WearableXP

There was a time when I thought a fitness tracker needed a screen to be useful. After spending time with the Garmin Cirqa vs WHOOP 5.0 vs Fitbit Air, I am not so sure anymore. All three take almost the same basic approach: put the tracker on your wrist, forget about it and check the numbers later instead of constantly looking down at your wrist. But that is where the similarities start to end. The Fitbit Air is the one I would look at if I simply wanted an affordable way to track my everyday health.

I used my Apple Watch with all my runs buzzing every mile split like it was checking in on me. Now I’m running with a screenless band and have been forgetting that I’m even wearing something until my sleeve caught on it mid-stride. This is more or less the entire point. No screen, no notifications and no looking down at my pace when I should be paying attention to the ground. It’s important to know that the screenless bands are not here to be a substitute for your GPS watch.

If you have ever tried to go easy and have found yourself gasping for breath by mile two, you already know why monitoring your heart rate is important. Your legs might lie to you, but your heart rate won’t. Heart rate is the only number that tells you exactly how hard your body is working, be it marathon base training or simply trying not to accidentally turn your regular Tuesday jog into a tempo run. Where it gets a bit complicated is that not all heart rate monitors will tell you the same story.

There is something funny about smartwatches. We buy them to make life a little easier and somehow they end up giving us even more things to check. Steps, calls, notifications, sleep, workouts, suddenly, your wrist has a lot to say. But every once in a while, a smartwatch comes along that makes you stop and ask, “Wait, this much for that price?” The Redmi Watch 6 Lite is one of those watches. It sits in the budget category, but the feature list feels like it belongs to something more expensive.

Sometimes, buying a smartwatch is not really about finding the most powerful one. You just want something that tells you when someone is calling, keeps an eye on your steps, shows your notifications and does not ask for a charger every night. That is where the Redmi Watch 6 Active comes in. It looks like Xiaomi is keeping things simple, but there is one big change this time: the basic LCD screen is gone and an AMOLED display takes its place. The catch? GPS is still missing.

Well, Garmin has done it once again. When you think the best smartwatches already have too many maps, training data and outdoor functionalities, the brand manages to squeeze out a few more. The Garmin Fenix 9 and 9 Pro have officially launched with improved display, faster maps, additional memory, new training apps and improved integration of activities via Garmin Connect. However, there is yet another twist of the story and it looks like a really good one for those who have Garmin wearables.

WHOOP just did something it’s never really done before. The tech company didn’t release a new tracker, it dropped a whole new look. Meet the WHOOP Meridian, WHOOP’s jewelry-style band available from August 27, 2026, for $149. It is not a WHOOP 6.0 and it is certainly not the new hardware. It’s the exact same WHOOP 5.0 sensor you already know, just dressed up in a stainless steel Apple Watch-style Milanese strap that made people fall head over heels a few years ago.

Smart glasses are no longer limited to expensive models. Rollme is bringing AI-powered camera glasses into the $100 range with the Rollme AuraView and Rollme ProView, both priced at $99.99. Both models combine a camera, AI features, live translation and open-ear audio in a familiar glasses design. For this price range Rollme is packing a lot into these glasses. The AuraView and ProView are built to do more than just take photos, with AI and translation features also part of the package.

Most wearables are built around one person: you. They tell you how well you slept, how many steps you took or what your heart was doing throughout the day. Luffu Link is taking a different route by making that information useful to the people who care about you, too. Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman have launched Luffu Link, a screenless health and safety band designed to help families stay connected to a loved one’s wellbeing.

Chest straps are still the category runners reach for when a smartwatch just isn’t cutting it. Interval training, tempo runs, races, everything involving sudden changes in heart rate and this is when chest straps for running truly earn their right to be on the market. Yes, modern smartwatches get better every year in measuring the intensity of your efforts. But they do it on the basis of an approximation, as they detect how light bounces from your wrist and interpret the data.