortcomings as a smartwatch
When I think about the Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition, I remember an old Top Gear episode. Jeremy Clarkson was reviewing the first all-electric Mercedes SLS supercar. It was an absolute monster, capable of producing 739HP and a top speed of 155MPH. There was only one catch: battery life. The Mercedes could only sustain that performance for less than 10 miles before needing to charge.
The best smartwatches tend to share some common traits, such as a large display, software customization, fitness tracking, and various apps. To carve out a niche, Withings has chosen to go in an entirely different direction with the ScanWatch. Withings designed a striking and classically designed timepiece offering a wide range of health-tracking features.
A classic watch design with modern smartwatch features
Hybrid smartwatches are a wonderful fusion of an analog watch design blended with current technology, giving them a unique feel. Fossil's latest smartwatch, the Gen 6 Wellness Edition Hybrid, attempts to marry old and new to carve out a piece of the smartwatch world dominated by watches like the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5.
Whoop is great for runners and swimmers, but if your workout regimen includes weightlifting, it's not worth the price
It doesn't need to be the start of January for you to work on new fitness goals. Although your local gym is currently raking in the profits, getting out of the house and pushing yourself harder than ever before doesn't require a New Year's Resolution. All it takes is a plan and a little bit of drive — and thankfully, modern fitness trackers are more than capable of delivering both.
Solid hardware, but this just isn't worth $200
The Amazfit GTS 4 is a strange device. At a retail price of $200, the tracker is positioned as an upper midrange option, competing not only against scores of trackers from market leaders like Fitbit, but also fully-fledged smartwatches. I really like some things about the GTS 4: it’s got an attractive (if familiar) design, and its display is lovely and vibrant. But in the ever more crowded fitness wearable space, that’s probably not enough to justify the GTS 4’s existence, let alone its price.