Wearable

Vivo claims its X Fold 5 has achieved an Android first: interoperability with the Apple Watch. According to product manager Han Boxiao the watch can display calls and texts from the X Fold 5, and sync health data. The phone can also receive calls and texts sent to an iPhone, access iCloud, and extend the display of a Mac.

At WWDC 2025, Apple just showed off a new update coming to its wearables this fall.

On the list of apparel-related data breaches, Adidas was early to the trend. Then, the Victoria’s Secret website was offline for a few days last week as it dealt with a “security incident.”

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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

The big Wear OS 6 news is that Gemini is headed to the wrist. It’s unsurprising to see Samsung’s smartwatches will get it first. After all, new Galaxy Watches have launched before new Pixel Watches ever since Google and Samsung teamed up to create Wear OS 3. The good news is you won’t necessarily have to upgrade. Google told me that Gemini will be coming to any Wear OS watch that currently supports Assistant.

Android XR didn’t get a lot of screen time at today’s Android Show — apart from confirmation that it’s going to get Gemini AI support — but Google promises that there’s more to come at the full Google I/O event next week.

The $249 46-mm running watch has a bright 1.32-inch OLED display and weighs just 36g. It offers up to 12 days of battery life — or up to 20 hours of always-on dual-band GPS tracking — and 34 modes to track everything from a short recovery run, training session, or marathon. It’s the latest option for athletes worried about Garmin’s shift to subscriptions.

Garmin’s Connect Plus subscription raised fears of enshittification, and lo, the company confirmed in its Q1 earnings call that going forward “certain [features] we will likely reserve for premium offerings.” This isn’t surprising — this is, after all, how subscriptions tend to go. But it does sting given how vocal Garmin has been in the past about not having a paywall. That said, the conversation revolved around features, not data so hopefully raw data will remain free.