Until now, BeamO could record those sounds, but that was basically where its job ended. You could listen to them yourself or send the recordings to a doctor, but the device and app did not actually tell you what they were hearing.

The stethoscope finally does more than record

That makes StethO Sense a pretty substantial software upgrade. BeamO already combines a thermometer, ECG and digital stethoscope in one handheld device, but the stethoscope was always the part that required someone else to make sense of the data.

We have been following BeamO for a while. It started rolling out in Europe in 2025, adding another unusual health device to a Withings line-up that already includes watches, scales and blood pressure monitors. The hardware was interesting from day one, but StethO Sense starts closing the gap between simply collecting medical-style data at home and getting something immediately useful back from it.

The new feature sits inside the Withings app. You choose whether you want to analyse a heart or lung recording, BeamO guides you through the correct positions on the body, and the analysis comes back within seconds. According to Withings, heart recordings use four standard positions, while lung recordings use six positions for children under 12 and up to eight positions from age 12 upwards.

Two AI systems are doing the listening

Withings is not building all of this analysis itself. StethO Sense combines technology from eMurmur for heart sounds and StethoMe for lung sounds.

eMurmur Heart AI looks for murmurs and sorts recordings into three broad outcomes. It can identify no murmur, an innocent murmur or an abnormal murmur, while also returning heart rate and a confidence score. Withings says the system has shown roughly 90% sensitivity and specificity for detecting pathological murmurs across clinical studies, and the underlying technology has FDA clearance for use with adults and children in the US.

The lung side works a little differently. StethoMe generates a Breathing Index from 0 to 100 using breathing sounds and the overall quality and pattern of breathing. That gives you something much easier to follow than an audio recording sitting in the app with no obvious indication of what you are supposed to be listening for.

There is an important regional distinction here. In the US, StethoMe’s Breathing Index is being offered as a general wellness feature and does not have FDA clearance, while the eMurmur heart analysis does. So although both analyses live inside the same StethO Sense feature, they do not carry the same regulatory status.

There is a subscription catch

StethO Sense will not simply appear as a free BeamO software update. It is part of Withings+, so using the analysis features will require a subscription once any free trial period ends.

Existing BeamO owners who bought the device before October 1 will get a free month of Withings+ when StethO Sense launches. New BeamO buyers will also get a one-month trial. BeamO itself remains priced at around $250 in the US, so anyone buying it specifically for the new AI analysis will need to factor the subscription into the longer-term cost.

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It gives you a value, not just a score

According to Actxa’s launch announcement⁠, the one-minute AI Glucose Snapshot produces an estimated glucose range and an indicative value within that range. You can take a quick reading whenever you want or use Meal Snapshots before and after eating to see how the estimate changes.

This is not continuous monitoring, so the band is not quietly tracking glucose throughout the day like a CGM. Actxa also makes it clear that the feature is intended for general wellness and should not be used to diagnose, monitor or manage diabetes.

That is important to note. As we covered when the FDA warned about wearables claiming to measure glucose⁠, no smartwatch or smart ring had been authorised by the agency to measure blood glucose without piercing the skin.

Spark Band uses Actxa’s BGEM technology, which analyses optical PPG signals with an AI model. The company already offers a similar feature through its Core Smart Ring, but it has not published accuracy figures specifically for the new wrist-worn band.

If the Actxa name means nothing to you, that is understandable. The Singapore company is not widely known internationally, although it says it has supplied more than 1.9 million trackers for Singapore’s government-backed National Steps Challenge since 2015.

The rest looks more familiar

Away from glucose, this is a fairly conventional screenless health tracker. It records sleep stages, sleep score, overnight signals, activity, Intensity Minutes, VO2 max and Fitness Age, while its daily recovery reading compares sleep HRV against the wearer’s own baseline.

There is no display, but LEDs and vibrations provide target heart-rate-zone guidance during exercise. The same cues can also handle movement reminders and wake-up alarms without turning the band into another source of wrist notifications.

The tracker weighs around 22 grams and combines a zinc-alloy casing with a braided nylon strap. It carries an IP68 rating, stores up to seven days of data and takes up to 90 minutes to charge.

Actxa claims up to 14 days of battery life and does not require a subscription. That combination places Spark Band in an interesting position alongside the established options in our screenless fitness tracker comparison⁠, especially since none of those devices currently provides a glucose estimate.

Pricing and availability

Spark Band will cost $149 or SGD 199, with pre-orders opening on September 24. Actxa expects to begin fulfilment on November 18 across selected markets in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, although it has not named the individual countries.

There is enough here to make Spark Band interesting, but the glucose feature needs independent testing before anyone should put much faith in the number it produces. If Actxa can show that its estimates reliably follow real changes around meals, the band could offer something genuinely different from Fitbit Air, Garmin CIRQA and Whoop.

The post IFA 2026: This $149 screenless band gives you a glucose estimate appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

The patent (US 12,721,568 B2) is called “Sleep age determination from wearable-based physiological data”. The original application goes back to August 2023 and was published in early 2025, but Oura has now secured the patent itself.

Oura’s Sleep Age would look at the bigger picture

The basic idea is pretty easy to understand. Instead of simply giving you another score for last night, Oura would work out what your sleep looks like over a longer period and translate that into an age.

So if you are 40 but your sleep patterns look more like those expected from someone who is 32, your Sleep Age could come in below your chronological age. Go the other way, and you probably have something to work on.

Oura describes Sleep Age as a longer-term metric calculated using weeks or months of data. So don’t expect the metric to bounce around wildly because you stayed up late one Saturday night. At least if Oura implements it roughly as described in the patent.

Underneath it all is quite a lot of processing. The ring collects PPG data and can also use information such as heart rate, HRV, temperature, respiratory data and sleep measurements. One machine-learning model classifies the night’s data into wake, light, deep and REM sleep, while another model uses the resulting sleep features to calculate the Sleep Age.

Those features can include how much time you spend in each sleep stage, sleep fragmentation, the midpoint of your sleep and other patterns. Oura also describes comparing the data with baseline sleep characteristics associated with someone’s chronological age rather than looking at each measurement in isolation.

The app mock-up is the interesting bit

The patent drawings give us a much better idea of what Oura has in mind. One app screen shows a Sleep Age Metric of 29 alongside a chronological age of 26, so there is no ambiguity about how Oura imagines presenting this.

Below that is an explanation. In Oura’s example, the user’s deep sleep is lower than normal and this is contributing to the higher Sleep Age. The app then recommends trying cold showers before bed to increase deep sleep and improve the metric.

That explanatory part could make Sleep Age more useful than simply sticking another number on the Today screen. The patent describes providing insights and recommendations based on what is affecting the result, including recognising temporary changes when someone is unwell rather than treating every rise in Sleep Age as a long-term deterioration.

The Oura Ring 5 already puts plenty of emphasis on longer-term interpretation rather than just raw sensor readings, while Oura has also been expanding features such as Health Radar and other health insights to older rings. So if this metric sees the light of day, it will fit in quite nicely.

Oura also already has Cardiovascular Age, so translating another part of your health into an age isn’t exactly unfamiliar territory. Sleep Age would apply a similar idea to something Oura has focused on since the earliest versions of its ring.

Source: Google Patents US20250064387A1

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When we first covered Garmin’s HbA1c patent, the idea was pretty easy to understand. The watch would shine several different wavelengths of light into the wrist, read the PPG signals and use that to estimate glycated haemoglobin. So this would not be live glucose tracking like a CGM, but more of a longer-term view of where your glucose levels have been.

This goes beyond one glucose patent

There has been some movement since February. Garmin’s HbA1c patent application remains pending and received a non-final USPTO Office Action in March, meaning the examination process is now underway.

That is not an endorsement of the technology, and an Office Action can include objections or rejected claims. What is more interesting is what shows up when Garmin’s other optical-sensing patents are viewed alongside it.

A separate Garmin filing called Pressure compensation for wrist-based pulse spectrometry explicitly discusses HbA1c measurement. It describes compensating for the pressure a watch applies to the wrist, because compressing blood vessels and tissue can alter the optical signals used to calculate physiological measurements.

The filing goes into considerable detail, including pressure compensation across multiple optical wavelengths between roughly 600 and 1,000nm. It also describes calculating glycated haemoglobin from three PPG signals at different wavelengths, and two of its inventors, Paul MacDonald and Christopher Kulach, also appear on Garmin’s dedicated HbA1c patent.

That is a more interesting clue than another generic mention of glucose in a patent. Garmin appears to have been working not only on how to calculate HbA1c, but on one of the practical problems that could make those calculations unreliable on an actual wrist.

There is another piece of the puzzle. Garmin’s wrist-worn optical cardiac monitor patent describes sensor arrangements using three optical transmitters with different wavelengths, as well as configurations operating across several red and infrared wavelength bands.

The HbA1c patent also requires three separate wavelengths travelling along substantially the same optical path. That does not prove these filings describe parts of one future Garmin sensor, but the overlap is difficult to ignore.

And then there is Fenix 9

The timing makes Fenix 9 particularly interesting. Garmin’s HbA1c work claims priority back to June 2023, the pressure-compensation filing dates to October 2023, and the optical-monitor work goes back to 2022, so these projects have been underway long enough to influence a 2026 hardware generation.

We already know Garmin is preparing new high-end watches. Our Garmin Connect 5.27 teardown uncovered six coordinated outdoor-watch records that could belong to a future Fenix 9 family, although Garmin has not confirmed their identity.

There is also Garmin model A05170, an unannounced premium wrist-worn device that recently appeared at the FCC with LTE and satellite connectivity. Fenix 9 or Pro version of the same is one possible identity for that watch. But the filing keeps its external and internal photographs confidential, so it tells us nothing about the optical sensor on the back.

And that sensor is now the bit worth watching. If Fenix 9 arrives with a substantially redesigned optical module, particularly one with additional red and infrared emitters, the connection with Garmin’s spectroscopy work becomes much more interesting.

Why Fenix 9 is still a long shot

There is still a big gap between Garmin researching wrist-based HbA1c estimation and putting the feature into a shipping watch. So far, we have found no public evidence of clinical validation, regulatory work or anything else that ties the technology directly to Fenix 9.

Garmin’s wider interest in metabolic health is clearly growing. In May, Garmin Health published a Diabetes Insight Report looking at Garmin wearable data alongside CGMs, AI platforms and third-party diabetes programmes, but that is separate from Garmin measuring glucose or HbA1c itself.

Even if Fenix 9 introduces a new optical sensor, that alone would tell us very little. Garmin could redesign the sensor for better heart-rate accuracy, Pulse Ox, ECG performance, power efficiency or entirely different health metrics.

What would make the HbA1c connection more interesting is evidence that a new sensor uses the sort of multi-wavelength optical setup described in Garmin’s patents. Until we see something like that, linking Fenix 9 directly to glucose tracking would be mostly guesswork.

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You no longer need the WHOOP band

Until now, Advanced Labs has very much been part of the wider WHOOP package. The feature launched in the US last year, combining blood test results with the health and fitness information collected by WHOOP 5.0 and WHOOP MG.

That restriction has now gone. WHOOP says Advanced Labs is available without a wearable membership, so someone using a Garmin, Apple Watch, Oura Ring, Pixel Watch or something completely different can pay for the testing without also maintaining a WHOOP subscription.

Now make no mistake, WHOOP isn’t suddenly pulling Garmin or Apple Watch data into its platform. Instead, it is separating the lab-testing side of WHOOP from the requirement to use its own wearable.

That makes Advanced Labs a much more standalone product than it was when it first rolled out in the US last year. At the time, the attraction was the combination of lab results with WHOOP’s sleep, strain and recovery data. Now WHOOP is effectively saying the laboratory side has value even if you get your everyday wearable data somewhere else.

Testing starts at around $150

Advanced Labs uses Quest Diagnostics in the US and offers blood panels covering areas such as cardiovascular, metabolic, hormonal and inflammatory health. Tests are ordered and reviewed by licensed healthcare providers, while the resulting reports include explanations and recommendations.

Pricing starts at approximately $150. WHOOP hasn’t turned Advanced Labs into a subscription-free replacement for the regular WHOOP experience, but it has removed the annual wearable membership as an entry ticket to the service.

It’s quite a shift from where WHOOP started. The company has spent years building around the idea that the hardware and membership belong together. Even when it introduced support for bringing blood test results into WHOOP, the idea was still centred around enriching the experience of existing members.

Advanced Labs can now bring someone into the WHOOP app before they ever consider wearing the device itself. Whether that eventually becomes another route for converting people into wearable subscribers is an interesting question.

WHOOP is also adding the Galleri cancer test

There is another addition worth mentioning. WHOOP is adding GRAIL’s Galleri multi-cancer early detection test to Advanced Labs, with results delivered through the WHOOP app

Galleri uses a single blood draw to look for signals associated with more than 50 types of cancer. WHOOP says it will be available through nearly 2,000 Quest Diagnostics locations in the US, with the actual analysis carried out by GRAIL at its North Carolina laboratory.

That’s a very different proposition from the recovery scores and training guidance WHOOP built its name around. The company has gradually pushed further into broader health with features such as Healthspan, ECG, Blood Pressure Insights and Advanced Labs, and this latest change pushes the platform another step away from being solely about the tracker on your wrist.

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8.0

Massage 7.5/10

Heat 8.0/10

Ease of use 9.0/10

Value for money 8.0/10

Pros

• – Six vibration motors cover the back and thighs
• – Four intensity levels and five massage patterns
• – Individual massage areas can be switched on or off
• – Heat works independently of the vibration massage
• – Simple controller and long timer options

Cons

• – Vibration only, with no Shiatsu rollers or physical kneading
• – Corded rather than battery powered
• – The “Kneading” mode is simply continuous vibration

Design and setup

There is almost nothing to set up here, which is exactly how it should be. You put the Snailax Massage Cushion on a chair, plug it into the wall and start using it. The controller is permanently attached, so there is no pairing, charging or messing around with batteries. Two straps can be adjusted to hold the Snailax in place – and it takes all of about 30 seconds to set it up.

I have mostly used it on my computer chair, and it sits there surprisingly well. The elastic strap holds the back section securely, while the perforated anti-slip material on the rear helps keep everything from sliding around. It feels like Snailax has designed it to work with most normal chairs rather than expecting you to find the perfect fit.

The cushion itself is comfortable enough to leave in place for long periods. It adds a couple of centimetres to your sitting height, but I did not find that it pushed me forward or changed my normal position. The padding is soft, but not so soft that you sink into it, and overall it looks perfectly decent for something that is basically a massage mat with motors built into it.

I also ended up using it away from the desk quite a bit. When I wanted something a bit more relaxing, I would stretch it out on the sofa or bed and use it there instead. Lying against it lets you put more body weight into the cushion, which makes the vibration feel noticeably stronger than when you are sitting upright.

The wired controller is the one part of the design I am still a little undecided about. On the plus side, you cannot lose it, it never needs charging and it is always ready to go. On the other hand, you do have a cable permanently running from the controller to the cushion, and that can get annoying depending on how you are sitting. A wireless remote would look tidier, but then you would probably end up searching for it between the sofa cushions.

Overall, the physical design gets most of the basics right. It is light, easy to move around, comfortable to sit on and stays where you put it. More importantly, there is basically zero friction between deciding you want to use it and actually starting a massage, and that is probably one of the better things about the SL-262P.

Controls and massage options

The controller looks a bit busy when you first pick it up, but it is actually pretty straightforward. You can choose which part of the cushion you want running, change the vibration pattern, adjust the strength and switch the heat on or off. After a couple of minutes, you pretty much know where everything is.

There are six vibration motors spread across the cushion, and you can target different parts of the body rather than having the whole thing buzzing away every time. You can focus on the upper, middle or lower back, as well as the thigh area, or just switch everything on at once. That last option is what I usually go for, although being able to isolate one area is handy if that is where you are feeling particularly tight.

You also get five vibration patterns and four intensity levels. The patterns mostly change the rhythm of the vibration, so some pulse, some alternate and others feel more constant. But in all honesty, there is not a huge amount of difference between them.

There is even a mode called Kneading, although that name is a bit generous. There are no rollers moving around inside the cushion, so it is still vibration rather than anything that genuinely feels like someone kneading your muscles.

Snailax SL-262P

Vibration massage seat cushion with heat.

View at Amazon

I usually leave the intensity on the strongest setting. The lower levels are fine if you just want a gentle buzz in the background while you are working, but personally I want to actually feel that something is happening. Even at full strength, though, this is not going to fool you into thinking a pair of hands is working on your back. It is much more of a steady vibration massage.

The timer can be set to 15, 30 or 60 minutes, which I like. A lot of massage products cut you off after 10 or 15 minutes, whereas here you can leave it running while working, watching TV or just lying down. There is enough adjustment to play around with, but not so much that using it turns into a project.

What the massage feels like

The main thing to know is that this does not feel anything like a pair of hands working on your back. There are no rollers or moving massage heads inside. It is vibration, pure and simple, just spread across different parts of the cushion.

As mentioned, I usually keep it on the strongest setting. At that level it has enough kick to feel worthwhile. Sitting on it at my desk gives you a fairly steady background massage, while lying on it on the sofa or bed feels noticeably stronger because your body weight presses you harder into the motors. I actually prefer using it that way when I want to properly relax.

The different patterns mostly change the rhythm of the vibration rather than the feel of the massage itself. I played around with all of them at first, but pretty quickly found myself sticking with the stronger and more continuous options.

What I like is that you can just leave it running and forget about it. After 20 or 30 minutes, your back does feel more relaxed, especially after spending a long time sitting at a desk. The thigh motors are a nice extra too, although for me the back section is still where most of the benefit comes from.

Just do not buy it expecting some deep tissue experience. It is not going to dig into a knot or work a particular muscle the way an actual massage would. But as a strong vibration cushion that you can use while working, watching TV or lying down, it does a decent job and is pretty easy to get used to.

Heat performance

Testing the heat function in the middle of an unusually hot UK summer has not exactly been ideal timing. Most of the time I actually found myself using the Massage Cushion with the heat switched off. When the room is already warm, deliberately heating your back and backside is not particularly appealing.

Still, I did give it a proper try, and the heating works well enough. There are heating areas across both the back and seat, so the warmth is spread over a decent portion of your body rather than concentrated in one small spot. It takes a few minutes to get going, then gradually builds into a fairly noticeable warmth.

I would not describe it as scorching hot, which is probably a good thing considering you could be sitting on it for half an hour or more. It feels more like the steady warmth of a heated seat than a hot water bottle pressed against your back. You can also use the heat without having the vibration motors running, which makes the SL-262P useful as a heated seat cushion in its own right.

For me, though, this is probably a feature that will get much more use once autumn and winter arrive. During testing I generally preferred the massage on its own, particularly when using it at my desk. Come January, I suspect that preference could flip pretty quickly.

Who its for

The Massage Cushion makes most sense for someone who spends a lot of time sitting and wants something they can use without stopping whatever else they are doing. I can see it working particularly well on a desk chair, where you can leave it running while you work rather than setting aside time for a dedicated massage session.

It is also a good fit if you prefer vibration to aggressive kneading. Some massage cushions really dig into your back with hard rollers, whereas this is much gentler and easier to live with for longer periods. You still get plenty of strength on the highest setting, but it never reaches the point where it feels like the cushion is trying to rearrange your spine.

Snailax SL-262P

Vibration massage seat cushion with heat.

View at Amazon

The flexibility helps too. You can keep it on a chair for everyday use, then move it onto the sofa or bed when you want something more relaxing. Add the heating function and I can see it being particularly appealing during the colder months, even if I barely wanted to touch that button during a hot UK summer.

Other products in the range

The SL-262P sits at the simpler end of Snailax’s massage cushion range because it relies entirely on vibration. If you want something that actually kneads your back with moving massage heads, Snailax has several Shiatsu models that take things quite a bit further.

The SL-256 is probably the obvious next step. It has four massage nodes that physically travel up and down your back, with full, upper and lower back zones plus a Spot mode for concentrating on one area. You still get vibration through the seat, but the back massage is a very different experience from the SL-262P because there is actual pressure and movement rather than just vibration.

Move further up and there is the SL-233, which adds dedicated neck and shoulder kneading as well as the travelling back rollers. You can adjust the neck position and roller width, choose between different back zones and use heat and seat vibration alongside the Shiatsu massage. Snailax also sells an app-controlled version, although I am not convinced controlling a massage cushion from a phone is something I particularly need.

The SL-234 follows a similar idea, with four Shiatsu nodes around the neck and shoulders and another four working on the back. Then there is the SL-236, which starts getting much closer to a compact massage-chair setup. Along with neck and back Shiatsu, it adds three-level compression around the seat plus adjustable vibration.

At the top end, models such as the SL-229 and SL-248 add even more elaborate kneading and compression systems. They are also considerably larger and more expensive, so you start losing some of the simplicity that makes the SL-262P appealing in the first place. If you mainly want something light that you can throw onto an office chair or stretch out on the sofa, the SL-262P makes sense. If you want something that feels closer to an actual pair of hands working on your back, one of the other Shiatsu models is the direction I would go.

See Snailax massage cushions on Amazon

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Google introduced the feature alongside Health Guardian this week. We now have a better idea of when it will arrive, which devices support it and what users will actually see.

It is coming in September

Google’s wearable comparison pages now list Insulin Resistance Trends as coming next month. That is more specific than the broader fall timeframe given during the original announcement.

The feature will not produce a result straight away. Google says Health Guardian needs around 30 days of wear before delivering its first detailed summary, because it is looking for a longer-term pattern rather than reacting to individual readings.

The screenshots Google has released gives us a good idea of how this works. The Health Guardian summary shows Insulin Resistance Trends marked as “High”, alongside blood pressure and sleep breathing information. Google Health Coach can then explain the trend and suggest possible next steps. You can view daily info, or monthly overviews.

Your watch is not measuring glucose

There is an important distinction to clarify. Pixel Watch does not have a hidden glucose sensor, and neither does Fitbit Air.

Instead, Google analyses signals the wearable already collects, including heart rate, movement and sleep. Its SensorFM model was trained using more than one trillion minutes of wearable data from five million consenting users across more than 20 Fitbit and Pixel Watch models.

Google has also published research looking specifically at insulin resistance prediction from wearable data. Its WEAR-ME study involved 1,165 participants and compared wearable-based predictions against conventional fasting glucose and insulin measurements.

The basic idea is fairly simple. One heart-rate reading tells you very little, but several weeks of heart rate, sleep and activity data may reveal a broader physiological pattern associated with changing insulin sensitivity.

That does not turn the watch into a laboratory test. It means Google is trying to recognise the footprint insulin resistance leaves elsewhere in the body.

Pixel Watch 3 is included

The feature is expected on Pixel Watch 3, Pixel Watch 4, Pixel Watch 5 and Fitbit Air. That makes this more of a software upgrade than a Pixel Watch 5 exclusive.

It is worth keeping in mind when looking at our Pixel Watch 5 vs Pixel Watch 4 comparison. Some of Google’s most interesting new health features are heading to older hardware as well.

Fitbit Air is perhaps the more interesting inclusion. It has a simpler sensor setup than Pixel Watch, yet Google still plans to offer insulin resistance tracking on the screenless device.

There is one catch, however. Insulin Resistance Trends sits behind Google Health Premium, so having a compatible device is not enough on its own.

Think of it as a warning light

Google is not giving users an insulin resistance score or a glucose reading. Health Guardian is looking for sustained changes and can flag a trend when something appears unusual.

That makes the “High” status shown in Google’s screenshot closer to a warning light than a diagnosis. Health Coach can explain what the system has noticed and provide suggestions around things such as activity, sleep and nutrition.

The open question is how well it works in everyday use. Google has published plenty about the research behind the feature, but we still do not know how often the finished consumer version will produce false alerts or miss meaningful changes.

Sources: Google Health Guardian announcement | Google SensorFM research | Google insulin resistance research

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The new features sit under Google’s Health Guardian umbrella, which arrived alongside the Pixel Watch 5. And they are due to arrive this Fall.

Your watch does not need a glucose sensor

Insulin Resistance Trends is probably the one worth flagging up first. No, there is no glucose sensor hidden inside Pixel Watch 5. And Google is not claiming that the watch can suddenly measure blood sugar.

Instead, the system looks across several weeks of existing health data and searches for patterns associated with insulin resistance. That includes signals such as heart rate, HRV, SpO2, movement, sleep and skin temperature, giving Google a wider picture than it could get from one metric alone.

The technology behind that is Google’s SensorFM foundation model, which was trained using more than one trillion minutes of wearable data from five million consenting users across more than 100 countries. It has learned from data collected across more than 20 Fitbit and Pixel Watch models, which gives Google a fairly enormous base to work from.

There is also proper research behind the idea rather than this appearing out of nowhere at the Pixel Watch 5 launch. A Google-led study involving 1,165 people found that wearable data could improve machine-learning models designed to identify insulin resistance, although the research model and the consumer Health Guardian feature are not exactly the same thing.

Now make no mistake. Insulin Resistance Trends will not diagnose diabetes or tell you your glucose level. Think of it more as a warning light that something in your longer-term physiological pattern may have shifted enough to deserve a closer look.

Blood pressure takes a similar route

Blood Pressure Trends follows much the same philosophy. There is no inflatable cuff, and the watch does not suddenly produce a conventional systolic and diastolic reading such as 120/80.

Instead, Google analyses pulse and movement patterns over time and looks for signs that cardiovascular stress appears to be running persistently higher. If it notices a meaningful change, the idea is to encourage you to check your blood pressure properly.

That approach is quite different from the race to produce cuffless blood-pressure numbers that we have seen elsewhere in wearables. Google is asking a simpler question, which is whether the pattern has changed enough that you might want to investigate it.

The underlying research has already involved Pixel Watch hardware as well. One study used seven days of PPG and accelerometer data from Pixel Watch 3 devices and compared the resulting model against 24-hour ambulatory blood-pressure monitoring, so there is quite a bit going on behind what will look like a relatively simple trend inside the app.

Sleep breathing adds another piece

Sleep Breathing Quality brings the same longer-term thinking to overnight data. Google looks at how much of your sleep is spent with what it considers optimal breathing, then uses repeated nights to build a monthly picture rather than putting too much weight on one result.

This is not sleep-apnoea detection, and Google is not presenting it as a diagnostic tool. Once again, the point is to notice changes in your normal pattern that might otherwise disappear among dozens of nightly health metrics.

Health Guardian also includes Breathing Emergency Detection on supported Pixel Watches, although that feature works rather differently. It looks for a persistent and critical drop in oxygen saturation and can contact emergency services if the wearer becomes unresponsive in supported markets.

This goes well beyond Pixel Watch 5

Google says the technology is coming to other Pixel Watch and Fitbit Air devices rather than being locked to Pixel Watch 5. More specifically, Blood Pressure Trends is coming to Pixel Watch 3, Pixel Watch 4 and Pixel Watch 5 this fall, while Insulin Resistance Trends is coming more widely across Pixel Watch and Fitbit devices. Both are app-based features.

That fits particularly well with what Google has been doing with Fitbit Air. The hardware itself is deliberately simple, while more of the interesting work happens inside Google Health where data from several sensors gets combined and interpreted in the background.

We have already seen a version of that philosophy with Fitbit Air’s AFib detection. Health Guardian pushes the idea further because Google is now trying to infer health changes that the wearable does not directly measure at all.

The next health upgrade may be software

For years, adding a new health feature to a wearable usually meant adding another sensor. Google is showing another route, where better models squeeze more information from heart rate, HRV, sleep, SpO2, temperature and movement data that millions of devices are already collecting.

There are obvious limits to that approach, because software cannot magically turn a Pixel Watch into a glucose monitor or a proper blood-pressure cuff. But if the models can reliably identify when something has changed, that information could still be useful even without producing a traditional measurement.

Sources: Google Health, Google Research, Nature, DC Rainmaker

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The hearing test tunes each ear separately

The Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features are accessed through the Galaxy Buds menu in Settings, so there is no separate app to install. The test uses pure-tone audiometry, playing sounds at different frequencies to measure the hearing level of each ear.

Samsung’s screenshots show the results split into left and right ears, complete with average decibel figures and an audiogram covering frequencies from 250Hz to 8kHz. The software then places the result into one of five categories ranging from normal hearing to profound hearing loss.

Once the test is complete, the user can move straight into the Hearing Aid setup. The interface allows volume to be controlled for both earbuds together or adjusted separately, while sound can be picked up from all around or focused towards the front.

There is also a background noise reduction slider. That should be useful in places such as restaurants and busy rooms, where making out a conversation is often harder than simply hearing that someone is speaking.

Samsung says its software uses the NAL-NL2 fitting formula, which is widely used when configuring prescription hearing aids. Noise reduction and beamforming are also used to bring voices into focus while reducing some of the surrounding sound.

Galaxy Buds3 Pro owners are included

Perhaps the best part of the announcement is that Samsung is not keeping the feature exclusive to its newest earbuds. Galaxy Buds3 Pro owners are included alongside the Galaxy Buds4 Pro, potentially adding a substantial new use without requiring another hardware purchase.

The standard Galaxy Buds3 and Galaxy Buds4 are not supported. Samsung also says full functionality requires a compatible Galaxy device running One UI 8 or later, so buyers should not assume the hearing aid mode will work fully when the earbuds are paired with any Bluetooth phone.

The company has offered forms of hearing assistance for several years. A Personal Sound Amplification Product mode arrived on Galaxy Buds+ in 2020, with a later study suggesting the earbuds could help people follow conversations more easily.

A personal sound amplifier is intended to make environmental sounds louder for someone with normal hearing, while an OTC hearing aid is a medical device intended to compensate for hearing loss. We explored that difference in our Olive Smart Ear review, where personalised amplification was already beginning to blur the line between earbuds and dedicated hearing products.

Samsung is not the first major earbud maker to take this step. Apple rSamsung is not the first major earbud maker to take this step. Apple received FDA authorisation for its AirPods Pro 2 hearing aid software in 2024. That makes Samsung’s announcement partly a catch-up move. Still, bringing a comparable option to Galaxy owners matters, particularly because the existing Buds3 Pro will receive it as well.

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I recently tested the original model, and comfort was easily its strongest feature. They sit almost flush inside the ear and work particularly well for side sleeping, although the dependence on the app and Smart Case adds more complexity than you get from ordinary earbuds.

The overall concept with this new version has not changed much. These remain tiny earbuds built specifically for overnight use, combining passive isolation with masking sounds rather than active noise cancellation.

Longer battery life and better controls

The headline improvement is battery life, which rises from around 10 hours on the original model to as much as 14 hours on Sleepbuds 2. The Smart Case stores enough power for another two or three nights, making the new version a little easier to use while travelling.

The original Sleepbuds already lasted through a normal night during my testing, so the extra four hours may not change much for lighter users. It should provide more breathing room when streaming podcasts or audiobooks before switching to an overnight masking sound.

Ozlo also says Bluetooth reliability and range have improved, while new pairing controls should make connecting the buds less troublesome. The Smart Case now has a physical button that can start a stored Sleep Sound or snooze the private in-ear alarm without opening the app.

The Ozlo app gets a substantial update

The accompanying smartphone app now has a redesigned interface with new colours, updated branding and simpler navigation. It also introduces five Sleep Modes that control how audio behaves as the night progresses. Users of both the new and old version of the device will benefit from this.

You are able to stream music, podcasts or audiobooks before automatically moving to a masking sound after falling asleep, when a timer expires or when streaming stops. A simpler mode can begin playing a stored Sleep Sound immediately, without maintaining an active Bluetooth connection.

Sleep Shield blocks calls, notifications, alerts and unexpected Bluetooth audio from interrupting playback. The update also adds four alarm sounds, more than 60 Sleep Sounds and a new Nocturnes collection built around softer musical tracks.

Sleep Patterns has now officially left beta. The earbuds monitor movement and breathing, while sensors in the Smart Case track bedroom noise, light and temperature, giving users a broader view of what may have affected a particular night.

Sound masking remains the main approach

Sleepbuds 2 still do not include active noise cancellation. Instead, the silicone tips reduce some outside noise before masking sounds help cover disturbances such as snoring, traffic or noisy neighbours.

Ozlo has redesigned the audio system with a built-in amplifier, promising higher volume and stronger masking performance. There are also Balanced, Focus, Spoken Word and Airplane presets for different types of audio and surroundings.

This remains a very different approach from ANC sleep earbuds or products designed to create silence. The choice largely comes down to masking unwanted sound or trying to remove it. This device is trying to mask it.

Ozlo Sleepbuds 2 are available in the US for $279, including four ear-tip sizes, the Smart Charging Case and a USB-C cable. Existing owners who already have stable connectivity may not find enough here to justify replacing the original model, but new buyers are getting longer battery life, better controls and a considerably more flexible app.

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