Optical systems have evolved from large, cumbersome setups to sophisticated, compact systems thanks to the field of silicon photonics, which uses light instead of electricity to transmit and process data on semiconductor chips. But these silicon-photonics devices are usually opaque and stiff.

Scientists at MIT have now discovered a scalable method for making silicon-photonics chips transparent and flexible, paving the way for the development of sophisticated microchips that may find use in things like transparent augmented reality displays that fit the curve of a pilot's helmet or covert health monitors that conform to the body.

While scientists have recently performed lab demonstrations of chips that were flexible or transparent, they could only fabricate a few devices at a time, reports Adam Zewe in MIT News.

The MIT researchers, in close collaboration with engineers at NY Creates at the Albany NanoTech Complex, created a fabrication process that uses standard semiconductor manufacturing techniques to generate flexible and transparent silicon-photonics chips on large-scale wafers.

To validate this platform, the researchers bent a single chip thousands of times around cylinders with various diameters — down to the width of a small screw — with no drop in performance. They also determined that looking through the chips would not cause much haze or distortion.

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“We’ve now developed a wafer-scale process that produces wafers that are mechanically flexible and optically transparent, enabling novel applications that weren’t previously possible with silicon photonics. We hope that, by working closely with our colleagues at NY Creates and using the foundry at the Albany NanoTech Complex, there’s the potential for us to make the platform accessible to other groups within our research community and open these new application areas to the field of silicon photonics as a whole,” says Jelena Notaros, the Robert J. Shillman Career Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT, a member of the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and senior author of a paper on this fabrication platform.

Flexible and transparent

In the past, researchers have created translucent or flexible single silicon-photonics circuits, but these methods were not scalable. Notaros' team recently presented a foundry-scale method for producing silicon-photonics devices on a flexible substrate in order to overcome this scalability issue.

With a scalable method that yields translucent and flexible 300-millimeter silicon-photonics wafers, the team has now advanced these breakthroughs even farther.

They start the fabrication process just like they would with a conventional, hard silicon wafer. On this stiff silicon substrate, the researchers meticulously place and design tiny optical lines called waveguides.

A temporary silicon wafer is then bonded on top. All of the original silicon substrate is removed from what is now the wafer's top by flipping the wafer over. After that, they are left with a thin layer of material that is thinner than a tenth of a human hair.

They use an adhesive to stick a thin, transparent polyester film on top of these ultrathin layers and “de-bond” the temporary silicon wafer from the bottom to remove it.

This leaves them with a flexible, transparent wafer only a few microns thick that contains the oxide and waveguide layers needed to capture and transport light for silicon photonics.

The researchers performed three experiments to test different functionalities of these flexible, transparent silicon-photonics wafers.

They also evaluated transparency by setting up a bionic eye and testing whether the chip would distort the user’s vision when placed in front of the eye. They found that the chip causes only minimal haze for the viewer and would not noticeably distort images the eye perceives when looking through it.

In the future, the researchers want to add more complex components and functionality to the chips as they move toward enabling these and other new applications. They also want to refine the design to further improve waveguide efficiency and boost transparency performance.

According to a visually challenged woman, AI-enhanced smart glasses protect her guide dog while allowing her to remain independent in hot weather.

Lorraine Virco, a resident of Preston, Lancashire, is gradually losing her vision due to optic nerve atrophy, a disorder that was discovered during a regular eye test eight years ago, reports Parin Begum in BBC.

The 44-year-old stated that although she enjoys being outside with her three-year-old guide dog, Gigi, she must exercise additional caution when it's hot outside.

According to Guide Dogs UK, dogs should not be trained or employed in temperatures above 24 degrees Celsius (75.2 degrees Fahrenheit) due to the possibility of heatstroke.

When it's too hot to take Gigi outside, Lorraine, who is medically retired from her position as a teaching assistant, uses a white cane and AI-powered smart glasses as an alternate method of safe mobility.

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Although the glasses resemble regular eyewear, they are equipped with artificial intelligence software, open-ear audio, and cameras.

"I can ask them where I am and they'll tell me what street I'm on," Lorraine said.

"If I go into a supermarket, I can video call somebody and they can see what I'm looking at and help me find things on the shelf.

"I can call Be My Eyes and that does the same thing."

Be My Eyes is a free app that connects blind and low-vision users with sighted volunteers and AI for real-time visual assistance.

"I can take photos and ask, 'What am I looking at?' and it'll tell me. I can also ask for more description.

"They read letters, appointment information and bus timetables too."

Although Lorraine claimed that spending time with Gigi was more fun than using the technology, it did help her keep the puppy safe in hot temperatures.

Lorraine explained that Gigi helps her navigate everyday journeys, from riding buses and locating kerbs and crossing points to moving through busy shopping centers and train stations. Over time, they have also developed familiar routes for their regular trips, including visits to Lorraine’s local choir, a place Gigi particularly enjoys.

She said she still made sure Gigi received plenty of stimulation at home.

"She's got toys and brain activities to do, like a toy where we hide biscuits and she's got to find them."

Sally McCoy, from Guide Dogs UK, said: "We strongly advise people not to work their dogs if there's an amber or red weather warning because of the heat.

Garmin has built its reputation around feature-packed fitness watches, but the new Garmin Cirqa takes a very different approach. There is no colorful AMOLED display, no stream of notifications and no temptation to constantly check your wrist. Instead, Cirqa is a screenless fitness tracker designed to quietly collect health and activity data throughout the day and let you review everything later in the Garmin Connect app.

At $199.99 in the US, Cirqa sits in an interesting space between inexpensive screenless trackers and subscription-based devices such as Whoop. Its biggest selling point is simple: you buy the device, and the core health and fitness features don't require a monthly subscription.

Minimalist Design, Surprisingly Practical

Cirqa looks more like a discreet fitness band than a traditional smartwatch. A lightweight sensor module sits inside a soft fabric strap, and the entire device weighs around 21 grams. Garmin offers two sizes and several colors, while the fabric construction makes it comfortable enough for sleeping, exercising and wearing all day. It is also rated for 5 ATM water resistance.

The most interesting design element is a physical button. With one press, you can start a workout, while vibration confirms that recording has begun. That sounds like a small detail, but reviewers found it useful because you don't have to open your phone or wonder whether an activity has actually started.

The downside is that Cirqa is somewhat chunky compared with some competing screenless bands. People with particularly small wrists may want to try it before buying.

Health Tracking Is the Real Star

Although the hardware is deliberately simple, Cirqa collects an impressive amount of information. It monitors heart rate, HRV, stress, Pulse Ox, skin temperature, sleep, Body Battery and Training Readiness. It can also automatically detect certain activities and supports more than 80 activities through the device or Garmin Connect.

Sleep tracking is another strong point. Garmin provides sleep scores, sleep stages, HRV trends and personalized sleep guidance. Women's health features, including menstrual-cycle and pregnancy tracking, are also available, with skin-temperature data supporting additional cycle insights.

Independent testing has generally found Cirqa's heart-rate tracking impressively accurate. TechRadar, for example, compared it against a Polar H10 chest strap and found most workouts within a few beats per minute, although one strength-training session produced a larger discrepancy.

Battery Life and the Screenless Trade-Off

Garmin claims up to 10 days of battery life, which is one of Cirqa's biggest advantages. Real-world testing varies depending on usage, but reviewers have generally achieved roughly a week or more between charges.

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But removing the screen creates an obvious limitation: you cannot see your pace, heart rate or workout statistics while exercising. Cirqa also has no built-in GPS, so outdoor distance and pace tracking depend on a connected smartphone.

That makes Cirqa better suited to people who want background health and fitness tracking than serious runners who need real-time training information.

Verdict

The Garmin Cirqa is an unusual wearable, but its simplicity is also its appeal. It delivers a surprisingly comprehensive collection of health, sleep and fitness metrics while staying out of your way.

The strongest reason to choose it is the combination of Garmin's mature health-tracking ecosystem, comfortable screen-free design, long battery life and no mandatory subscription. The biggest compromises are the lack of a display, onboard GPS and the relatively high price for a screenless tracker.

For existing Garmin users, Cirqa can also make a compelling secondary device—particularly for people who don't want to wear a full-sized Garmin watch to bed or during everyday activities. For dedicated athletes, however, a conventional Garmin watch remains much more practical.

Ultimately, Cirqa isn't trying to replace your smartwatch. Its philosophy is almost the opposite: track more, display less, and let you get on with your day.

People can monitor their daily steps, heart rate, and sleep habits with the aid of consumer wearables like smart watches and rings. Because of the devices' widespread use and simplicity, researchers are using them more and more to study health, such as by tracking chronic illnesses or examining workout regimens.

Wuyoh Sui, a researcher in behavioral change and digital health at Western University in London, Canada, has been researching the most effective ways to employ digital technologies to enhance people's mental and physical well-being.

According to Sui, there are numerous ethical issues to consider when utilizing such commercial gadgets in research, even if wearables will surely offer more individualized health interventions through the use of personalized data. The two most important ones are data security (who might be able to access that data) and data privacy (what data these devices' AI-based algorithms use). Among the risks are sale, distribution, and theft of sensitive metrics that disclose an individual's daily routines and physical condition to advertisers, insurance companies, and businesses that sell personal data.

“At the moment, data privacy and security concerns supersede worries about researchers’ ability to validate non-transparent algorithms. Smartphones and smart watches introduced new opportunities to track movement, but added a third-party developer with commercial interests that are beyond the control of the researcher. As scientists, we are sharing the data with the developer, whether we like it or not, yet we have no control over where those data end up or how they are used. Any entity that collects the data is in a position to broker them,” Sui told Virginia Gewin in Nature.

Researchers and study participants can communicate more efficiently thanks to AI tools. For instance, researchers may use an AI chatbot to collect data when offering workout recommendations based on a person's present behaviors by asking the participant about their step objectives or any physical obstacles they encounter. The replies, when combined with wearable device data, can be used to develop customized interventions that influence participants' objectives and behaviors in ways that would be impossible for researchers to do on their own, according to Sui.

Has Radical Transparency Improved?

Not enough. Many wearable companies still explain data collection and usage through lengthy privacy policies filled with legal jargon. This can make it difficult for research participants to understand what happens to their data, according to Sui.

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Researchers therefore have a responsibility to clearly explain the potential risks. Wearable data may reveal information about a person’s location, movements and other identifying details. There may also be risks such as data being shared with advertisers or exposed through security breaches.

While researchers cannot guarantee how companies will ultimately use the data, they can provide participants with a clear explanation of these risks so people can make an informed decision about whether they are comfortable taking part in the study, Sui says.

“The UN can influence global debates over the need for regulation of AI systems that pose risks to human rights, but ultimately it is up to countries to decide. In 2024, the European Union, a global leader in AI regulations, released its regulatory framework, which details the kinds of AI application that it deems to have risks, ranging from minimal to unacceptable,” Sui told Nature.

Coredio, a digital health company developing the first software-as-a-medical-device (SaMD) platform dedicated to heart failure (HF) hemodynamic assessment, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted its Cardiac Performance Simulation Engine (CPSE) Breakthrough Device Designation and accepted the platform into the FDA’s Total Product Life Cycle Advisory Program (TAP). CPSE is a software-only platform designed to deliver catheterization-comparable hemodynamic assessment using consumer smartwatches and standard blood pressure cuffs in clinical and home settings under physician supervision.

Coredio is now on an accelerated, priority path toward 510(k) submission. For many HF patients, the most vulnerable period begins when they leave the hospital. Clinicians often lose visibility into cardiac decompensation until symptoms become severe enough to trigger another ER visit or hospital readmission, according to a press release.

“Heart failure management has long been limited by the gap between what we can measure in the hospital and what we can reliably understand once patients return home,” said Dr. Jagmeet P. Singh, MD, PhD, Mass General Brigham. “Coredio’s approach, using wearable-derived signals and physics-informed AI to estimate hemodynamic status noninvasively, has the potential to give clinicians a more holistic view of patient cardiac function and enable earlier intervention.”

Heart failure is the most expensive problem in American medicine. It affects more than 6.7 million people and is a leading cause of hospitalization in adults over 65, yet the cardiac hemodynamic data clinicians rely on most to guide treatment is concentrated in settings where patients spend the least time. Cardiac catheterization, the clinical gold standard, is invasive and performed in only ~10% of patients. Echocardiography is primarily limited to hospital settings, while implantable hemodynamic sensors are reserved for the highest-risk patients. CPSE is device-agnostic and designed to help close this gap by bringing hemodynamic assessment into the home and physician office using wearables patients already own.

CPSE is a software-only platform with proprietary algorithms designed to identify abnormal status across four key hemodynamic parameters used by cardiologists to assess whether HF patients are stable or deteriorating. These include left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP), central venous pressure (CVP), systemic vascular resistance (SVR), and cardiac index (CI), enabling a more holistic view of both left- and right-sided HF.

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“At White Plains Hospital, our transitional care program focuses on the critical weeks after discharge, when heart failure patients are most vulnerable and least connected to their care team,” said Dr. Farrukh Jafri, MD, White Plains Hospital. “What drew us to Coredio is its potential to bring hemodynamic-level data into that gap, without requiring invasive devices or additional clinical visits.”

CPSE pairs a physics-based digital twin of the patient's cardiovascular system with machine learning trained on clinical data. After an initial personalization step, patients use a smartwatch and standard blood pressure cuff for on-demand indication of hemodynamic status for clinician review.

“Heart failure management has long been limited by the gap between what we can assess invasively or with imaging tools and what we can see at home,” said Dr. Jennifer Monti, Cardiologist, SSM Health. “Coredio’s approach, extracting catheterization-comparable hemodynamic data from consumer wearables using physics-based AI, has the potential to close that gap and give clinicians the visibility they need to intervene earlier and make more informed decisions for heart failure patients.”

“We’re proud that Coredio has been granted FDA Breakthrough Device Designation and is enrolled in TAP,” said Mehdi Mortazawy, Co-Founder & CTO, Coredio. “CPSE fuses a physics-based digital twin of the cardiovascular system with advanced AI to noninvasively classify the four hemodynamic parameters central to HF management. These designations from FDA reflect the scientific rigor and the urgency of the unmet need in HF management and how Coredio is poised to help cardiology specialists and their patients meet this need in the future.”

About Coredio

Founded in 2023, Coredio is a digital AI health company developing noninvasive advanced and intelligent hemodynamic assessment technology for heart failure care. Its Cardiac Performance Simulation Engine (CPSE) uses a personalized physics-based digital twin of the cardiovascular system and machine learning models trained on proprietary clinical data to identify abnormal hemodynamic status across four key intracardiac parameters only using consumer wearables and blood pressure cuffs.

From counting steps and calories, wearable technology has come a long way. What began as a consumer fitness trend is rapidly becoming into one of the most prominent intersections of healthcare, artificial intelligence, biometrics, human performance, and security. The human body, computers, and sensors are all merging. The upcoming wearable generation is beginning to demonstrate the practical implications of such convergence.

The primary shift is that wearables are now less about measuring activity and more about getting to know people. Sleep, heart rate, heart rate variability, temperature, mobility, recovery, and other physiological information can now be continuously recorded by sophisticated sensors. Artificial intelligence can identify each person's distinct baseline after evaluating such signals over time. In addition to providing information on what our bodies are doing, the objective is to identify patterns that could help us make better decisions about fitness, health, recovery, and, eventually, longevity, reports Forbes.

That is a significant development in healthcare. Instead of relying just on sporadic measures taken during a medical visit, wearables can provide a constant stream of data about an individual's health. As I noted in a recent wearable article, miniaturized sensors have the potential to significantly change security, healthcare, and human-computer interaction.

Apple Watch

Apple Watch has evolved from a simple smartwatch into a powerful health and fitness companion. It can continuously track important health metrics such as heart rate, activity, calories burned, and workouts. Depending on the model and region, it can also provide features such as ECG, blood oxygen measurements, temperature sensing, sleep tracking, and notifications for unusually high or low heart rates. Apple Watch can detect signs of irregular heart rhythms and alert users when potential atrial fibrillation is detected. Fall Detection and Emergency SOS can also provide valuable assistance during emergencies. With its combination of sensors, health insights, and fitness tracking, Apple Watch helps users better understand their bodies and make more informed decisions about their daily health and wellbeing.

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Dexcom CGM

Dexcom has transformed glucose monitoring with its continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) technology. Unlike traditional blood glucose testing, Dexcom CGM systems use a small sensor worn on the body to measure glucose levels continuously throughout the day and night. The sensor sends real-time glucose readings to a compatible smartphone, receiver, or smartwatch, allowing users to monitor trends without frequent finger pricks. Dexcom systems can also provide alerts when glucose levels are rising, falling, or reaching potentially dangerous ranges. This information can help users understand how food, exercise, medication, stress, and other factors affect their glucose levels. By providing continuous data and actionable insights, Dexcom CGM technology offers a more convenient and connected approach to glucose management, supporting people in making informed decisions about their daily health.

Pison

Perhaps the most fascinating thing to observe on the market is Pison, a newcomer to the scene. Pison is approaching wearable technology in a very different way. Instead of evaluating the body's external responses, its neural-sensing method uses electroneurography, or ENG, to detect electrical signals that travel from the brain to the muscles via the peripheral nervous system. The company states that their platform assesses mental agility, attentiveness, reaction time, and cognitive readiness in addition to normal physiological data.

The Future

When considered collectively, these businesses and their offerings point to a future in which wearables will be more than just apparel. It becomes a link between our biology and the digital world. The ultimate promise of this technology is not that machines will take the role of physicians, coaches, or human judgment. It's that we'll learn more about ourselves and have access to that information when it matters most.

As a result, the new world of wearables might be less about watches, rings, and bands and more about a much bigger change: giving people unprecedented visibility into their abilities, performance, and health.

There are some indications that the enigmatic new Wear OS fitness tracker shown at the FCC may be an impending Google Pixel or Fitbit-branded device.

Both the Pixel Watch range and the recently released Fitbit Air have been successful for Google, and it appears that the firm may be getting ready to add even more fitness monitoring devices to its roster. A mystery new Google-made gadget has suddenly surfaced in an FCC listing, as reported by 9to5Google.

The device, which is referred to as a "Wireless Device," is made by Goertek, a business that has produced multiple Pixel Bud generations in the past. It has the model number G8BL6.

It's interesting to note that the FCC listing implies there isn't Wi-Fi on board. Rather, the device seems to be totally dependent on Bluetooth LE. Additionally, since ADB testing is particularly included in the EUT operation test configuration, there are hints that the device might run a version of Wear OS.

On the connectivity front, this device has Bluetooth LE and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), or GPS. The former uses a “Metal frame Antenna.”

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All things considered, the G8BL6 is probably a Wear OS-powered Google fitness tracker, though it's odd that it doesn't have Wi-Fi. This would be the platform's new form factor, which raises concerns about how battery-efficient the OS is.

This filing coincides with the August discovery of an unidentified Google tracker in Pixel 11 advertisements. We observed a pill-shaped, vertical display with a strap that resembled a Pixel Watch. Even with the current Wear OS fitness complications, the watch face is highly recognizable.

This would make sense as a replacement for the well-liked Fitbit Charge line, which was last updated in 2023 and is presently priced at $160, after the Fitbit Air.

One significant question still stands: when will consumers genuinely want to purchase and wear these gadgets all day? Meta, Google, and other large players are speeding up their AI wearable initiatives. Before they can be widely used, the next generation of wearables—from smart glasses to AI pendants—must overcome basic hardware issues like weight, heat, comfort, battery life, and audio quality. Even the best AI experience won't work if the gadget it runs on is heavy, cumbersome, or overheated.

“From a hardware perspective, there are two fundamentals that are really sticking out. One is weight. Basically, the everyday eyeglasses magic number is 30g. You need to weigh under 30g to be comfortable to sit on the bridge of your nose and your ears all day. Most smart glasses are 50g and up,” Mike Housholder, Vice President and General Manager of the Thermal Management Business Unit at xMEMS, told Electronic Specifier’s Paige Hookway, in an interview.

Cutting weight starts with the speaker. By substituting a thin MEMS device for a conventional coil-and-magnet driver, the speaker loses about 70–90% of its weight and thickness, allowing designers to strive toward a more stylish, glasses-like form factor rather than a heavy headset.

According to Housholder, the second basic is thermal management, which most businesses undervalue. Instead of running a task and then going back to sleep, glasses are being asked to perceive and process continually as AI processing moves from the Cloud to the Edge.

“You now have complex chips generating heat, and the glasses sit on your skin all day,” he explained. “So heat mitigation, heat dissipation becomes a big issue, because you don’t want to have a heat generator touching your skin all day. You can’t just spread heat; you have to get it out before it sinks into the plastics and then sinks into your skin.”

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Engineers must address all three constraints—audio, cooling, and power—within the same tightly confined mechanical envelope, in addition to weight and heat alone. Housholder remarked, "All of this takes space." "To achieve a good form factor, the electronics will always be at odds with the mechanical."

The first-generation cooling product from xMEMS is already made into glasses and is scheduled to hit the market in 2027. The company created the XMC-1200, a smaller version that is around 40% smaller than its predecessor, in response to feedback from early users of its current XMC-2400 device.

The demand wasn’t driven by the glasses’ processor, but by the display. As augmented reality glasses evolve, their displays sit at the front, creating a need for smaller components that can fit within the limited space housing the display driver and light engine, Housholder explained. Manufacturers can now use the XMC-1200 to manage heat generated by the display and light engine, while the larger XMC-2400 remains an option for handling heat from the processor and temple electronics.

Asked what the industry looks like once these constraints are resolved, Housholder starts with comfort rather than capability. “You have glasses that are light enough to wear on your head all day, just like conventional glasses. They have to be comfortable to wear, meaning they can’t heat up the temples of your head. So they’ve got to stay cool, they’ve got to mitigate heat.”

Only when weight and heat are brought under control can these glasses unlock their full potential—supporting continuous, always-on processing and delivering real-time information about the wearer’s surroundings without compromising comfort.

The Colombian-founded medtech startup Samay has expanded its funding expectations, officially closing a $7 million seed round. While the company initially aimed for a $3 million target earlier this year to launch its platform, strong investor demand pushed the total capital raised to $7 million to accelerate its AI-driven respiratory health technology. Samay is founded by Colombian physician María Artunduaga.

This shift is largely due to staff reductions at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the Donald Trump administration; according to Artunduaga, these cuts resulted in the loss of nearly half the agency's workforce and drove up the cost of entry for medical device and biotechnology companies. This environment, the founder notes, has prompted many U.S. companies in the sector to launch outside the country first and return later, reports Forbes.

Artunduaga held talks last week with Invima to fast-track health registration in Colombia and plans to leverage the agency's agreements within the Andean region to extend approval to Peru, Chile, and Ecuador. The company is also exploring entry into Brazil and Mexico, where it is in discussions with investment funds and healthcare systems.

The firm has raised nearly US$7 million since its inception, with 40% to 50% of that total coming from non-dilutive capital via U.S. government grants. After operating primarily as a research project for its first five years, Samay has now secured 18 patents across more than 20 countries.

At the same time, the company began generating revenue through strategic partnerships. It completed a pilot program with a European pharmaceutical company—surpassing technical milestones by over 20%—and is currently negotiating a contract valued in the six-to-seven-figure range. It is also conducting a U.S. government-funded pilot with ResMed (a manufacturer of sleep apnea devices) and collaborating with a Chicago hospital to detect respiratory failure in epilepsy patients. This commercial momentum is driven by a business model the company discovered over the past year: pharmaceutical and device companies pay it to develop artificial intelligence models based on clinical trial data, which they then purchase or license for use in the specific disease areas where they are developing treatments.

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On the capital front, Samay received nearly US$200,000 from Epic Angels, a Cali-based syndicate of female angel investors led by Vivian Argueta. The deal, which involved 69 women, marks the syndicate's largest investment in Latin America and the second-largest in its history.

The device, named Sylvee in honor of the founder’s grandmother, costs US$70 and functions like a pair of headphones for the chest: it emits sound to make the lung resonate—"we make the lung sing," explains Artunduaga—and captures 750 acoustic characteristics used to build algorithmic models.

According to the company, these models achieve an area under the curve of 93% compared to a CT scan—equipment costing US$1.5 million—with its various algorithms ranging between 82% and 93%. Samay maintains that it can detect COPD up to five years earlier than the US$80,000 machine currently used as the diagnostic standard.

The company has tested the device on approximately 500 people and aims to reach 3,000 over the next year and a half. It is also preparing a partnership (not yet disclosed) to establish Colombia as a center of excellence for respiratory clinical trials, featuring a cohort of over 2,500 patients with conditions such as COPD, asthma, cystic fibrosis, tuberculosis, and lung cancer.

Samay—which in 2024 became the first Latin American company accepted into the MedTech Innovator accelerator—won the StartCo awards in Medellín this year (topping a ranking of 350 companies) and GoFest in Bogotá last year; these accolades opened doors with the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce and Invest Bogotá, while the Dubai Chamber of Commerce is exploring the possibility of bringing the company to Dubai in December for pilot programs.

The founder plans to manufacture the device entirely in Colombia—starting with an initial batch of 1,000 to 2,000 units—in compliance with Invima’s Good Manufacturing Practice guidelines. The company currently employs 22 people, more than half of whom are women, including two based near Buenos Aires.

Building a consistent sleep routine is one of the best things you can do for your long-term health. But keeping up with your rest and recovery habits isn’t always easy. What if tracking your sleep wasn’t just good for your wellbeing, but could also be a daily adventure?

Enter the Google Fitbit Air Special Edition Pokémon Sleep. This new special-edition tracker combines Google Health and Fitbit Air’s advanced sleep tracking with the playful, rewarding experience of the Pokémon Sleep app. And it’s another way to get in on the fun and celebrate Pokémon’s 30th anniversary this year, reports Google.

Stay comfortable while you sleep

When you’re wearing a device to sleep, it should feel comfortable and weightless. Like the original Fitbit Air, this new Special Edition Pokémon Sleep is crafted to feel light and unnoticeable on your wrist for 24/7 wear. And its micro-adjustable design makes it easy to find a comfortable fit before you head to sleep.

Drawing inspiration from the world of Pokémon Sleep, the special-edition band comes in a serene Sleepy Blue colorway. It features soft blue colors and a custom silk print label of Sleeping Pikachu right on the strap — a subtle nod to a beloved Pokémon featured in the game.

Get powerful Google Health insights

To improve your sleep, you need easy-to-understand data. That’s where Google Health sleep tracking comes in.

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Using advanced algorithms, the Google Health app tracks your light and deep sleep stages each night, translating complex metrics into clear, actionable guidance.

And the Google Health Coach analyzes your trends over time to help you identify what makes your sleep routine unique, giving you personalized tips so you can build better habits.

Text "Sleep score 82" above a line graph of scores over the week. At the bottom is the text "Good" text bubbles. The first says "You were awake just over 1hr 32 min, which is more than usual." The second says "How do you feel this morning?"

Plus, every purchase of the special-edition band includes a 3-month trial of Google Health Premium, so you can unlock deeper tools and guidance to prioritize your rest.

Turn your real-world rest into in-game progress

When you connect your device to the Pokémon Sleep app, your sleep activity — including your overnight sleep and a nap during the day — unlocks interactive rewards. The app syncs with your Fitbit Air, using Health Connect on Android or Apple Health on iOS to pull your sleep duration stats to fuel your game, and the experience works with all Google Pixel and Fitbit wearables.

• Gather Pokémon around Snorlax: When you wake up, Pokémon with sleep types similar to yours gather around Snorlax. Research their sleeping styles to complete your Sleep Style Dex and befriend new helper Pokémon to your team.
• Calculate your Drowsy Power: The Pokémon you befriend collect Berries to raise Snorlax’s Strength. When you wake up, your Sleep Score, calculated from sleep duration tracked from Google Health, multiplies Snorlax’s Strength to generate “Drowsy Power.”
• Discover rare sleep styles: The higher your Drowsy Power, the more Pokémon — and rare sleep styles — will appear around Snorlax the next day.

Connect your Fitbit Air to the Pokémon Sleep app

Getting your Fitbit Air tracker set up only takes a few moments.

Link your Google Health app to Health Connect or Apple Health: In settings, allow Google Health to link with Health Connect (Android) or Apple Health (iOS). This will enable Google Health to write your sleep data into other apps.

Pair Google Health to the Pokémon Sleep app: Open the Pokémon Sleep app, navigate to Settings, and pair your device.

Track your rest to sync your stats: Simply wear your tracker to sleep to automatically record your sleep stages and sleep duration.

Once linked, your daily Google Health sleep stage and sleep duration data will automatically sync to the Pokémon Sleep app each morning to fuel your Pokémon adventure.

The Fitbit Air Special Edition Pokémon Sleep will be available for preorder starting today online and in-store at the Google Store and Target, and will start shipping September 15.

Wearable technology has long promised to reveal more information about our bodies. Now, Ultrahuman is attempting a more ambitious goal: transforming that data into real research. The company has introduced Pulsomics, a research platform that enables smart ring owners to willingly provide organized health studies with their biometric data. It's a significant step beyond releasing sporadic data insights, and it poses important issues about the future of consumer health technology.

“Pulsomics enables any Ultrahuman user to contribute to science, and to the creation of models that can predict everything from how much sleep you need to an individual’s organ function,” says Mohit Kumar, Ultrahuman CEO.

You will be asked for more personal information throughout the registration process than you would normally be asked for when using a wearable. These include "age, sex, height, weight, ethnicity and skin tone information," the latter of which is required to help offset the effects of skin tone on the signals from optical heart rate reader hardware, reports Andrew Williams in Forbes.

“This will be the very first at scale, free-living set of studies where we collect longitudinal wearable data from our users alongside extremely valuable user-provided context to that wearable data like personal lifestyle/medical history, family history, demographics, and sometimes day-level journaling. This would unlock the development of foundational models with labeled population-level data,” says Vinayak Narasimhan, Ultrahuman’s head of science.

One clear concern when sharing health data is how it is used and stored. Ultrahuman claims to have “gold standard” privacy for your information.

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“Data is de-identified before it is used, is never sold, and is never shared with advertisers, employers or insurers. Anything published uses aggregated data across many de-identified participants,” it says.

How does it work?

At launch, Pulsomics offers three studies. Instead of using a general standard, the first examines individual sleep demands, particularly how much sleep a particular person actually needs. VO2 Max is the subject of the second. Participants in the third research must have access to pertinent lab findings since it links wearable data to a panel of current blood tests on glucose metabolism.

There are plans for more research, such as a study on cardiovascular load and a long-term sleep study that would monitor trends.

Owners of the company's home sleep monitor are not currently able to access the Ultrahuman Pulsomics platform, which is only available to Ring Air and Ring Pro smart ring customers.

“The mass adoption of powerful consumer wearables such as the Ultrahuman Ring enables us to train models on real-world data across body types, ethnicities, and cultures, creating more accurate and fairer health features than ever before,” says Ultrahumn CEO Kumar.

Ultrahuman is currently shipping its Ultrahuman Ring Pro to U.S. customers, for $479.

Hypershell debuted its newest exoskeleton, the Flagship Hypershell Halo, on the Innovation Stage at IFA Berlin. It features a four-motor system that allows you to move not just your hips but also your knees.

Rather than adding powered knees to the Hypershell X-series, they redesigned Halo from the ground up.

“We didn’t simply add powered knees to an existing hip exoskeleton,” said Hypershell CEO Kelvin Sun. “We redesigned the architecture, power system, and the intelligence around the entire lower body, so four powered joints can move as one with the user.”

Related AI Exoskeleton Adds Spring to Your Step

According to the company, the HyperIntuition 2.0 AI program predicts movement with a response time of 0.2 seconds, and the Halo's four-motor HyperDrive Pro system has a maximum output of 1,490 W. Over 10,000 hours of motion data have been used to train the system, which can adjust to terrain and intent to help with less physical effort. The Hypershell Halo drives both the hip and knee joints, in contrast to exoskeletons that only drive one. It can also reroute stressors around the knee to lessen knee joint tension because of its relationship to the upper and lower legs.

When standing up from a seated position during controlled tests, the Halo can minimize muscular fatigue by as much as 40%. Additionally, during lab bicycling tests, it was able to lower heart rate by 42% and physical exertion by 39%.

Halo also comes with the Shelly AI assistant, which can be used with a smartwatch to plan routes and make voice-controlled modifications. Whether Shelly works in places without Wi-Fi or the Internet is not specified in the specifications, reports NotebookCheck.

The exoskeleton weighs 7.05 lbs., which is more than an upper leg-only or knee-only exoskeleton, despite the fact that its body is made of titanium and carbon fiber. It is portable enough to fit in a backpack and has an IP54 rating for dust and water resistance. When folded for storage, it takes up 8 L of space.

With a rated range of up to 20 km for assisted walking in Eco Mode, the Halo is powered by a 72 Wh battery. In 1.5 hours, the battery can be quickly charged. Both the motors and the programmable LED indicators are powered by the battery.

Pre-orders for the Hypershell Halo are available on the company’s website for $2,299, and orders will begin to ship in November 2027. The Hypershell store on Amazon currently sells the company's more reasonably priced exoskeletons.

VIVE Eagle – HTC’s fashionable new AI smart glasses – has landed in Europe, North America and Australia, bringing advanced features and a privacy-centric approach that empowers the wearer and the people around them to protect their privacy. The versatile VIVE AI helps with live translation (speech and text), and can even connect to your smartphone’s AI to carry out actions.

“VIVE Eagle is where style meets intelligence, it taps into powerful AI tools and frees your hands so you can be more present in the moment.” - Cher Wang, Co-Founder and Chairperson of HTC

VIVE Eagle comes with premium ZEISS lenses, including sun lenses with Category 3 UV400 protection, or an option for bluelight blocking or photochromic lenses. And it’s quick and easy to put prescription lenses into VIVE Eagle, reports Business Wire.

VIVE Eagle frees your hands so you can experience life directly, not through a screen. With voice commands or programmable physical buttons, VIVE Eagle is intuitive and easy-to-use, whether you’re cycling through a park, or exploring a new city, you can stay in the moment while creating shareable memories.

Cher Wang, Co-Founder and Chairperson of HTC said, “Technology should free our imaginations, and allow us to create and experience and improve our lives. VIVE Eagle is where style meets intelligence, it taps into powerful AI tools and frees your hands so you can be more present in the moment. You can explore new cultures, learn about paintings in galleries, and share your adventures effortlessly.”

Privacy first

VIVE Eagle takes a privacy-first approach for you and the people around you. When filming or taking a photo, a notification LED illuminates or pulses. The LED even automatically adjusts its brightness in different conditions to ensure it’s always visible. A multi-sensor approach means VIVE Eagle will not film if the notification LED is obscured, damaged or compromised.

When using 3rd party LLMs, like OpenAI and Google Gemini, VIVE Eagle de-identifies your requests. This makes it harder for LLMs to build an accurate tracking profile of you and your data.

Related Samsung’s Intelligent Eyewear: A New Mobile AI Interface

And privacy extends further. Photos and videos are encrypted and stored locally on VIVE Eagle, and the user decides if they want to manually import them to the VIVE Connect app or their cloud connected photo service.

Intuitive and flexible AI features

With a massive 4GB of RAM, VIVE Eagle can handle advanced features, and has plenty of scope for more to come in the future.

VIVE AI is packed full of productivity tools. Live translation of 96+ languages means you can use your VIVE Eagle to have real-time conversations with people speaking other languages. You can stay completely present and engaged in meetings, and simply receive detailed meeting notes from VIVE Eagle’s audio-recording capability.

You can also pair VIVE Eagle with Google Gemini to use native features on your Android smartphone, or Siri for iOS devices.

Availability and pricing

VIVE Eagle is privacy-centric yet open and intuitive. It’s powerful and flexible, putting people in charge of their own data again, and helping them to be fully present instead of experiencing life through another device.

VIVE Eagle is available to order at the company’s website and selected channels, starting at just $499. VIVE Eagle shipments will start immediately in North America, and from 21st September in the UK and Europe.

VIVE AI Plus is included at no additional charge for two years with eligible VIVE Eagle purchases.

From counting steps and calories, wearable technology has come a long way. What began as a consumer fitness trend is rapidly entering one of the most prominent intersections of healthcare, artificial intelligence, biometrics, human performance, and security. The human body, computers, and sensors are all merging. The upcoming wearable generation is beginning to demonstrate the practical implications of such convergence.

The primary change is that wearables are now less about measuring activity and more about getting to know people. Sleep, heart rate, heart rate variability, temperature, mobility, recovery, and other physiological information can now be continuously recorded by sophisticated sensors. Artificial intelligence can identify each person's distinct baseline after evaluating such signals over time. In addition to providing information on what our bodies are doing, the objective is to identify patterns that could help us make better decisions about fitness, health, recovery, and, eventually, longevity, reports Chuck Brooks in Forbes.

That is a significant development in healthcare. Instead of relying just on sporadic measures taken during a medical visit, wearables can provide a constant stream of data about an individual's health. Miniaturized sensors have the potential to significantly change security, healthcare, and human-computer interaction.

The Oura Ring monitors a variety of health and wellness factors and transforms them into markers of rest, readiness, stress, and recovery.

Apple has taken a different approach with the Apple Watch, combining health monitoring, personal safety, and communications. The wearable's development toward features like heart monitoring, activity, sleep, and emergency functions shows that it has the potential to become something more than a consumer product.

The market leader for fitness wearables is still Google's Fitbit. Customers may track their heart health, activity, and sleep with Fitbit's user-friendly apps.

Related Doctors Want Wearable Data, Healthcare Isn’t Ready

Garmin is a global leader in wearable GPS technology, serving the outdoor, aviation, fitness, and marine industries. Garmin's products are useful for explorers and athletes since they provide robust navigation and performance tracking. Garmin's focus on precision and robustness ensures that its devices endure challenging conditions and maintain a substantial market share.

Perhaps the most fascinating thing to observe on the market is Pison, a newcomer to the scene. Pison is approaching wearable technology in a very different way. Instead of evaluating the body's external responses, its neural-sensing method uses electroneurography, or ENG, to detect electrical signals that travel from the brain to the muscles via the peripheral nervous system.

In this case, AI becomes quite important. Instead of the quantity of data collected, wearable technology's value will increasingly derive from the intelligence that is applied to it. AI can examine millions of data points to identify trends and perhaps distinguish between usual variations and pertinent changes. The wearable turns into an ongoing conduit for user feedback with the digital world.

When considered collectively, these businesses and their offerings point to a future in which wearables will be more than just apparel. It becomes a link between our biology and the digital world. The ultimate promise of this technology is not that machines will take the role of physicians, coaches, or human judgment. It's that we'll learn more about ourselves and have access to that information when it matters most.

As a result, the new world of wearables might be less about watches, rings, and bands and more about a much bigger change: giving people unprecedented visibility into their abilities, performance, and health.

Smart rings have become the quiet favourites of the wearables world. They track sleep, heart rate, and recovery without a screen begging for attention. But most of them still only watch. They cannot pay for your coffee, and they cannot nudge you when something needs your attention. Circular wants to change that. At IFA 2026 in Berlin, the French startup unveiled the Circular Ring 3 Pro and Ring 3 Slim. No phone. No wallet. Just a tap of the finger.

The Technology Behind It

Both rings support NFC contactless payments with Visa and Mastercard. According to CEO Amaury Kosman, this makes Circular the first smart ring worldwide to combine payments and health tracking in one device.

The flagship Ring 3 Pro goes further on health. It carries a single-lead ECG with FDA clearance for atrial fibrillation (AFib) detection, a milestone that many larger ring makers have not reached. It also tracks blood pressure trends, glucose insights, SpO2, and heart rate variability. A vibration motor in the inner rim brings back haptic feedback: silent alarms, medication reminders, breathing biofeedback, and alerts on vital signs.

The Pro measures 6.8 mm wide and 2.78 mm thick and runs up to 12 days on a charge, nearly double its predecessor. The Ring 3 Slim answers the trend towards jewellery-like designs: 5.9 mm wide, 2.35 mm thick, 1.9 to 3 g, and up to 10 days of battery life. It drops the ECG but keeps payments and the core metrics of sleep, activity, skin temperature, and heart rate. Both rings are made of titanium, water-resistant to 50 m, and charge wirelessly.

Smart Data, No Mandatory Subscription

The data flows into Kira, Circular's AI health assistant, which turns raw numbers into personal recommendations. Core features come without a subscription. Only blood pressure and glucose insights sit behind an optional paid plan, a clear contrast to the subscription models of many competitors.

From Kickstarter to IFA

Circular has come a long way for a small team. Its first ring sold tens of thousands of units. The Circular Ring 2 was named best wearable of CES 2025 by Laptop Mag and launched via Kickstarter. With the Ring 3 series, the startup moves from health tracker to everyday companion. Pricing and pre-order dates will be announced in the coming months, with shipping expected in 2027.

About Circular

Circular was founded in 2019 by French-American entrepreneur Amaury Kosman and is based in Paris, France. The company develops smart rings and the AI health assistant Kira, with the mission to turn complex health data into actionable insights. Its Circular Ring 2 is FDA-cleared for AFib detection via ECG.

Sychedelic, a consumer neurotechnology company building brain wearables, announced the successful close of a $3.5 million seed funding round led by Cultadvisors LLP, TurboStart, and IdeaBaaz (Kuberan Ventures), to launch the first-of-its-kind closed-loop neurostimulation headphones designed to help individuals shift from stress to calm, focus, or sleep in as little as 20 minutes.

"The future of neurotech is the integration into daily wearables that aren't only used for 20 minutes, but utilized throughout the day," states Ria Rustagi, co-founder and CEO of Sychedelic. "We wanted to create something people genuinely want to wear every day — headphones that look beautiful, feel natural, play music, and can also help you relax, focus, or fall asleep without depending on caffeine, supplements, or sleep medication, says a press release.

More than a business idea, Rustagi's motivation for building Sychedelic is deeply personal. She developed PTSD after her sister died from a misdiagnosed brain infection and later suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of her first child. Those experiences reinforced for Rustagi the need for accessible, everyday tools that support emotional regulation, stress recovery, and mental health.

3-in-1 Headphones

Unlike traditional brain wearables that often resemble medical devices or laboratory equipment, Sychedelic was intentionally designed as a premium lifestyle product that users can comfortably wear anywhere they already use headphones. The company describes the product as a "3-in-1 cognitive wearable," combining the functionality of music headphones, a smart wellness tracker, and neurostimulation in a single device.

Read more FDA Clears Galaxy Buds to Function as Hearing Aids

The headphones combine tDCS neurostimulation, binaural audio technology, and live HRV biofeedback to help users regulate cognitive and emotional states in real time. Rather than relying on stimulants like caffeine for focus or medication for sleep support, Sychedelic uses adaptive neurotechnology designed to help users naturally shift how they feel based on the moment – whether that means becoming calmer, more energized, mentally clear, or ready for sleep.

The launch reflects a larger shift happening across the wellness and wearable technology industries. According to the Global Wellness Institute, adaptive wellness technologies are becoming one of the fastest-growing sectors within consumer health innovation.

"At a time when the world is confronting increasing mental health struggles and overwhelmed healthcare systems, Sychedelic is pioneering a category where wearable intelligence becomes the first line of defense for humanity itself," says Mudit Kumar, COO at Kuberan Ventures/Ideabaaz." Sychedelic represents a new generation of Indian deeptech - where science, AI and human empathy converge to redefine preventive healthcare at a global scale."

Sychedelic believes the next generation of wellness products will feel less like healthcare devices and more like seamlessly integrated lifestyle technology.

Key Features and Consumer Benefits

• Change Your Mood in Minutes: Transition to focus, relaxation or sleep states in 20 minutes.
• Closed-Loop Neurotechnology: Provides real-time biometric feedback.
• Sleep Support Without Drugs: Supports relaxation and sleep without medication or supplements.
• Premium Headphones: Stylish everyday headphones. Not clinical-looking brain technology.
• 3-in-1 Lifestyle Device: Combines music, wellness and adaptive neurotechnology in one wearable.

Giuseppina Pilloni, PhD, and Assistant Professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, affirms Sychedelic's approach and the power of Neurotechnology to help individuals optimize their overall health. "Sychedelic is approaching mental wellness through a compelling combination of wearable technology, behavioral science, and personalized insights that has the potential to meaningfully transform how individuals understand and optimize their overall well-being."

Ganesh Raju, the Co-founder of TurboStart, who led the funding round, expresses his excitement for the technology. "We're excited to back Sychedelic as they build at the intersection of wellness, consumer health, and technology, and we look forward to supporting them through the next phase of growth."

The company says the funding raised will support continued product development, manufacturing scale-up, global expansion, and additional investment into AI-enabled adaptive wellness systems and personalized cognitive experiences.

About Sychedelic

Sychedelic is a neurotechnology company building closed-loop neuromodulation systems designed to help individuals relax, sleep, and focus better. The company's wearable platform combines tDCS neurostimulation, binaural beats, and live HRV biofeedback to create consumer-friendly mental performance technology focused on emotional regulation, focus optimization, sleep support, and sustainable cognitive wellness.

Sychedelic was co-founded by husband-and-wife team Ria Rustagi, CEO, and Bhavya Madan, CTO, of New Delhi, India.

SOND, a Boston-based sleep technology company, today emerged from stealth with $7 million in funding and unveiled Dreambuds, an in-ear sleep system designed to sense the body overnight and respond in real time. The round was led by E14 Fund, the MIT-affiliated venture firm, with Crosslink Capital and Ubiquity Ventures.

Most sleep products track the night and score it in the morning. Dreambuds are built to respond while the user is still asleep. The earbuds monitor 12 physiological signals overnight, including respiration, heart rate variability, cardiorespiratory coupling, sleep staging, body position, snoring, and seismocardiography (SCG). The system adapts audio in real time through a personalized AI sleep coach that learns what helps an individual fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up better. The coach draws on a library of more than 500 programs, including paced breathing exercises, guided meditations, soundscapes, and sleep stories, and can generate new content on demand, guiding a breathing exercise or reading a sleep story on any topic. Dreambuds is the first commercially available device to capture continuous overnight SCG and respiratory effort from the ear, says a press release.

Dreambuds also work without a phone in the bedroom. The charging case includes Wi-Fi, a display, and physical controls. After setup, users can start a sleep program, play a podcast, ask about their sleep, or continue a session directly from the earbuds and case. An optional companion app for iOS and Android adds sleep data and hypnograms, customizable sleep plans, and integration with Apple Health and Google Health Connect.

"Sleep technology has spent the last decade telling people how they slept," said Yadid Ayzenberg, founder and CEO of SOND. "Dreambuds are built for the next step: sensing what is happening during the night and responding in the moment, not just reporting back in the morning."

Dreambuds combine in-ear sensing, adaptive audio, active noise cancellation, and a phone-free case in a system designed for nightly use. The earbuds support audio programs for relaxation, masking, breathing, sleep onset, and overnight support, and the platform is also designed to support future research applications in sleep.

Read more Even Realities Hits $1B with $150M Funding

SOND was founded in 2022 by two MIT graduates. Ayzenberg holds a PhD from MIT, where his research focused on large-scale biosensor data analysis, a foundation for SOND's work in overnight physiological sensing. He previously founded The Sync Project, which was acquired by Bose in 2018, and later led Bose's consumer sleep business. Co-founder and CTO Amir Lazarovich holds a master's degree from MIT and previously led engineering teams at Google.

SOND's scientific advisors include Robert Stickgold, PhD, of Harvard Medical School, a leading researcher in sleep and memory consolidation, and Eti Ben Simon, PhD, Associate Director of the Sleep Innovation Labs in the Center for BrainHealth at UT Dallas.

"Dreambuds bring sleep sensing and real-time response into the same in-ear platform," said Ayzenberg. "That matters because the ear lets us measure, deliver audio, and adapt the experience through the night."

About SOND

SOND is a Boston-based sleep technology company building Dreambuds, an in-ear sleep system designed to help people sleep better through real-time sensing, adaptive audio, and AI-guided sleep support.

Clair Health's wearable wristband uses a stack of ten biosensors, including biomagnetic sensors that it claims are not found in any competing consumer wearable, to read physiological signals like skin temperature, heart rate variability, and electrodermal activity. These markers are then run through AI models to determine a woman's hormonal cycle rather than taking blood or puncturing skin.

The concept of hormones is not abstract. They are physical molecules that attach to receptors throughout your body to cause quantifiable physiological effects that occur constantly, throughout several organ systems, and 24/7. This fundamental biology is the basis of Clair's methodology.

Following ovulation, progesterone increases and binds to hypothalamic receptors, raising your thermoregulatory set point by 0.3–0.5°C. It simultaneously lowers parasympathetic-mediated heart rate variability (RMSSD) by around 12%, raises resting heart rate by about 3.5 BPM, and modifies body composition through fluid retention that may be measured by bioimpedance. As estrogen levels rise during the follicular phase, it encourages vasodilation, which changes the spectral properties of photoplethysmographic signals, pulse wave shape, and arterial stiffness.

Clair’s multi-modal sensor array captures over 130 mechanistic indicators from the circulatory, thermoregulatory, autonomic, electrodermal, body composition, respiratory, acoustic, sleep, and activity domains. Their algorithms, which are trained against clinical-grade hormone ground truth rather than merely self-reported cycle data, learn the mapping between these multi-system physiological markers and the underlying hormonal state. As a result, the body continuously deduces hormones from signals it already produces.

Progesterone and estradiol are not measured by urine-based fertility and ovulation tests. They assess the hepatic metabolites of those hormones, E3G (estrone-3-glucuronide) and PdG (pregnanediol glucuronide). The test strips use the metabolite level to determine the levels of the parent hormone. Hormone molecules cannot be directly detected by blood immunoassays, the clinical gold standard for the majority of hormone testing.

Clair's approach is a different modality of inference – physiological rather than biochemical – but the epistemic structure is the same: measuring one thing to determine another, validated against ground truth. Their validation shows 94.1% accuracy in cycle phase classification and 87% sensitivity for LH surge detection, benchmarked against clinical-grade hormone assays (urinary LH for surge detection, serum and urinary hormone panels for phase classification). As Clair advance through their clinical study program in the coming months, the company said it will publish these validation metrics “so the scientific community can evaluate our inference chain on its merits.”

Clinically Validated Cycle Tracking

Tested across 40+ women and 127 menstrual cycles, Clair’s prototype analyzed more than 5,000 days of physiological data. Unlike studies relying on self-reported periods, our predictions were validated against clinical-grade hormone measurements.

The results showed 94.1% accuracy in identifying menstrual cycle phases using wearable data alone, along with 87% sensitivity in detecting LH surges. The study included women with regular and irregular cycles, diverse ages, BMIs, and skin tones.

Accuracy was higher for regular cycles (95.2%) than irregular ones (84.3%), highlighting an important area for further research and improvement.

Is Clair FDA approved?

Clair 1.0 will launch as a general wellness device, which does not require FDA clearance under current regulations. It provides cycle phase tracking, hormonal trend insights, and wellness metrics.

Clair 2.0 will pursue FDA 510(k) clearance to enable medical-grade claims -- including quantitative hormone reporting and ovulation detection for fertility applications. The regulatory pathway is well-established within the existing classification framework for reproductive health monitoring devices.

Can Clair track workouts, cardiovascular health, sleep, and other wellness metrics?

Yes. Clair's sensor array is more comprehensive than most consumer fitness wearables, not less. We continuously capture heart rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature, multi-axis motion, sleep staging, respiratory patterns, electrodermal activity, bioimpedance, and more.

You will get workout detection, cardiovascular health metrics, sleep analysis, and stress monitoring. But with Clair, these metrics are contextualized by your hormonal state.

Before Fitbit, another wearable device dominated the market for almost 20 years. With its famous tagline, "I've fallen, and I can't get up," Life Alert, an emergency medical alert device firm, developed a pendant-style remote control device that could connect people to emergency services at the touch of a button. Older folks were the target users, while family members who were concerned about them were the target consumers in a subtle way.

These two groundbreaking wearables have now been spiritually combined to create the Luffu Link, a safety and health monitoring bracelet. It is the first piece of hardware for Luffu, a health tracking system that Fitbit cofounders James Park and Eric Friedman introduced earlier this year, reports Nate Berg in Fast Company.

Luffu was created as a centralized tool to manage the health of an entire family. It gathers activity data from wearable monitors, prescription and appointment schedules, health data from medical providers, and self-logged information about everything from meals to emotions. Luffu uses artificial intelligence to identify trends over time and provide proactive health-related insights and notifications.

The idea originated from Park and Friedman's personal experiences overseeing the health of elderly parents and other family members, some of whom resided in other states or towns. Managing patient portals, prescription schedules, appointments, dietary needs, and the routine daily check-ins to make sure individuals are okay became more and more difficult for them. There aren't many excellent tools available. There aren't many piecemeal fixes, according to Park.

Related Wearable Technology: Using Data to Improve Health

The Luffu Link passively monitors and analyzes activity, calories burnt, sleep, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, breathing rate, and other common health parameters. Additionally, it may be utilized actively, enabling users to use voice commands to check off their daily pills or add details to their profile, all of which are processed by the underlying AI.

According to Park, the screenless Luffu Link wearable makes handling the details of personal healthcare easier. Additionally, the program allows users to contribute information to several user profiles, such as those of children, adults, elderly family members, and pets.

Park provides an example of a note that a user could contribute to the system using the voice logging button on the Luffu Link: "Mom was really agitated today as I gave her her medication."

The AI in the system can also identify imbalances and changes that aren't being recorded, which can be crucial for family members or caretakers watching out for others.

According to Park, such information typically takes the form of a daily briefing, such as a morning update on each family member's health within the system. However, Luffu can also provide alerts that are more urgent.

“That’s definitely one of the bigger design challenges in the system. Like how does the system know to do the right thing and let the right people know?” Park says. “There’s going to be very few things which generate an alarm-level alert.”

You can preorder the Luffu Link for $249.99, and is expected to ship in early 2027.

Google announced the release of a new Health Guardian feature that will work across qualifying Pixel Watches and Fitbit Air.

Health Guardian is a collection of health and safety technologies that makes use of physiological data that is gathered in the background to offer insights into long-term health patterns, such as blood pressure, insulin resistance, and sleep breathing quality.

Additionally, the company unveiled a new breathing emergency detection tool that can recognize when a user experiences a serious or prolonged decline in oxygen saturation, such as during severe pneumonia, choking, or an unintentional drug overdose. The Pixel Watch will first have this capability in a few European nations, reports MobiHealthNews.

The devices' AI algorithms look at physiological data over a period of weeks to identify changes in metabolic health and assess an individual's insulin resistance, which impacts how well the body absorbs energy from food.

According to Google, the insulin feature, which makes use of an AI model trained on more than 1 trillion minutes of data from 5 million opted-in users, is intended to assist users in early detection of changes linked to insulin resistance so wearers can, if necessary, modify their diet, sleep patterns, or level of movement to improve their metabolic health. According to Google, the feature is not meant to identify or treat diabetes.

According to Google, the feature estimates blood pressure trends over time by passively monitoring a wearer's pulse and mobility patterns. The insights are intended to assist the wearer in determining whether lifestyle modifications or medical consultation are necessary.

WavesFM, a foundation model trained on billions of minutes of unprocessed heart and movement data, was used to train the blood pressure trends model.

Related When can You Treat a Fitness Tracker as a Medical Device?

The goal of the tech giant's sleep breathing feature is to provide users with information about their breathing patterns when they are asleep so they may assess longer-term breathing habits that might be impacting their energy and recuperation throughout the day.

According to Google, the wearer can examine their patterns to decide whether to change their daily routine and sleeping conditions or, if necessary, consult a medical specialist.

"A first of its kind, opt-in feature on Pixel Watch, breathing emergency detection can offer a lifeline by recognizing when a person's blood oxygen level drops dangerously low. If they become unresponsive, it automatically calls emergency services and their emergency contacts so they can receive potentially life-saving care," the tech giant said in a statement.

"Breathing emergency detection uses an advanced, AI-based algorithm to analyze signals from your watch's heart rate, motion and altitude sensors. To try and minimize accidental check-ins, it verifies that you're in a low-motion state without rapid altitude changes. And to reduce false notifications from conditions like sleep apnea, it also confirms that you haven't been asleep for more than 30 minutes."

The feature will not detect emergencies after the wearer has been asleep for 30 minutes.​

Every month, wearers can see all regionally accessible trends in the Google Health app along with information about significant changes that have taken place.

Google's breathing emergency detection technology will not yet be available in the United States, but it will first be available on the Pixel Watch 4 and the recently revealed Pixel Watch 5 in a number of European nations.

Later this fall, the Google Health app will introduce its insulin resistance and blood pressure trends capabilities, which will work with the Fitbit Air, Google Pixel Watch 3, Google Pixel Watch 4, and Google Pixel Watch 5.

Google also announced Sign-to-Text, a new feature on its Pixel phones that leverages Gemini to translate one-handed or two-handed sign language into audio. The speaker's words can then be translated into words for the hard of hearing by someone speaking back to the phone. Pixel now offers Sign-to-Text.