Wearable

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.

TechCrunch found that the RAW dating app actually exposed its user’s personal information and location data. That’s... not great! As for why that even matters, earlier this week I wrote about how the folks behind the app are also creating a smart ring for couples that some have described as a “dystopian loyalty tracker.” The company has since fixed the bug, and the RAW Ring doesn’t exist yet. But this definitely isn’t a great look.

That’s a momentous milestone. Apple isn’t doing a huge thing today — it’s just launched Global Close Your Rings day and you can pick up a physical pin in store if you do. That said, today’s a fun day for a blast from the past and re-reading The Verge’s very first Apple Watch review. (And if you’re so inclined, a little retrospective I wrote just before the Series 10 launch in September.)

The feature is part of “Performance Predictions,” a feature for subscribers that uses a “machine learning model” to give you estimated finish times for 5K, 10K, half marathon, and marathon races, Strava says.

Eric Migicovsky, the creator of the original Pebble watch who’s also resurrecting the wearable, shared a picture of the upcoming Core 2 Duo smartwatch’s USB-C charging dongle on X, as spotted by 9to5Google.

After the September Pixel Watch update to Wear OS 5 ran into issues, Google released a fix in November and said its wearables would have to wait until March for another update.

One of the more obscure toys of the ‘80s was a line of digital watches from Japan’s Takara called the Kronoform that could transform into vehicles, creatures, and even a robot. Hautlence’s modern take trades digital timekeeping for a self-winding mechanical movement featuring a tourbillon to improve accuracy.

The glasses seem like they could be similar to Meta’s Ray-Bans, based on a report from The Information. It’s unclear when they might come out or what regions they could be available in.

Android XR head Shahram Izadi just gave a TED talk showing off prototype smart glasses with a mini display and Project Moohan. In it, Izadi showed the prototype smart glasses performing live translation and scanning a book. Axios wrote up a small summary, but so far it sounds an awful lot like the hands-on I got with Android XR and Project Moohan back in December (which you can read below).

Google’s April 2025 Pixel Watch update notes say that it “resolves an issue where some users were seeing delayed notifications on their watch.”

According to The New York Times, his ring asked him if he was working out and showed that “his heart rate shot up to over 100 beats per minute.”

Just don’t mistake it for a new Vivomove, Vivosport, or Vivosmart. (Why does Garmin do this!?)

Last week I reviewed a smart nail chip that I saw on some trashy reality TV. This week, I give you a social video demonstrating how some of its NFC-powered features work. My favorite is playing the John Cena theme song every time I destroy my spouse in an argument.

Dubbed Oura Advisor, the chatbot combines generative AI with your actual data so you can ask it about your long-term trends and patterns, as well as general guidance on health matters. This is the second feature from the company’s experimental Oura Labs program — the first being Symptom Radar.