The Frontier X3 and X2 are much more than standard heart rate chest straps. Their big selling point is ECG-based heart monitoring during exercise, along with metrics such as cardiac strain, breathing rate, HRV and training load.

I’ve reviewed the Frontier X3 and Frontier X2, and spent plenty of time running and training with both. The X3 is easier to live with, especially when it comes to battery life, but the X2 still has a couple of advantages that could matter depending on what you want from it.

Battery life is on another level with the X3

Fourth Frontier rates the X3 for up to four months with around an hour of use per day. The X2 is rated for roughly two weeks. Continuous recording also jumps from 24 hours on the X2 to as much as 14 days on the X3.

The difference was pretty obvious in my own testing as well. With the X2, I found that topping it up every four or five days for around 20 to 30 minutes kept it at 100%. With the X3, I used it heavily for a couple of weeks, including a full night of sleep tracking, and still had more than 90% left.

So while I was already happy with the X2 battery, the X3 changes the relationship you have with the device. I simply don’t think about charging it very often anymore.

There is also the switch from Micro-USB to USB-C. That is nowhere near as important as the battery improvement, but it is one less old cable to keep around.

The X2 is much better if you want the actual ECG

On the X2, I could open a workout afterwards and move through the ECG in 20-second sections. Event markers also appeared on the trace, so it was easy to jump back to a particular moment and see what was happening.

Frontier X3

At checkout use code GNWX330 for 30% off.

View Frontier X3

There is also a live ECG view and a dedicated continuous ECG recording mode. That gave the X2 a layer of detail that most sports chest straps simply do not offer.

The X3 still uses ECG internally for heart rate, HRV and Rhythm Score. What you lose is direct access to the waveform itself, along with the ability to inspect and export it.

That is probably the biggest reason someone might still choose the older model. I did not spend huge amounts of time studying the raw ECG trace, but if that is one of the main reasons you are interested in Fourth Frontier, the X2 gives you more.

The screen has disappeared

Fourth Frontier has kept the same 73 x 24 x 13 mm dimensions, although the X3 weighs 23 grams rather than 25 grams. Visually, though, the main change is that the little X2 display no longer operates on the X3. You just get status LEDs.

Frontier X3

At checkout use code GNWX330 for 30% off.

View Frontier X3

I actually called for this when I reviewed the X2. The screen showed things such as battery life, mode status and a post-workout summary, but its position across your chest made it difficult to use while exercising. Most of the time it was hidden underneath clothing anyway.

So I don’t consider losing it a downgrade. If anything, my only complaint is that Fourth Frontier didn’t take the opportunity to make the X3 smaller once the display was no longer needed.

There are not many other differences once you get past battery life, ECG access, charging and the display. The main one is Bluetooth, with the X3 moving to Bluetooth 6.0 from Bluetooth 5.2 on the X2. In practice, though, that does not change much. Both can stay connected to the Frontier app while broadcasting heart rate to two additional devices. And neither has built-in GPS (only smartphone GPS or from a connected watch) or ANT+.

The post Frontier X3 vs X2: Better battery life, but not better at everything appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

I reviewed the original Acemate tennis robot S10 a few months ago and had a lot of fun with it. Now that I have spent time with the S10 Pro as well, the choice between the two is actually pretty straightforward. Acemate says the Pro is not replacing the S10, and that makes sense because the software experience is very similar. Most of what separates them happens at the hardware level and, more importantly, in how that hardware feels once you start hitting.

The S10 Pro is bigger, but the design is familiar

Put the two machines next to each other and there is no mistaking that they are related. Both still have that slightly comical mechanical-frog look, with two camera eyes at the front, four Mecanum wheels underneath and the big catching net rising above the body.

The Pro simply looks like the S10’s bigger brother. It is wider, taller and 5.2 kg heavier, so it has more presence on court. That sounds like a negative for portability, and in some ways it is, but there is a slightly strange twist to that which I will get to in a moment.

Acemate tennis robot S10 Pro

At checkout use code “G&W01” for a $50 discount.

View at Acemate

There are some nicer little changes too. The telescopic net poles on the original always felt like the most delicate part of the machine, and I was careful every time I extended them. The Gen 2 poles on the Pro are much sturdier and use twist-lock sections that hold everything more securely. Acemate also sells these poles separately, so S10 owners can upgrade rather than being stuck with the original design.

ACE+ SHOT is the biggest difference

The launch mechanism is one of the biggest upgrades. On the original S10, changing the direction of the next ball means the whole robot has to reposition itself first. It can still vary speed, height and spin, but if you want the ball sent somewhere very different, the machine itself needs to move.

The S10 Pro handles this differently. Its ACE+ SHOT system can change the horizontal direction of the outgoing ball internally, while the robot itself stays facing the same way.

So if it wants to send one ball towards your forehand and the next towards your backhand, it does not first need to rotate the entire machine. That makes directional changes quicker and gives the rally a more natural flow.

That is the real benefit of the new launcher. I do not particularly care about the ACE+ SHOT name or what the mechanism looks like inside the casing. What matters is that rallies feel smoother and the machine can mix up placement with much less effort.

There is more pace

The S10 tops out at 97 km/h, while the S10 Pro pushes that to 120 km/h. On paper, that does not look like a gigantic jump, but you notice it once you start ramping things up.

I like to think of myself as an intermediate player. And the original S10 was already more than enough for me. I never came away thinking it was slow or not challenging enough. But the Pro gives you more room to make a session difficult, particularly when you combine the extra pace with wider placement and quicker changes in direction.

Acemate also says the Pro can generate stronger spin. The actual spin choices have not changed, so you still get topspin, backspin and flat shots, and Acemate does not publish a directly comparable maximum spin figure for the Pro. I would therefore treat the extra pace and improved shot delivery as the more obvious upgrades rather than buying the Pro purely because of spin.

The heavier machine is actually easier to wheel

This one surprised me. The Pro is substantially heavier, so before using it I assumed getting it to court would be worse than with the S10.

In my case, the opposite happened. I usually walk about a kilometre and a half to my local courts, and the S10 Pro rolls more freely when I pull it along. The wheels feel less stiff, and I can move at a quicker pace without constantly feeling as though I am dragging the machine behind me.

I am not completely sure why. Acemate may have changed something in the wheel mechanism, or it may simply be that the taller body gives a better pulling angle. Either way, it is a genuine improvement for me.

Acemate tennis robot S10 Pro

At checkout use code “G&W01” for a $50 discount.

View at Acemate

That does not suddenly make the Pro highly portable. It is still a large tennis robot, and a proper suitcase-style handle would make life much easier. But I expected the extra weight to make transport noticeably worse, and it did not. In fact it is quite the opposite.

The taller net helps with ball collection

The catching system works the same way on both machines. Your return is tracked, the robot tries to move into position and, when everything lines up, the ball drops into the net and goes back into the hopper.

The Pro has a slightly larger catching net than its predecessor. The top reaches almost 2 metres from the ground, around 26 cm higher than on the S10. Quite simply, a bigger net gives it more area to catch the ball, so higher returns have a better chance of ending up back in the hopper.

Nevertheless, you should still think of the catching system as a bonus. Wide shots, sharper angles and harder returns will still end up scattered around the court. But anything that reduces the amount of time spent picking up tennis balls is welcome.

The larger hopper helps too. The Pro holds 100 balls rather than 80, so you can go a little longer between collections even before you factor in anything the robot manages to catch.

Battery life is much better

Battery life is one of the clearest specification differences. Acemate rates the Pro for up to five hours in Ball Machine mode, while the current rating for the S10 is up to three hours.

There is some fine print here. The five-hour Pro figure applies to Ball Machine mode with the launching wheels running at moderate speeds, so you should not expect five hours when the machine is constantly moving around in Rally or Battle mode.

Still, the extra capacity is useful. It means you should roughly get twice as much time between charging as you will on the S10.

The software is basically the same

The software is an important thing to understand before spending the extra money. You are not buying the Pro to unlock a completely different app or a special collection of training modes.

Both machines have Rally, Drill, Serve, Battle and Ball Machine modes, along with more than 100 preset drills and custom routines. Serve and Battle were not available when I originally reviewed the S10, but Acemate has since expanded the software on the regular model too.

Acemate tennis robot S10 Pro

At checkout use code “G&W01” for a $50 discount.

View at Acemate

The app itself has also had a nice makeover. It looks cleaner and more polished than it did when I first tested the S10, with better organisation around suggested sessions, saved drills and training data. But again, that is not a Pro advantage. S10 owners benefit from the software improvements as well.

The post Acemate tennis robot S10 Pro vs S10: The differences after going hands-on with both appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

You get quite a bit for the extra money

The Fitbit Edge launched today. But pretty much all the specs were known ahead of time.

And the differences start adding up surprisingly quickly. Our full Fitbit Edge vs Charge 6 comparison shows more than a dozen differences across the two trackers.

The display is an obvious one. Edge uses a 1.34-inch AMOLED touchscreen compared with the 1.04-inch panel on Charge 6. The larger screen should give Edge a little more room for workout data, notifications and navigation.

More surprising is the weight. Fitbit Edge is listed at just 17.7 grams without the strap, while Charge 6 comes in at around 30 grams. That is a pretty substantial reduction for a device that actually gets a larger display.

Also worth noting, the new Fitbit has a physical button on the side. This should be a bit easier to use than the Charge 6’s haptic nub.

Edge also adds a gyroscope and, importantly, a barometric altimeter. Charge 6 strangely dropped the altimeter found on some earlier Fitbit trackers, so floors climbed never really made it into the equation. Edge brings that back.

GPS remains built in on both devices, so runners and cyclists still will not need to carry a phone just to record a route. But Google claims Edge’s new GPS chip is 40% more accurate than the Charge 6’s.

ECG, SpO2, skin temperature, heart rate, HRV, sleep tracking, Daily Readiness and Fitbit’s usual activity metrics also appear on both. But Charge 6 also has an EDA sensor for electrodermal activity measurements. Whether that matters in real life depends on how much you actually use Fitbit’s stress tools.

Battery life stays the same but charging improves

Google is not using the larger Edge body to chase huge battery numbers. Both trackers are rated for up to seven days, which is fine considering the amount of hardware packed into them.

Edge is rated for only two days with the always-on display switched on, so that headline seven-day figure clearly comes with the usual conditions. Charge 6 also takes a battery hit when its always-on display and SpO2 features are used.

Charging looks much better on Edge, though. Five minutes on the charger can provide around 24 hours of use. Charge 6 takes roughly two hours for a full charge.

Another thing worth mentioning is that Edge has a user-replaceable battery. This means owners can genuinely swap a worn battery rather than needing a service centre to do it. That should make Edge much easier to keep for several years.

The health features are getting broader too

The core health package remains familiar, but Edge adds blood pressure trends and insulin resistance trends. These are features Google recently introduced for its Pixel Watches and Fitbit Air.

There is also Gemini-based coaching, continuing Google’s push to bring its AI tools deeper into Fitbit and Google Health. We have already seen the company move in that direction with its newer health platform, so Edge looks less like an isolated Fitbit product and more like another piece of Google’s broader wearable setup.

That makes the positioning fairly clear. Fitbit Air handles the tiny screenless tracker end of the range, Pixel Watch covers the full smartwatch experience, and Edge appears to sit right between them.

Other differences, and the bottom line

As far as smart features, Edge gets more useful music controls. The Charge 6 can only control music playing on Youtube Music. And this requires a subscription. On the flip side, the Fitbit Edge does not have a tap-to-pay option like the Charge 6. Which means no NFC chip.

There is another complication here, and it is already happening. Charge 6 is an older product and Google and retailers discount it regularly.

That changes the calculation quite a bit. During sales, paying substantially less for Charge 6 can still make perfect sense because most of the important health features are already there. You still get built-in GPS, ECG, NFC payments, Google Maps, music controls and seven-day headline battery life.

Fitbit Edge

View at Amazon

Fitbit Charge 6

$117.00 View at Amazon

At its normal price, though, the argument becomes much harder. Paying around $20 more for Edge looks like the obvious move if you are buying new. The device does not appear to be priced as some expensive new category above Charge 6. It looks much more like Google has built the Charge successor people have been waiting for, changed the name and kept the price gap small.

The post Fitbit Edge vs Charge 6 looks like a very easy decision at these prices appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

Speediance Strap is a newcomer to the screenless band space, and it is coming at this from a slightly different angle than WHOOP. The company is better known for its connected home gym equipment, and the Strap is its first real push into everyday wearable tracking.

I have the device in testing right now and, so far, it is working well. I am still going through the health, sleep, recovery and workout data, so I am saving the proper verdict for the full review. That is coming soon.

WHOOP has had this corner of the market mostly to itself for years, but the screenless fitness tracker category has become a lot busier lately. Speediance is clearly aiming at the same crowd, just with a few very different ideas about how to do it.

View Whoop on Whoop’s website. View Speediance Strap on Speediance website.

Speediance puts core body temperature to work

Most wearables stop at skin temperature. Speediance Strap goes further by estimating core body temperature using heat-flux sensing, skin temperature and physiological modelling, with the underlying Calera technology supplied by Swiss company greenteg.

I first came across the Speediance Strap at IFA 2026, and this was the feature that caught my attention straight away. More importantly, Speediance does not just collect the data and leave it sitting in a graph. It uses those temperature trends as part of several training features.

Peak Window looks at core temperature and circadian rhythm to suggest when you may be better placed for harder exercise. Warm-Up Readiness follows how your temperature changes once you start moving, while Heat Load Monitoring watches for rising thermal strain during a workout.

WHOOP tracks temperature too, but it does not offer the same estimated core-temperature system or the same set of temperature-led training features. That gives Speediance a genuinely different angle rather than another variation on sleep, strain and recovery scores.

Different approaches to premium hardware

There are actually two Speediance models, and the Strap Pro is the one I’ve been testing. The regular version costs $129 and uses a stainless-steel frame, while the $159 Strap Pro switches to titanium and drops the total weight from 28 grams to just 21 grams.

The Pro also adds an EDA sensor, which measures electrodermal activity. This helps in better estimating your stress levels.

That is quite a different approach to WHOOP’s premium hardware. WHOOP MG adds features such as ECG and Blood Pressure Insights. These are two features Speediance and the Pro version of the same lack.

Charging works differently

Both platforms offer very long battery life, so endurance itself is not a separator. Speediance quotes up to 14 days, while WHOOP 5.0 is also rated for 14-plus days.

The difference is what happens when the battery finally runs down. Speediance uses a magnetic charging dock, which means taking the tracker off while it charges. WHOOP has a more unusual setup on its higher membership tiers, with a Wireless PowerPack that slides over the device and lets you continue wearing it while it charges.

There is an important wrinkle here. WHOOP One comes with a conventional corded Basic Charger rather than the Wireless PowerPack, so charging while wearing the device is not standard across every WHOOP package. The PowerPack comes with WHOOP Peak and Life.

Speediance does not require an ongoing membership

Price is probably where the difference really hits home. The Speediance Strap starts at $129, and once you have bought it, the core tracking keeps working without another compulsory payment hanging over it.

There is an optional Wellness Go service, and Speediance includes a year with the Strap, but you do not need to keep paying just to carry on using the main health and fitness features. That makes the whole thing feel much more like buying a normal wearable.

WHOOP does it completely differently. In the US, WHOOP One costs $199 per year, Peak is $239 and Life is $359, with the hardware bundled into the membership.

To be fair, WHOOP has had years to build out its Recovery, Strain, Sleep and coaching platform, so you are paying for a much more mature ecosystem rather than just the sensor on your wrist. But the basic ownership model is still very different. With Speediance, you buy the hardware and keep using it. With WHOOP, the membership is part of the deal.

I am still testing the Speediance Strap, so I am not ready to call the comparison either way yet. So far it is working well, and my full review will dig much further into heart-rate accuracy, sleep, recovery, exercise tracking, core-temperature features and battery life.

View Whoop on Whoop’s website. View Speediance Strap on Speediance website.

The post Four ways Speediance Strap is different vs Whoop appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

So naturally, the Garmin Instinct 3 Solar is the watch that immediately comes to mind. Both are rugged, both are built for the outdoors and both are trying to keep you away from the charger for as long as possible.

But once you look past that, they are actually very different watches. Zepp Health has packed in more hardware and gone for a much more modern smartwatch feel. Garmin has kept things simpler, lighter and much more focused on squeezing every last bit of battery life out of the Instinct.

Here are the six biggest differences.

Amazfit T-Rex Dual Solar

View at Amazon

View at Amazfit

Garmin Instinct 3 45 mm Solar Tactical Edition

$349.99$449.9922% off View at Amazon

Garmin $349.99 View at Garmin

The displays could hardly be more different

Zepp Health has fitted the T-Rex Dual Solar with a 1.32-inch AMOLED display with a 466 x 466 resolution and peak brightness of 3,000 nits. It is a full-colour touchscreen, so maps, menus and watch faces look much closer to what you would find on something like the T-Rex 3 Pro.

Garmin’s Instinct 3 Solar goes in completely the opposite direction. It uses a monochrome transflective MIP panel with a resolution of just 176 x 176 pixels. There is no touchscreen either, so everything is controlled with the physical buttons.

On paper, that makes the Amazfit screen look vastly more impressive. But Garmin is making a deliberate trade-off here. A MIP display uses very little energy and becomes particularly easy to see outdoors, which is exactly what you want when trying to stretch battery life over days or weeks.

So this is not simply a case of one screen being better. Amazfit prioritises appearance and functionality. Garmin prioritises efficiency.

A novel approach to solar

The clue is in the T-Rex name. There really are two solar panels.

One photovoltaic surface sits at the front of the Amazfit, while a second and considerably larger solar panel is built into the case back. That rear panel obviously cannot do much while the watch is strapped to your wrist, so the idea is to expose it to sunlight when the watch is removed.

Garmin Instinct 3 45 mm Solar Tactical Edition

$349.99$449.9922% off View at Amazon

Garmin $349.99 View at Garmin

Garmin uses its familiar Power Glass approach. Solar collection happens through the front of the watch, so there is no need to take it off or deliberately position a second panel towards the sun.

The difference says quite a lot about the engineering philosophy behind each watch. Zepp Health is trying to increase the amount of solar energy available to an AMOLED watch. Garmin starts with an extremely low-power watch and uses solar energy to extend something that is already very efficient.

Zepp Health also has its Solar Boost Mode, which pares back functionality to reduce power consumption while charging. Garmin’s system is more passive. Give the Instinct enough sunlight and the battery estimate simply stretches further.

Garmin can stretch battery life further

Two solar panels do not automatically mean longer battery life.

The T-Rex Dual Solar is rated for up to 25 days of typical use before solar enters the equation. Front solar can push that to 34 days, while using the larger rear panel can take it to 51 days. The more extreme headline figure is up to 180 days in its Outdoor Extreme mode with rear solar charging.

Those are big numbers, particularly for a watch with an AMOLED display. Remember, this is the first time we are seeing a Solar enabled AMOLED display. But the Instinct 3 Solar shows what happens when you combine solar with a much more frugal MIP screen.

The 45mm Garmin is rated for up to 28 days in smartwatch mode and the 50mm model for 40 days. Under Garmin’s specified solar conditions, both can theoretically run indefinitely in smartwatch mode. Garmin bases that claim on three hours per day outdoors at 50,000 lux.

Amazfit T-Rex Dual Solar

View at Amazon ›

View at Amazfit ›

The difference becomes even larger during GPS use. Garmin quotes up to 130 hours of GPS-only tracking with solar on the 45mm model and as much as 260 hours on the 50mm. Amazfit’s figures are much lower, although its 57-hour solar-assisted hiking and climbing figure is still substantial.

In other words, Amazfit has built the more elaborate solar system. Garmin still benefits from having the much less power-hungry watch.

Zepp Health gives you more smartwatch hardware

The Amazfit includes offline maps and proper map-based navigation. That works particularly well with the colour AMOLED touchscreen because you can actually see geographic detail rather than simply following a line.

The Instinct 3 Solar supports courses and breadcrumb navigation, but there are no onboard maps. This was already one of the more obvious omissions when Garmin introduced the Instinct 3 range, and the difference becomes more noticeable when putting it next to the T-Rex Dual Solar.

The Amazfit also has Wi-Fi, a microphone and speaker. That makes it feel much more like a conventional smartwatch when you are not hiking, running or sitting halfway up a mountain.

Garmin skips all three. It does have Garmin Pay, smartphone notifications and music controls, but the basic philosophy remains much closer to a sports watch than a general-purpose smartwatch.

Both have an LED flashlight, which is a genuinely useful addition on an outdoor watch. But overall, Amazfit simply puts more hardware functionality on your wrist.

The T-Rex uses more premium materials

Neither watch is exactly discreet, but the Amazfit is the chunkier of the two.

The T-Rex Dual Solar measures 51.4mm across and weighs 69 grams before adding the strap. Garmin offers the Instinct 3 Solar in both 45mm and 50mm sizes, weighing 52 and 58 grams respectively.

That gives Garmin a fairly obvious advantage for smaller wrists. Even the larger 50mm version comes in noticeably lighter than the Amazfit.

Amazfit counters with more premium materials. The T-Rex Dual Solar uses sapphire crystal and Grade 5 titanium around the bezel, whereas Garmin uses Power Glass, a fibre-reinforced polymer case and an aluminium-reinforced bezel.

Both have 10 ATM water resistance. But Amazfit goes further with recreational diving support down to 50 metres, which gives the T-Rex another specialist outdoor feature that the Instinct lacks.

Garmin still has the deeper sports platform

Garmin brings Training Readiness, Training Status, Body Battery, recovery tracking, training load features and its wider Garmin Connect platform. There is also ANT+ support, which matters if you regularly pair external sensors such as chest straps, cycling equipment or other training accessories.

Amazfit has come a long way with Zepp OS, Zepp Coach, readiness and recovery features. The gap is nowhere near what it was a few generations ago.

But these watches still put their emphasis in different places. Amazfit has thrown more hardware at the T-Rex Dual Solar. Garmin puts more of its weight behind training analysis, accessory support and the broader sports ecosystem surrounding the watch.

That may end up being one of the biggest deciding factors. Someone who spends most of their time hiking and wants maps, a bright screen and lots of functionality directly on the watch may lean towards what Amazfit is doing. Someone already invested in Garmin sensors, training metrics and Garmin Connect will see the Instinct very differently.

Final verdict: Two very different ideas of a solar watch

What makes this comparison unusual is that neither company is simply copying the other.

The T-Rex Dual Solar looks like an attempt to get rid of some of the traditional compromises of a solar outdoor watch. Amazfit keeps AMOLED, touchscreen controls, offline maps, premium materials and smartwatch features, then adds two photovoltaic surfaces to claw back some of the extra energy those features consume.

Garmin accepts those compromises from the beginning. The Instinct 3 Solar has a basic monochrome display, no maps, no touchscreen and relatively little smartwatch hardware. In return, its energy requirements are tiny enough that solar charging can produce some pretty extreme endurance figures.

That leaves two watches aimed at similar people but built around very different priorities. The Amazfit T-Rex Dual Solar is the more feature-packed piece of hardware, while the Garmin Instinct 3 Solar is the more minimalist interpretation of what a solar outdoor watch could be.

Garmin Instinct 3 45 mm Solar Tactical Edition

$349.99$449.9922% off View at Amazon

Garmin $349.99 View at Garmin

Amazfit T-Rex Dual Solar

View at Amazon

View at Amazfit

The post Amazfit T-Rex Dual Solar vs Garmin Instinct 3: Six big differences appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

Suunto Smart Heart Rate Belt 2 is much more than a cosmetic refresh of the old chest strap. It adds running dynamics, three simultaneous Bluetooth connections, 20 hours of onboard memory and a redesigned ECG measurement system aimed at producing cleaner heart rate and R-R data.

It arrives alongside Suunto Run 2 and is clearly aimed at people doing more serious endurance training. The old belt was basically a very good heart-rate sensor. This one is starting to look more like a heart-rate belt and running dynamics pod rolled into one.

View on Suunto’s website.

Running dynamics are the big addition

Smart Heart Rate Belt 2 uses a six-axis IMU to measure running form when paired with a compatible Suunto watch. It tracks cadence, ground contact time, vertical oscillation, flight time, GCT/FT ratio and left/right ground-contact balance.

That is a much bigger feature jump than we normally see with a chest strap. The original Smart Heart Rate Belt does none of this, with its job largely limited to heart rate, R-R intervals and storing data when the watch connection disappears.

Adding a six-axis movement sensor puts Belt 2 into a different category. It can now do some of the work that previously required a separate running pod or another sensor capable of analysing movement.

The chest is also an interesting place to collect these measurements. It gives Suunto a stable reference point around the torso rather than trying to infer everything from wrist movement, and it should make it easier to see how running form changes as pace increases or fatigue starts to creep in.

For runners, this is probably the strongest reason to choose the new model over the old one. Running-form measurement does require a compatible Suunto watch, so this is not a completely standalone running dynamics sensor.

Suunto has also worked on cleaner ECG data

Both generations measure electrical activity from the chest, but Suunto has put quite a bit of work into cleaning up the signal on Belt 2. The new model uses ECG-based detection to identify QRS-complex artifacts affecting heart-rate and R-R interval measurements.

The strap construction has also been changed to reduce ESD noise, which can be introduced by things such as dry synthetic clothing. Suunto says the combination produces a heart-rate trace that follows intervals, sustained surges and long efforts more consistently.

The R-R interval side of this is particularly important for ZoneSense. ZoneSense looks at beat-to-beat data to estimate physiological intensity, so poor R-R data gives the algorithm worse raw material to work with.

ZoneSense itself is not exclusive to Belt 2. The original belt already provides the R-R information needed by the feature, but Suunto is clearly pitching the new belt as a better source of that data, particularly when training becomes harder and signal quality is more difficult to maintain.

Bluetooth finally catches up

Smart Heart Rate Belt 2 can maintain three simultaneous Bluetooth connections. That means the same live heart rate can be sent to something like a Suunto watch, bike computer and phone at the same time.

The old belt can remember multiple paired devices, but only one Bluetooth connection can actually be active at once. That increasingly felt restrictive, particularly for cyclists and anyone using indoor training platforms alongside a watch.

Moving from one active connection to three is therefore a proper upgrade rather than a spec-sheet extra. Suunto also describes the Bluetooth connection as protected, which should help reduce unwanted connections and interference when lots of sensors are operating nearby.

Running-form data is more restricted than basic heart rate. Suunto says the running metrics are available with compatible Suunto watches, while standard live heart rate can be sent across all three Bluetooth connections.

Onboard memory jumps to 20 hours

The memory system gets a significant upgrade as well. Smart Heart Rate Belt 2 can hold up to 20 hours of rolling workout data directly on the transmitter.

A compatible Suunto watch can read that information back using timestamps if the Bluetooth connection is temporarily interrupted. That means gaps in the live connection do not necessarily become gaps in the final workout record.

The original belt already has onboard memory, but its capacity is much smaller. Suunto quotes roughly 3.5 hours of stored measurement data at 120 bpm for the older model, so the move to 20 hours is substantial.

This also makes the belt much more useful for very long sessions and situations where maintaining a continuous Bluetooth connection is difficult. Workout-memory support requires a compatible Suunto watch.

The strap has been reworked too

Suunto has made the transmitter more compact and paired it with a softer strap. Silicone grip sections help keep it from moving during harder sessions, which should mean fewer mid-run adjustments.

The new construction also plays a role in reducing electrical interference. That matters because chest straps can become surprisingly sensitive to clothing, moisture and movement, particularly early in a session before the electrodes have good contact.

There is also a status LED and button-controlled pairing, both of which make the belt easier to deal with away from a phone or watch screen. These are small changes individually, but chest straps tend to live or die on exactly this sort of day-to-day usability.

The new model is listed with an M/L strap covering 74 to 125 cm. The outgoing belt uses separate S, M and L options, so anyone outside that range will want to pay attention to the strap options available in their market.

Battery life is slightly lower

Suunto rates Smart Heart Rate Belt 2 for approximately 460 hours of use. That is slightly below the roughly 500 hours quoted for the original Smart Heart Rate Belt, although both figures are long enough that battery changes should remain infrequent.

The new transmitter uses a replaceable CR2032 cell rather than the CR2025 battery found in the old model. So while the battery itself is larger, the extra IMU, memory and connectivity hardware means rated runtime actually comes down slightly.

That is not really a meaningful downside in normal use. At 460 hours, someone training ten hours per week would still be looking at close to a year between batteries.

Suunto Smart Heart Rate Belt 2 vs Smart Heart Rate Belt

The new belt also has plenty of competition, so we’ve included it alongside Garmin, Polar and other options in my heart rate chest strap buying guide.

The post Suunto Smart Heart Rate Belt 2 adds running dynamics and much more appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

Suunto Run 2 is now live on the company’s website. It takes the original Run and fills in most of the gaps that kept it from feeling like a complete running watch. It is still ridiculously light at 35 grams, but now you get offline maps, a much brighter screen, a bigger battery, upgraded sensors and new tools such as EnergySense, Live Finish Prediction and Heat Strain Score.

The funny thing is that Suunto hasn’t really changed the basic idea. Run 2 is still small, light and clearly aimed at people who actually want to run with their watch rather than carry a miniature outdoor computer on their wrist. It just does a lot more now.

View on Suunto’s website.

The same lightweight design

The Run 2 measures 46 x 46 x 11.7 mm, compared with 46 x 46 x 11.5 mm for the original Run. So despite all the extra hardware, Suunto has only added 0.2 mm to the thickness.

More importantly, the weight stays at just 35 grams. That is particularly impressive when you consider the bigger battery, offline mapping and upgraded sensors squeezed inside.

Construction remains pretty straightforward, with a stainless steel bezel, Gorilla Glass, a fiber-reinforced composite case and 5 ATM water resistance. Visually, Suunto has not tried to reinvent the watch either, and there was not much reason to.

The original Run was already one of the lighter options in this part of the market. Run 2 keeps that advantage instead of turning into another bulky outdoor watch.

The display jumps from 600 to 2,000 nits

Both watches use a 1.32-inch AMOLED display, but the brightness difference is huge. Suunto Run tops out at 600 nits, while Run 2 reaches 2,000 nits.

That is more than three times the quoted peak brightness. For a watch designed mainly for running outdoors, this is one of those upgrades that makes immediate sense.

The Run 2 also uses an LTPS AMOLED panel. The bigger story, though, is simply that the display is far better suited to bright outdoor conditions than the one on the original model.

A 600-nit display never made the first Run unusable, but it did look pretty modest next to newer sports watches. Run 2 brings Suunto right back into the range we now expect from a modern AMOLED running watch.

Offline maps completely change the comparison

Offline maps are easily one of the biggest differences between the two generations. Suunto Run 2 has them, while the original Run does not.

Worldwide maps can be downloaded directly to the watch before heading out. They include topographic contours, outdoor heatmaps and route climb profiles, and remain available without cellular data.

That gives the Run 2 a much broader use case than its predecessor. The first Run was easy to understand as a lightweight road-running watch, while Run 2 now makes a lot more sense for trail running, unfamiliar routes and travel.

It also makes the 35 gram weight look even better. Lightweight running watches with proper offline mapping are still not exactly everywhere.

The original Run asked you to accept some fairly clear compromises in return for the low weight. Run 2 removes one of the biggest ones.

GPS and heart rate both get new hardware

Suunto Run already had dual-band GPS, so this is not the first time the series has supported L1 and L5 positioning. Run 2 instead moves to Suunto’s new-generation navigation hardware.

Support includes GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou and QZSS. Suunto says the upgraded system improves recorded distance, pace and track accuracy, with particular attention paid to filtering out multipath signal reflections from tall buildings.

That is a more interesting upgrade than simply adding dual-band GPS to a watch that previously lacked it. The original Run was already capable here, so Suunto is refining an area that was one of the stronger parts of the first watch.

The optical heart-rate sensor changes more noticeably. Run 2 uses a new 12-channel optical sensor positioned behind curved 2.5D sensor glass.

Suunto specifically points to improved tracking during hard intervals, sudden changes in intensity, long efforts and running in heat. Those are all situations where optical sensors can have a harder time keeping up, so this is a sensible area to target.

A bigger battery without a bigger watch

Battery capacity increases from 295 mAh on the original Run to 380 mAh on Run 2. That works out to roughly 29 percent more capacity.

Daily use increases from eight days to 10 days, while high-performance dual-band GPS rises from 20 hours to 24 hours. Those are useful gains, particularly because the display is also considerably brighter.

Suunto has not turned Run 2 into an ultra-endurance watch, and it does not need to. The attraction here is getting decent battery life without carrying something much larger on your wrist.

The fact that weight has stayed at 35 grams is probably the most impressive part of the battery upgrade. Suunto has added capacity without giving up one of the original Run’s main selling points.

Music now includes offline podcasts

Suunto Run 2 also expands what you can take with you when leaving the phone behind. Music and podcasts can be stored on the watch and played offline.

That fits particularly well with the addition of offline maps. You can head out with navigation and audio available directly from the watch, which makes the Run 2 considerably more self-contained than the original.

Suunto lists the Run 2 as a 4GB model, although its comparison information also references 4/64GB storage. The important practical point is that local audio playback is now part of the package, including podcasts rather than just music.

That makes more sense for a running watch in 2026. Plenty of runners want to leave the phone at home, and Run 2 now does a much better job of supporting that.

EnergySense goes further than ordinary pacing tools

It is not all about the hardware upgrades. Some more interesting additions are on the software side.

EnergySense calculates live physiological output and dynamically estimates your remaining stamina percentage and how far you could continue running at your current pace. That makes the comparison with Garmin Stamina fairly obvious, although Suunto may be approaching the same general problem differently.

Plus you get Live Finish Prediction. Which takes the current pace and shows where it leads, giving a real-time view of the finishing time. Both features are built to inform the call while there is still road left to act on it: hold the pace, ease off, or push.

This becomes particularly interesting because Suunto already has ZoneSense. That system uses DDFA, or Dynamical Detrended Fluctuation Analysis, to analyse RR interval dynamics and estimate physiological intensity during exercise.

ZoneSense is not simply another set of fixed heart-rate zones. It looks at how your body is responding in real time, while EnergySense attempts to answer the next question, which is how much you have left if you continue at the same effort.

There is also a new Heat Strain Score. Suunto says it combines external weather conditions such as temperature, humidity and wind with heart rate to calculate cumulative heat stress during training. The idea is to give runners a better indication of when heat is starting to affect pacing, hydration and recovery.

Recovery and readiness tracking also takes overnight HRV baselines, Training Stress Balance, sleep stages and subjective feeling scores into account. None of these features changes what the Run 2 fundamentally is, but together they make the software side of the upgrade look considerably broader than it first appeared.

The post Suunto Run 2 vs Run: A much bigger upgrade than the name suggests appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

Huawei has made this comparison more awkward than it probably intended. The Watch 6 is supposed to be the more complete smartwatch, yet the GT 7 Pro costs less, uses nicer materials and absolutely destroys it on battery life.

There is a reason for that. Watch 6 puts more emphasis on health, connectivity and everyday smartwatch features, while GT 7 Pro is built much more like a long-lasting sports watch. So despite sitting fairly close together in Huawei’s 2026 range, these two actually suit rather different people.

You can view both of these devices on Huawei’s website.

Huawei Watch 6 vs GT 7 Pro tech specs

There is more overlap here than the different product names suggest. Both have sapphire glass, ECG, dual-band GNSS, maps, Bluetooth calling, skin temperature tracking and serious sports features, but the way Huawei has packaged all of that is quite different.

You can also dig through our full Huawei Watch 6 vs GT 7 Pro specs comparison if you want every field side by side. The table below concentrates on some of the main differences between them.

Watch 6 gives you more choice on size, GT 7 Pro gets the nicer case

The design decision is not as simple as one watch being better. Watch 6 comes in two sizes, and the 42 mm version is particularly interesting if you want something genuinely light. At 38g without the strap, it is much easier to forget about than the 55.5g GT 7 Pro.

Move up to the 46 mm Watch 6, though, and things flip around. It weighs about 60g, so GT 7 Pro is actually slightly lighter despite using titanium and ceramic instead of stainless steel and a polymer-composite rear. Both get sapphire glass, but GT 7 Pro clearly feels like the more expensive piece of hardware on paper. 

Watch 6 does get the more flexible display choice. There is a 1.38-inch screen on the 42 mm model and a 1.5-inch display on the 46 mm version, compared with 1.47 inches on GT 7 Pro. Huawei’s Watch 6 spec sheet also lists peak brightness at up to 3,500 nits, against 3,000 nits on GT 7 Pro. 

Battery life is not remotely close

Battery life is where GT 7 Pro lands its biggest punch. Huawei rates it for up to 21 days with light use, 12 days under its typical-use test and seven days with the always-on display enabled. It can also run for up to 51 hours in trail running mode. 

Watch 6 is playing a completely different game. The 42 mm version is rated for around three days of typical use in Standard mode and the 46 mm for 4.5 days. You can stretch those figures to seven and 11 days respectively in Battery Saver mode, but that mode disables some of the features that make Watch 6 different in the first place.

That difference alone could decide this for a lot of people. Charging every few days is perfectly normal for a full smartwatch with cellular connectivity, but once you have lived with a watch that comfortably makes it through a week or two, going back can feel like a chore.

Watch 6 has the edge for health and smartwatch features

The basic sensor lists are actually very similar. Both watches cover heart rate, HRV, SpO2, skin temperature, ECG, stress and the usual daily health metrics, while both also have microphones, speakers, NFC, maps and Bluetooth calling. Our database comparison counts surprisingly few outright sensor differences between them. 

Watch 6 separates itself with X-TAP. Pressing the side sensor launches Health Glance, pulling several measurements together into a quick health check rather than making you open each metric individually. Huawei is also putting more emphasis on physical readiness, health interpretation and AI workout analysis with this generation. 

The other obvious advantage is eSIM. Watch 6 can connect to a cellular network without your phone nearby, so calls and connected features can keep working when you leave the handset behind. GT 7 Pro has Bluetooth calling but no cellular connection of its own. 

That is probably the cleanest way to separate the two. Watch 6 behaves more like Huawei’s answer to an Apple Watch or Galaxy Watch, while GT 7 Pro is much happier behaving like a sports watch that happens to have plenty of smartwatch features bolted on.

GT 7 Pro still makes more sense for serious outdoor use

Watch 6 is not lacking in sport modes. Huawei lists more than 100 of them, including golf, snow sports, cycling and diving, so GT 7 Pro does not win this simply because it tracks more activities. 

The difference is in how much Huawei has built around those activities. GT 7 Pro gets its newer Sunflower positioning system with AI-XDR, native running power, expanded cycling tools, detailed skiing features and a much more developed golf package. It is also where that 51-hour trail-running battery figure starts to become genuinely useful. 

Both watches can handle maps and offline navigation, and both support 40-metre freediving. So Watch 6 is hardly a lightweight on the sports side, but GT 7 Pro has a clearer emphasis on spending long periods outdoors without having to think about charging.

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If you were expecting Huawei to completely rethink its blood pressure watch for the D3, it hasn’t. The new model is slimmer, gets a bigger and much brighter screen and adds a few useful blood pressure tricks, but the D2 already did most of the clever health stuff.

That is worth keeping in mind because the Huawei Watch D2 was already quite unusual. Instead of trying to estimate blood pressure from optical sensors, it has a tiny inflatable airbag built into the strap and uses the oscillometric method, much like a traditional cuff. The Watch D3 sticks with that approach rather than replacing it with something new.

You can view both of these devices on Huawei’s website.

For some context on how Huawei’s inflatable-cuff approach compares with other blood pressure wearables, our recent BP Doctor Fit review and Wellue BP Watch review both look at the same basic idea of putting a real air cuff on the wrist.

Huawei Watch D3 vs D2 tech specs

The broad specification list looks very similar because these watches share most of their sensors and smartwatch features. The main differences are in the size, display and some of the newer blood pressure and health software.

You can also dig through our full Huawei Watch D3 vs 2 specs comparison if you want every field side by side.

The D3 is noticeably less bulky

The physical redesign is probably the part you will notice most. The D2 was already surprisingly wearable considering there is an inflatable blood pressure cuff hidden in the strap, but at 13.3 mm thick it was never going to disappear on your wrist.

D3 trims that to 11.3 mm and narrows the airbag strap from 26.5 mm to 25.5 mm. The watch body itself still weighs about 40g, although Huawei says the new strap is 7.5g lighter. That is particularly useful here because this is a watch you may deliberately wear through the night while running ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. 

The display also grows from 1.82 to 1.92 inches. More noticeable than that small increase is brightness, which jumps from 1,500 nits on D2 to 3,000 nits on D3. Resolution barely changes in practical terms, so this is really about getting a larger and much brighter screen rather than more detail. 

Blood pressure tracking is better, but the basic idea is unchanged

Both watches use a mechanical airbag and oscillometric blood pressure measurement, and both support 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. D3 does not suddenly make D2’s main feature obsolete. 

What Huawei has done is expand where and how those readings can be used. D3 adds dedicated blood pressure measurements before and after exercise, with support for running, walking and cycling indoors and outdoors. Huawei has also tied its 24-hour monitoring more closely to European Society of Hypertension guidance on measurement intervals and the number of successful daytime and overnight readings. 

That makes D3 the more complete blood pressure watch, but it is worth being precise about some of the other health features. Pulse Wave Arrhythmia Analysis, the Beat-by-Beat ECG app and Health Community are not D3 exclusives. D2 already has all three, despite some early comparisons of the two watches suggesting otherwise. 

There are smaller improvements elsewhere. Health Glance moves from up to 10 indicators on D2 to 11 on D3, and the newer model gets Huawei’s TruSleep 5.0 algorithm. D3 also expands sports tracking from more than 80 exercise modes to more than 100. 

Battery life has gone nowhere

Oddly enough, making the watch thinner has not cost it anything on battery life, but it has not improved matters either. Huawei rates both D3 and D2 for up to six days of typical use, dropping all the way to one day when 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is enabled. 

D3 does at least have a stated charging time of around 75 minutes. Beyond that, there is little separating them here, so battery life is not a reason for an existing D2 owner to upgrade.

The post Huawei Watch D3 vs D2: The upgrade is smaller than it looks appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

I have now spent serious court time with the Slinger Bag, Pongbot Pace S Pro, Acemate tennis robot S10 and Lumistar Tero, and choosing between them is not really about finding the one with the longest specification sheet. Each takes a different approach to solo tennis, from cheap and simple repetition to structured drills and a robot that actually reacts to the ball coming back.

That is what makes this comparison more interesting than simply ranking them from best to worst. Depending on how you practise, the least sophisticated machine here could easily be the right choice, while spending twice as much could get you technology you barely use.

Tech specs compared

Specifications only tell part of the story here. Pongbot, Acemate and Tero all quote strong spin figures, for example, but they feel quite different on court because of how they deliver the ball, how drills work and whether the machine reacts to the player or the returned shot.

The biggest spec surprise is probably Tero. It is comfortably the lightest machine I have used here while still quoting the highest maximum ball speed, although its spin feels less aggressive in practice than the number suggests. Pongbot is the better choice if you specifically want heavier, faster and more demanding feeds, while Acemate’s selling point has little to do with winning the raw-spec contest.

Lumistar Tero

Tero is the machine I would probably point most recreational and intermediate players towards. It is exceptionally portable, takes about a minute to get running, and in my testing the feed has been consistent with no jams.

The wristband is a bigger deal than it sounds. Instead of walking back to the machine or constantly reaching for your phone, you can start and stop feeds or switch what you are working on with voice commands, and that keeps the session moving. There are 34 preset drills, custom sequences and 35 shot positions, so there is plenty to play with without the learning curve becoming excessive.

Tero does not watch the ball coming back at it. The wristband can provide position information, but there are no built-in cameras (unless you opt for the Pro version), so its training analysis is much less meaningful than what Acemate can produce. Spin is also the weakest part of its on-court performance, although pace is more than enough for the recreational and intermediate players I think this machine suits best.

Read my full Lumistar Tero review.

Acemate tennis robot S10

Acemate is best characterised as a tennis robot, and that is exactly why I like it. Rather than staying behind the baseline and waiting to fire the next programmed ball, the S10 uses two 4K cameras to follow your return, predicts where it is going and moves around the court on four omnidirectional wheels.

The timing is what makes the difference in practice. A slow return gives the machine more time before it sends the next ball, while a harder return brings the response sooner, so I found myself recovering and split-stepping much more naturally than I do against a fixed-interval machine. It still does not play exactly like another person, but of these four it comes comfortably closest.

There are compromises. The 60 mph top speed is below Pongbot and Tero, the rated battery life is shorter, and the S10 is more awkward to pull any real distance than either Slinger or Tero. Strong tournament players looking mainly for brutal pace and spin may therefore prefer Pongbot, but recreational and intermediate players who get bored hitting predictable feeds may find Acemate much more engaging.

The optional catching net is clever as well. It catches a good number of balls coming its way and cuts down on how much time you spend collecting them. Plus you get useful analysis of your shots with detailed statistics, along with AI suggestions on how to improve your game.

One thing stands out here. Of these four machines, I found Acemate to be the most fun to use. The cameras, court movement and reactive timing make sessions feel less repetitive and much closer to actually rallying with someone.

Read my full Acemate tennis root S10 review.

Pongbot Pace S Pro

Pongbot has its own advantages. It can fire balls at up to around 80 mph, generate strong topspin or backspin and hold more than 150 balls, while the battery is good for several long sessions rather than one afternoon on court.

What separates it from an ordinary high-powered launcher is the movement tracking. Sensors monitor your position at 100 Hz, allowing modes such as Recovery Trigger and Adaptive Rally to change the timing and pattern of feeds according to where you are and whether you have recovered into position. It is not watching the trajectory of your return in the same way Acemate does, but it is watching you, and that can make drills considerably more demanding.

The drill system is another strength. There are more than 500 presets, and custom drills let you change speed, spin, depth and placement ball by ball, so this is the machine I would take if my priority was structured repetition at a higher intensity. It is also the one of these four that gives stronger players the most room to turn the pace and spin up.

Read my full hands-on review of Pongbot Pace S Pro.

Slinger Bag

Slinger remains the easiest machine here to understand. You roll what looks like an oversized tennis bag onto court, set the speed and feed rate, adjust the elevation and start hitting. Add the oscillator and it can move the feed from side to side, which makes a major difference if you want to work on movement rather than stand in one spot.

Its biggest advantage is that it does two jobs at once. There is room for racquets, balls, drinks and other gear, so you do not necessarily need to bring a separate tennis bag, and the wheels make it easy enough to pull around despite the 15 kg weight. It is also the least intimidating option here if you just want hundreds of repeatable forehands and backhands without configuring an app first.

The limitations are equally obvious. Ball speed tops out at 45 mph, spin is not independently adjustable and drills depend heavily on where you position the machine and how you set the oscillator. After using the other three, Slinger feels basic, but basic is not automatically bad if that is all you actually need.

Read my full hands-on review of Slinger Bag.

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