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Wearables Archive

Archives for May 2025

Victoria Song
Victoria Song
Track your mental stress... with a forehead e-tattoo?

That’s what researchers at the University of Texas at Austin are proposing in this paper published in Device. In an interview with IEEE Spectrum, co-author Nanshu Lu says it’s meant to help people in “high-stakes, high-demand” jobs monitor their stress in real-time. The e-tattoo measures brainwaves and eye movements to decode mental workloads to help prevent people in stressful jobs from reaching a breaking point.

Obviously, this is research and not an actual thing yet — but it sure does look cyberpunk.

Front on view of man staring straight forward while wearing electrodes on his forehead and face
Photo: Nanshu Lu / University of Texas Austin
Victoria Song
Victoria Song
Say Drake...

I hear you like your Nokias... blung? Listen, it’s early and I’m not Kendrick. However, behold this iced-out Nokia phone and wallet chain that jeweler Alex Moss made for Drake’s Some Sexy Songs 4 U album. Hypebeast has the details but apparently this project took four months to complete and has over 150 carats of diamonds.

I think this counts as a wearable.

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
Get ready for Apple’s glassy operating systems overhaul.

This year’s rumored redesign for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS is also coming to watchOS and tvOS, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. In an April subscriber edition of Power On, he wrote that watchOS would only get elements of the redesign “here and there.”

It’s expected the updates will take cues from the look of the glassy, translucent visionOS, which, Gurman writes, is also getting tweaks where they “make sense for a headset.”

Victoria Song
Victoria Song
The dark side of wearable tech.

I wear three to five wearables all the time, so I relate to the anxiety described in this New York Times article. Managing it is a huge part of my job, which is why I wrote this how-to with a lot of my tips and tricks. And as I’ve said on many a Vergecast episode, I purposefully break streaks to preserve my mental health. Friendly reminder from your neighborhood wearables expert: you are allowed to take breaks.

What in the world are Jony Ive and Sam Altman building?

AI hardware has entered its spaghetti era, and notably, Altman and Ive aren’t betting on glasses.

Victoria Song
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Strava doubles down on training plans.

After last month’s acquisition of Runna, mostly to get at its running plans, Strava is repeating the trick in cycling. It just acquired The Breakaway, an iOS biking app with a focus on... AI training plans.

It comes as Strava closes a round of funding that valued the business at $2.2 billion. Yesterday it announced new AI route planning and improvements to its cheat detection.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
So, what are Jony Ive and OpenAI up to?

The Verge team has a few guesses about the first hardware release from the OpenAI and io combination. Let us know yours in the comments.

  • Richard Lawler: Speaker / projector combo.
  • Wes Davis and Andrew Liszewski: Her-style earbud plus puck controller.
  • Andru Marino: Robot dog.
  • Adi Robertson: Frames or Ray-Ban Meta glasses clone with cameras and voice assistant.
  • Marina Galperina: Levitating orb that follows you around.
  • Tristan Cooper: A smooth bracelet you can talk to, with no screen.
  • Victoria Song: I think it’s more likely that it’s a headphone situation.
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
It’s Dieter again!

[Insert Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme here, which I should really have saved last time!!!]

A photo of Dieter Bohn at Google I/O 2025.
Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge