8.7

Design 8.5/10

Ease of use 9.0/10

Use of information 9.0/10

Value for money 8.0/10

Pros

• – Moves around the court
• – Reactive timing creates more natural rallies
• – Much more engaging than a conventional ball machine
• – Extensive control over placement, speed, spin and height
• – Useful shot maps and training statistics
• – Can also work as a stationary ball machine

Cons

• – Slightly awkward to transport over longer distances
• – Pricey

Design and setup

The Acemate S10 does not look like a normal ball machine. It looks more like a small tennis robot, complete with two camera “eyes” at the front and four chunky wheels underneath. The frog comparison is hard to avoid, although the design makes more sense once you see it sliding sideways across the court.

I have used quite a few ball machines over the years, including the Slinger Bag for a couple of years and, more recently, the PongBot Pace S Pro. The S10 is easily the most ambitious of them in terms of what it tries to do on court.

At 17.8 kg, the S10 is actually lighter than many other ball machines. If you are taking it to the court by car or another mode of transport, it will be an easy job. It is compact enough to lift in and out without too much trouble.

Where it gets a little awkward is moving it any real distance on foot. There is no telescopic handle, so I usually extend the poles slightly and pull it along that way. It works, but a proper suitcase-style handle would make life easier. You can also drive it using the app, although that is more useful for moving it around the court than getting it from A to B.

Once it is on court, the four Mecanum wheels come into their own. The S10 can move sideways, diagonally and forwards without first turning its body. Watching it in action for the first time is slightly surreal, particularly when it starts tracking a return and positioning itself behind the incoming ball.

The main unit feels very solid, although a few areas are less convincing. The removable hopper clips onto the sides and is easy enough to fit, but it does not feel quite as robust as the rest of the machine.

Then there is the optional catching net. Putting it together for the first time takes some patience. The telescopic poles also feel noticeably more delicate than the main machine, and this is one part of the S10 I would be careful with. I quickly learned to hold each section near the bottom while extending or collapsing it rather than simply pulling from the top.

The good news is that you do not need to dismantle the entire structure after every session. The poles retract, and the frame folds down into something much easier to transport. Once I had done it a couple of times, setting up the net took less than a minute.

Acemate tennis robot S10

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

View at Acemate

With the net extended, the S10 becomes a fairly substantial presence on court. It also attracts attention. I have had people on neighbouring courts looking over to see what it is doing, which is hardly surprising when a tennis robot suddenly starts racing sideways across the baseline. I have even seen passers-by stop to take photos. People tend to look slightly mesmerised by it.

That said, you can use the S10 without the net. In that configuration it is much more low-key and looks closer to a conventional ball machine.

As far as the device itself – there are very few built-in controls. There’s a power-on button, LED indicator and below it a little display that shows the battery life. That’s pretty much it. So you need the smartphone app while on court in order to communicate with the device.

The software setup is straightforward. You need to download the Acemate app, connect it to the robot and install any available firmware updates before getting started. That was pretty seamless for me.

Unboxing and attaching everything for the first time takes a bit of effort, especially if you try to work it out without help. The official Acemate setup video on YouTube makes the process much easier. With that playing beside me, I had the S10 assembled, connected and ready to use in around 15 minutes.

Battery life, noise

Official specs rate battery life at around 90 minutes in rally mode and up to two hours when the S10 is used more like a conventional ball machine. Which does not sound like very much.

But in practice I found the S10 used roughly 40% of its battery per hour. That is because you are not hitting continuously. There are pauses to collect stray balls, change drills, adjust settings and take a breather.

Based on my testing, I think you could get around two and a half hours of practice without much trouble. Which is plenty. In the month or so that I have been testing the robot, I never felt constrained by battery life.

Charging can be done by plugging the charging cord into the port in the machine. The other option is to open the hatch and remove the battery and plug it into the charging cord. Once refuelled, simply return the battery to its home.

When you power it on, one of the first things you notice is how quiet the S10 is. The motor makes almost no noise, and I could barely hear it while it was feeding balls. You mainly hear a slight whooshing sound as the balls come out, which is far less intrusive than I expected from something this large and mechanically complex.

The wheels are a little louder once the S10 starts moving around the court. The sound is similar to pulling a suitcase on wheels, especially when it slides sideways or accelerates towards a return. Even then, though, it is not particularly loud. I would have no concerns using it on a court next to other players.

How the Acemate S10 works

So what makes the Acemate S10 different from other machines? Plenty.

The basic idea is quite simple. Instead of standing in one place and firing balls at fixed intervals, the S10 watches where the ball goes, moves across the court and sends the next one back at a more natural moment.

There are two 4K cameras on the front of the robot. These track the ball, recognise the court and work out where your shots are heading. The four Mecanum wheels then allow the S10 to slide sideways or diagonally, and it is surprisingly quick once it is moving.

Before starting a session, you place it around the middle of the opposite baseline and let the app check its position. This only takes a few moments, and I found the cameras are very quick to recognise the court and confirm that everything is lined up correctly.

The clever part is the timing. The robot does not immediately fire another ball as soon as yours crosses the net. It waits until roughly the point where another player would make contact. A slower return gives you more time, while a harder shot brings the next ball back sooner.

That might sound like a small detail, but it changes the whole feel of the session. With a normal ball machine, you quickly fall into a fixed rhythm because you know when the next ball is coming and exactly where it is coming from. It can get repetitive pretty quickly.

With the S10, I found myself recovering, split-stepping and preparing for the next shot in a much more natural way. And because the device itself moves, the next ball is not always coming from exactly the same position on the other side of the court.

Most importantly, with stationary tennis machines it feels like work after a while. Here it feels like fun. And that is perhaps the most important difference.

As an added bonus, when the catching net is attached and the feature is enabled in the app, the robot tries to collect your return and feed it back into the system. Which is interesting in itself.

It still does not feel exactly like playing another person. The shots are generated by software, and there is no disguise or improvisation. Even so, the combination of movement and reactive timing makes it feel far less mechanical than what you get with a traditional ball machine.

Training modes and custom drills

The S10 gives you three main ways to train. There is a drill mode for working on specific shot patterns, a rally mode where the robot tries to keep the point going, and a conventional ball-machine mode where it stays in one place and feeds balls at fixed intervals.

I spent most of my time in drill and rally modes because those are what separate the S10 from a normal ball machine. In drill mode, I could choose where the robot sent the ball and define the area I was supposed to hit in return. The app then scored the session based on how accurately I found that target. This was particularly addictive. I found it pushed me to repeat the same drill in order to try and improve the score.

Rally mode feels less structured. Instead of repeating a fixed pattern, the S10 moves around its selected area and reacts to where I hit the ball. It tries to keep the rally going.

Acemate tennis robot S10

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

View at Acemate

The standard ball-machine mode is more familiar. The S10 stays in one position, and you can set the direction, pace, spin, height and time between feeds. It is useful for working on one stroke repeatedly, and it also gives the robot a fallback role when I do not need the cameras or movement.

There are around 50 pre-installed drills in the app, covering forehands, backhands, volleys, baseline patterns and changes of depth. They are fine for getting started. The default feeds are also mostly flat, so I quickly moved on to creating my own drills.

The customisation is one of the stronger parts of the S10. You can build a sequence of up to 10 different balls, then adjust the landing position, speed, spin and height for each one. It takes a little trial and error because a setting that looks right in the app does not always produce the exact ball you expect on court.

You might find it easier to create the basic drill at home, then fine-tune it once you are actually playing. A ball might arrive too high, land too short or carry more than expected, so you can stop the session, adjust the individual feed and try again. Once saved, the drill is ready for future sessions.

The on-court experience

What surprised me most was how quickly the S10 stopped feeling like a gadget I was testing. After a few minutes, I was simply playing tennis and trying to keep the rally going.

The timing makes a bigger difference than I expected. Because the next feed reacts to my return rather than following a fixed interval, I had time to recover, split-step and prepare properly. With a conventional ball machine, it is easy to fall into an artificial rhythm. The S10 felt much closer to the timing of hitting with another player.

Once the novelty wore off, I found myself concentrating less on the robot and more on my footwork, recovery and shot placement. That is probably the biggest compliment I can give it. The S10 soon felt like part of the session rather than a device sitting at the other end of the court.

As a mid-intermediate player, I found the pace more than adequate. It could give me comfortable warm-up balls and then make things much harder once I increased the speed, depth and spin. The heaviest settings still do not reproduce the weight of shot from a strong tournament player, and the differences between some spin levels are not always dramatic, but there was more than enough variety for my level.

The sessions were also far more engaging than working through a hopper of identical feeds. I spent more time trying to build longer rallies, recover into position and find specific areas of the court. The target zones and scores added a competitive element, which is hard to get when training with a traditional ball machine.

Another thing I noticed is that I did not experience a single ball jam with the S10. That has happened occasionally with other machines I have used, so it was good to see.

What did happen, perhaps once an hour, was the S10 stopping because it thought there was an obstacle on the court. I play in the middle of a park where leaves regularly fall onto the surface, so my guess is that these occasionally triggered the warning. Fortunately, it did not happen often and was more of a minor interruption than a real problem.

Does the ball-catching system work?

What about the ball catching system? I think you should look at it as a bonus rather than the reason to buy this robot.

It works, but don’t buy this device expecting it will capture 100% of your returns. When the feature is enabled in the app, the S10 moves towards the incoming ball and tries to collect it in the net before feeding it back into the hopper.

The success rate of this depends heavily on the pace, height and direction of returns, as well as the type of drill you are using. For me it was anywhere between 30% and 50%, depending on the training mode and playing conditions.

Alternating between backhand and forehand crosscourt shots resulted in very few balls being caught because the robot had much more ground to cover. It performed better when I was hitting repeatedly towards one area, such as a forehand or backhand target near the centre. Wider shots, deep topspin balls and harder returns often passed beside the S10, bounced into its body or flew over the net.

If you start off with 80 balls in the hopper, you should get the equivalent of more than 100 balls when you factor in the caught balls. Which means you will spend a bit less time walking around the court collecting balls. Which is always a good thing.

Make no mistake, you will still need to pick up plenty of balls – just not quite as often. For me, the big selling point of the robot is that it moves around the court and has the built-in cameras which follow the ball, react to where you are hitting and help create a much more natural rally. The catching net is useful, but it is really just a bonus on top of that.

App and training analysis

As mentioned, there are almost no controls on the robot itself. Which means you need to use the Acemate smartphone app. Which is easy enough, and the connection to the S10 was stable during my sessions. The main screens cover training, saved data, device settings and firmware updates without burying everything in complicated menus.

After each drill, the app saves a surprisingly detailed breakdown of what happened. I could see where my shots landed, how many stayed in bounds, my longest streak, average and maximum ball speed, and how high the ball cleared the net. There is also an overall score out of 100, which gave me something simple to compare between sessions.

The court map was the part I found most useful. It quickly showed whether I was consistently finding the intended area or spraying balls across the court. I would not treat every plotted position as perfectly precise, but it was accurate enough to reveal obvious patterns in my play.

AI analysis is also there. It produces a long assessment of the session, along with recommendations and suggested follow-up drills, but much of it feels fairly generic. Running the analysis again can also produce slightly different conclusions, which makes it slightly difficult to take the player-level assessment too seriously. But it is useful in providing a direction of what needs work in your game.

For me, most of the analysis value lies in the recorded numbers and shot map rather than the AI coaching. The app gives me useful evidence of how a session went, but I still trust my own feel, and the view of an actual coach, more than its automated conclusions.

One feature I would like to see added in a future firmware update is session recording. The S10 already has two cameras watching the court. Being able to download the footage after a session would make it much easier to review technique alongside the shot data. Perhaps an idea for the next version of this robot?

Who is the Acemate S10 for?

I think the S10 makes the most sense for recreational and intermediate players who want solo practice to feel less repetitive. That is where its movement, reactive timing and scoring features add the most value. As an intermediate player, I found it challenging enough without feeling overwhelming.

Beginners should also get plenty from it, especially through the simpler drills and target-based sessions. The app makes practice feel more structured, and the scoring adds a useful sense of progress even when there is no coach on court.

Acemate tennis robot S10

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

View at Acemate

It could also work well for coaches who want to add something different to individual lessons. The S10 is engaging, easy to customise and gives students immediate feedback after a drill. I would be less convinced about using it for back-to-back sessions all day, mainly because of the setup, transport and battery demands.

Advanced tournament players may find the maximum pace and spin less demanding than they need. Anyone who only wants repeatable feeds from one position can also spend less on a conventional ball machine. The S10 is for players who value realistic rally timing and a more interactive training experience, rather than raw speed alone.

Price and value

The S10 has an MSRP of $2,499 in the US, although Acemate normally sells it for $2,199 rather than at full list price. The current promotion takes another $200 off, bringing it down to $1,999. At checkout, you can then use code “G&W01” for an additional $50 discount, reducing the final price to $1,949.

Slinger Bag typically costs $749, while the Pongbot Pace S Pro comes in at around $2,270. Granted, these are full prices and the Pongbot can often be purchased with discounts. Proton sells for $1,695.

Then you have the Lobster Elite Grand Four which is currently $1,999, while the Grand Five costs $2,249 and the Grand Five LE reaches $2,499. Those machines offer more raw speed, larger ball capacities and longer quoted battery life, but they remain stationary feeders. 

That is why I do not think the S10 should be judged purely against a feature checklist. You are paying for a tennis robot that reacts to your shots, moves around the court, catches some of your balls, keeps rallies going and records what happened afterwards. None of the conventional alternatives offer that same experience.

FAQ

Does the Acemate S10 return the same ball?

No. Its cameras track your return, while the launcher sends a different ball from the hopper. With the catching net enabled, it attempts to collect your return and recycle it into the machine.

How often does the Acemate S10 catch the ball?

As an intermediate player, I found that it caught somewhere between 30% and 50% of my returns. The success rate depends heavily on the speed, height and placement of the shot. Sometimes it was more than that range, sometimes less.

Can the Acemate S10 work like a normal ball machine?

Yes. Its standard ball-machine mode keeps it in one position and feeds balls at fixed intervals. You can adjust the speed, spin, height and landing position.

How long does the Acemate S10 battery last?

During my testing, it used roughly 40% of its battery during an hour of normal practice. Allowing for stops to change drills and collect balls, around two and a half hours should be realistic.

Is the Acemate S10 suitable for advanced players?

It is best suited to recreational and intermediate players. Very advanced players can still use its custom drills, but some may want greater top-end pace and heavier spin.

The post Acemate tennis robot S10 review: As close as it gets to a real hitting partner appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

7.8

Design 8.5/10

Ease of use 8.0/10

Use of information 7.5/10

Value for money 7.5/10

Pros

• – One of the better-looking watches I have tested
• – Bright and easy-to-read AMOLED display
• – Responsive crown, button and touchscreen
• – Good everyday health and fitness tracking
• – Strong accuracy in running comparisons

Cons

• – GPS can be slow to connect in built-up areas
• – No third-party app store

Design and comfort

The Honor Watch 6 is a big watch, but it does not feel especially bulky on the wrist. The 46.5mm case sounds huge on paper, yet the relatively slim 10.8mm body helps keep it under control.

Honor sells it in two versions. Shadow Black comes with a black fluoroelastomer strap, while Twilight Brown pairs a silver case with a brown leather strap. I have the Twilight Brown model, and it is one of the better-looking watches I have worn recently. The silver case and brown strap work well together.

Using it is straightforward. The rotating crown lets you move quickly through menus, while the flat button underneath takes you straight into workouts. Both respond instantly, and the touchscreen feels just as quick. I never found myself waiting for the interface to catch up.

The 1.46-inch AMOLED screen is another strong point. It is bright, sharp and easy to read outside thanks to a peak 3000 nits of brightness. I normally need glasses, but I could still check my running stats mid-run without them. The large display helps, but Honor also makes good use of the space.

The screen also stays cleaner than most. Some watches pick up fingerprints almost as soon as you touch them, but that has not been much of an issue here. It sounds like a small thing, but it helps the watch keep its good looks.

The leather strap is soft enough for all-day and overnight wear, although I am not convinced it feels quite as high-end as the rest of the watch. I tighten it for runs so the watch stays put, although silicone is the better option for running and swimming. The quick-release pins make changing straps easy.

Worth noting – there is only one case size, but I would not automatically rule it out if you have a smaller wrist. It works fine on mine, and the slim profile keeps it from feeling awkward. Overall, the Watch 6 has been comfortable to wear and is easily one of the nicer-looking models I have tested lately.

Under the hood

Under the hood, Honor has focused on the parts that affect everyday use. But it’s not trying to turn the Watch 6 into a miniature phone.

The dual-band GPS is important for anyone planning to use the watch for running or cycling. It supports both L1 and L5 frequencies, along with GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou, QZSS and NavIC. That gives it the right tools for dealing with tree cover, tall buildings and other places where cheaper GPS setups often start to wander.

Honor does not reveal the processor or memory, but the watch never feels underpowered. Menus open quickly, scrolling is smooth and moving between widgets or workout screens does not bring any obvious hesitation. That matters more here than a processor name most buyers would never recognise.

The sensor lineup covers optical heart rate, blood oxygen, movement, direction, altitude and ambient light. These feed into the usual mix of sleep, stress, activity and workout tracking. There is no ECG or temperature sensor, so the Watch 6 does not try to compete with more expensive health-focused models on every front.

You also get a microphone and speaker for Bluetooth calls, NFC, Bluetooth 5.4 and 4GB of storage. Music can be stored locally, but there is no streaming support or proper third-party app store. Android and iPhone compatibility is broad, although features such as payments and notification replies can still vary by region and handset.

Battery life

Battery life is one of the main reasons to consider the Honor Watch 6. Honor has managed to squeeze a 980mAh battery into a relatively slim case, which gives the watch far more breathing room than most mainstream smartwatches.

The headline figure is up to 35 days, but that comes from Honor’s stripped-back long-endurance mode. The more relevant claim is up to 17 days with standard use, while continuous outdoor GPS tracking is rated at up to 42 hours. As always, features such as the always-on display, continuous health monitoring, calls and regular GPS workouts will pull that figure down.

I have been using the watch with all the bells and whistles switched on, along with regular notifications and workout tracking. It has been 10 days since my initial charge and the watch is still going strong. So the battery claims seem reasonable.

What is clear is that the Watch 6 does not create the usual battery anxiety. You can wear it overnight, track several workouts and leave the charger behind for a trip without watching the percentage every few hours.

Health and fitness features

Honor covers the basics well. Heart rate, blood oxygen, stress, HRV, steps and sleep are all tracked, and there is a quick health scan when you want several readings in one go. You also get a morning report that pulls together the previous day and night without making you dig through the app.

The Honor Health app is easy to get around. The main Health screen gives you a quick look at your latest numbers, and tapping on any of them opens the longer-term view. You can switch between daily, weekly, monthly and yearly data.

Accuracy has been reasonable in my testing. Nothing jumped out as obviously wrong, and the results were consistent enough for keeping an eye on general trends. Other reviewers have had more mixed results, particularly with the step counter, which sometimes ran high.

The watch also turns some of that data into broader fitness estimates. My VO2 max came out at 45 ml/kg/min, while Honor put my fitness age at 47, nine years below my actual age. The app even labelled both results as “Professional”, which is flattering, although probably best taken with a pinch of salt.

Body Energy works along similar lines, combining heart rate, HRV, sleep and stress into a single estimate of how much you have in the tank. It is a handy number to glance at, although Honor does not make it the centre of the experience.

The watch does track HRV, but there is no separate screen where you can view the readings. Instead, Honor folds the data into the Body Energy score, which feels like a missed opportunity if you like keeping an eye on HRV trends.

Sleep tracking covers overall duration, deep sleep, light sleep, REM and time awake. I found it easy to wear the watch overnight, and the results looked reasonable. Nap detection can be a bit hit and miss, though.

There are limits. The Watch 6 does not have ECG or skin temperature tracking, while the blood pressure trend feature available in some regions is not offered in Europe. I would have liked to see that included.

Still, the everyday health package does not feel stripped back. The main features are here, the app is simple to use and the accuracy has been good enough for day-to-day tracking.

Sports tracking

There are 122 sports modes, so finding the activity you want is not a problem. Starting a workout is quick too, especially with the lower button taking you straight to the exercise menu. The large screen also helps while you are moving, as the key numbers are easy to read at a glance.

Not every mode goes particularly deep. Running gets far more attention, while plenty of the others mainly track time, heart rate and calories. Once you finish, the Honor Health app does a good job of laying everything out without making it feel messy. It is more than enough for everyday exercise, although serious training tools are not really what this watch is about.

I did several runs with the Honor Watch 6 on one wrist and a Garmin on the other in Central London. This 29 minute 49 second run is a good example of the results I was seeing.

Honor measured 5.09km, while Garmin came in at 5.01km. That gave me an average pace of 5:51 per kilometre on the Honor and 5:57 on the Garmin. The Honor was around 1.6% longer, which is a small enough difference for general running through a heavily built-up area.

The other basic numbers lined up very well. Both watches recorded an average heart rate of 133 bpm, with maximum readings of 155 bpm on Honor and 154 bpm on Garmin. This was in line with a Frontier X chest strap I wore for the same run.

Average cadence was identical at 176 steps per minute, while the maximum was 186 on Honor and 189 on Garmin. Stride length was also close at 97cm versus 95cm, with the small difference matching Honor’s slightly longer distance.

Calories were reasonably close too. Honor estimated 403 calories, compared with 375 total calories from Garmin. The altitude readings were less convincing. Honor showed a range from 9.5 to 14.4 metres, while Garmin ranged from minus 11 to 14 metres and calculated 33 metres of ascent. This was a fairly flat London run, so I would not put much weight on either watch’s elevation totals here.

Both apps provide plenty of extra information after a run. Honor gave me aerobic training stress, recovery time, heart-rate and pace zones, kilometre splits and running-form estimates such as ground contact time, left-right balance and vertical movement. Garmin goes further with power, stamina, training load and more established running dynamics, but Honor still gives casual runners plenty to look through.

The training estimates did not match particularly closely. Honor rated the session at 2.1 for aerobic stress and suggested 14 hours of recovery, while Garmin gave it a 3.4 aerobic training effect and classified it as a base run. That is not necessarily a problem, as the two companies use different algorithms, but it shows why these scores are better used for trends within one platform rather than compared directly.

The bigger issue is getting started. Garmin usually found GPS first, while the Honor could take noticeably longer. In built-up parts of London, it occasionally needed a few minutes to lock on. Once connected, though, the Honor Watch 6 produced distance, pace, heart-rate and cadence figures that were impressively close to the Garmin.

Smartwatch features

The Watch 6 runs Honor’s MagicOS, but it feels more like a fitness watch with a few smart extras than a full smartwatch platform. There is no app store, so you cannot add Spotify, Google Maps or other third-party services later. What you get out of the box is broadly what you are going to have.

That did not bother me much in everyday use. The interface is quick, the rotating crown makes getting around easy and notifications are clear on the large screen. They are grouped by app and show enough of each message to tell whether it is worth reaching for the phone.

Calls have also worked well. The speaker is surprisingly loud, and voices come through clearly at both ends, even in noisier surroundings. You can also control music and use the usual alarms, timers and weather tools.

I noticed some rough edges, though, when the watch starts talking to the phone. I tested it with an iPhone and the Honor Health app would occasionally lose its connection. The watch was still listed in Bluetooth, but I had to open the iPhone settings and tap it before the app would reconnect. It did not happen constantly, but it happened often enough to become annoying.

Honor Health was also very persistent about getting access to my contacts. I did not want to allow it, but the request kept returning and there was no obvious way to dismiss it permanently. These feel more like annoying software quirks than major problems, and hopefully Honor will clear them up in future updates.

All things considered, for everyday use, the Watch 6 still covers the main smartwatch features well. The interface is quick, notifications are easy to read and calls work directly from the wrist. It does not offer the same app selection as an Apple Watch or Wear OS model, but not everyone needs that level of depth.

View Honor Watch 6 on Honor’s website.

The post Honor Watch 6 review: Plenty to like, especially if battery life comes first appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

8

Design 8.0/10

Ease of use 8.0/10

Use of information 8.0/10

Value for money 8.0/10

Pros

• – Large display makes data easy to read
• – Useful three-button and crown controls
• – Thin despite its size
• – Strong dual-band GPS battery life
• – Built-in flashlight is genuinely practical

Cons

• – Large case size may not suit everyone
• – Controls take time to learn

Design, hardware

Look & feel

The Amazfit Balance 3 is a large watch. There’s no denying that. But it is a good-looking one.

The 51.4mm case gives it real wrist presence, especially if you are coming from an earlier Balance model or a smaller Garmin. You buy it because you want a big, readable screen in a more premium case. So yes, the size will not be to everyone’s taste. If you have small wrists, you might want to look elsewhere.

I was worried it might look awkward. But the Balance 3 case is quite thin, so it spreads across the wrist rather than sitting like a tall block on top of it. That makes a bigger difference than the case diameter suggests. The low profile also helps the watch stay planted during exercise, which can only help with optical heart rate tracking. It does not feel heavy on the wrist either. So I was pleasantly surprised.

The 1.5-inch AMOLED panel sits under sapphire glass and reaches up to 3,000 nits of peak brightness. Which is a boost from the previous generation.

That brightness means workout data stays readable even in strong sunlight. The extra screen space also makes pace, heart rate, distance and lap information easier to glance at while moving. Maps benefit from the larger panel too, since route lines and surrounding detail have more room to breathe.

The build moves the Balance line away from its old lifestyle watch image. The sapphire glass helps, and the case has a more robust feel than previous Balance models without going full chunky outdoor T-Rex.

The updated button and crown layout is one of the biggest changes in daily use. It is three buttons plus a fully functioning rotating crown, an upgrade from the previous crown and one-button layout. The physical controls work well and it’s good to be able to choose between the crown, physical buttons and touch-screen.

Many people have become fans of the LED smartwatch flashlights. So it is no surprise Zepp Health has decided to include it on Balance 3. It offers different intensities of white light for early starts, plus a red light that does not blast your eyes at night. There is also an SOS option. This is one of those features you do not miss until you have tried it, then suddenly it makes obvious sense.

Rounding everything off is the standard 22mm silicone strap. It keeps things comfortable enough for workouts, and because it is a standard size, swapping it out is easy.

Worth mentioning, I am reviewing the Stainless Steel version of Balance 3. Zepp Health has also announced a Titanium Black edition. But at the time of writing this review, that one is still not available for purchase.

Under the hood

Amazfit Balance 3 does not bring a major internal reset over Balance 2. The core sensor and GPS setup are familiar, so the hardware difference is not very exciting.

The watch uses BioTracker 6.0 for heart rate, blood oxygen, stress, HRV, skin temperature and sleep tracking. That is the same sensor generation used on Balance 2, and I did not see anything that made this feel like a big sensor upgrade.

GPS is familiar too. Balance 3 sticks with dual-band positioning across six satellite systems and a circularly polarised antenna. That was already one of the stronger parts of Balance 2, so any difference in real-world tracking is more likely to come from firmware tuning than a completely new GPS setup.

The one clear internal upgrade is storage. Balance 3 moves to 64GB, giving it more room for offline maps, music and local files. That is useful if you plan to use maps and keep media on the watch.

Connectivity is where you would expect it to be. There is Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, microphone and speaker support, plus compatibility with external accessories such as heart rate belts, running power meters, cycling power meters, speed sensors and cadence sensors.

Battery life

Real-world battery drain depends entirely on how often you activate the bright 1.5-inch screen and the dual-band GPS. Enabling the always-on display, tracking outdoor workouts, and keeping continuous health metrics active will naturally pull the runtime below the headline three-week mark.

The most important metrics center on GPS tracking endurance. Balance 3 offers up to 41 hours in accuracy GPS mode and hits up to 84 hours in the power-saving configuration. This provides enough headroom for long trail runs, weekend hikes, and travel without constant charging anxiety.

Amazfit Balance 3*

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This longevity ensures you can utilize the tracking features without daily trips to the power outlet. Continuous sleep tracking, recovery statistics, and training history remain useful because the watch stays on your wrist rather than sitting on a charger every night.

Compared to the Balance 2, the standard daily battery figures remain relatively similar. The tangible upgrade shows up in active GPS tracking longevity, aligning with the shift toward detailed mapping and longer outdoor sessions.

Tech specs

Health & fitness tracking

Health tracking on the Balance 3 feels familiar if you have used any recent Amazfit watch. There is no big shake-up here, and honestly that is fine. You get heart rate, blood oxygen, stress, HRV, skin temperature, sleep, breathing quality and the usual one-tap health check.

For everyday use, it just works. Resting heart rate, HRV, sleep duration and stress trends are all easy to glance at in the Zepp Health app. I would still treat trends as more useful than any single score on any given day. That is not really an Amazfit thing either. It is true of pretty much every wrist wearable out there.

Sleep tracking is part of the same familiar package. The Balance 3 is a big watch, but the case is thin enough that it does not get in the way overnight. The app breaks down sleep stages, breathing quality, heart rate and HRV, while also giving you some recovery-style feedback. It gives you enough to work with without turning your sleep into a spreadsheet project.

Zepp OS 6 does not change the health tracking itself, but it does change how some of this information is reached on the watch. BioCharge, movement, heart rate and other daily stats now live in the swipe-up card stack from the watch face. I found the change easy enough to adjust to, but not a dramatic upgrade.

That is probably the right way to look at the health side too. Balance 3 is not throwing a new set of health metrics at you. It is taking the familiar Amazfit package and moving some daily data into the new card layout. That makes the watch feel reorganised rather than completely different.

The broader recovery picture comes from BioCharge, LifeLoad and HybridCharge. These are meant to pull sleep, stress, recovery and daily effort into something more connected. I still treat that kind of guidance as a nudge rather than gospel, but it is more useful than another isolated score.

The Zepp Health app still has its rough edges. There is a lot going on in there, and some of it could use a cleaner layout. The data is useful, but the presentation still needs polish, especially now that Zepp Health is asking users to pay attention to more recovery, readiness and daily load signals.

Sports tracking

The big screen of Balance 3 makes a difference for sports tracking. Workout fields are easy to read on the move, and maps actually feel usable instead of squinting at a tiny display.

HYROX is not just another of the 180+ workout modes here. Balance 3 arrived alongside Zepp Health’s bigger HYROX push in Stockholm, where the company showed how the watch, Zepp Health app and hybrid training tools fit together. The watch supports HYROX Training and HYROX Race modes, plus race strategy features such as Virtual Pace, so you can see whether you are ahead or behind your target during each run and station.

I mostly ran with it, and the GPS held up well. On my 7.5km run against a Garmin watch, the Balance 3 tracked pretty closely overall. All in all, there was around a 30 meter difference in the total distance tracked.

Heart rate surprised me too, in a good way. The first kilometre was a bit off, though that was partly me still fumbling with the controls at the start, but after that the track looked solid enough for normal training runs. Overall, the Forerunner recorded an average heart rate of 146 bpm and a max of 162 bpm. The Amazfit recorded 144 bpm average and the same 162 bpm max.

I still would not call wrist-based optical heart rate perfect, especially during intervals or anything with sharp changes in effort. But for steady running, the Balance 3 gave me numbers close enough to trust. If I wanted tighter data for harder sessions, I would just pair a chest strap or arm strap and not think twice about it.

Just to make sure, I did a second 7.5K run. This time in more challenging conditions – half the run was done in a heavily wooded area. The GPS tracking difference was 40 meters – still close enough. As far as heart rate, Garmin clocked me at an average of 133bpm and a max of 147. The Amazfit came in at 132bpm and 147 bpm – so remarkably close.

As far as the new button setup, it makes way more sense once you are actually working out than it does poking around the menus. As most things that change – it takes a bit of getting used to. Touchscreens are great until your hands get sweaty, it starts raining, or you just need to pause a workout in a hurry. That is where this setup earns its sports watch label.

Maps and navigation are a big part of the appeal here too. The Balance 3 has enough screen real estate to keep routes readable, and the extra storage means more room for offline maps and music.

One thing I am keeping an eye on is altitude data. Zepp Health recently pushed an update claiming it optimized the accuracy of workout altitude data, which caught my attention because I did notice an altitude discrepancy comparing the Balance 3 with my Garmin. It was not enough to throw off the test, but it is exactly the kind of thing that can bite you on a hilly route.

The sports mode list is enormous, but honestly the useful stuff is a lot more specific than that. Running, cycling, swimming, strength training, HYROX tools, external sensor support and structured training features are what actually move the needle. I would rather have those working properly than another endless list of niche modes I am never going to open.

Smartwatch features

I see Amazfit Balance 3 as a fitness watch first and a smartwatch second. That works for me. I get notifications, calls, voice control and everyday tools, but without turning it into another device that needs charging every night.

Notifications are easy to read on the large display. Bluetooth calls are supported, although I only really see myself using them for quick chats. Zepp Flow is more useful day to day. It lets me handle basic commands and replies without digging through menus, even if it is not something I would call essential.

Amazfit Balance 3*

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The usual tools are here too. I used alarms, timers, weather, music controls, voice memo and find my phone. iPhone users get camera control, while Android users get quick replies, so the experience is slightly better on Android.

The LED flashlight is just as useful as I expected. It has white and red light modes, and I used it around the house, at night and on early starts. Now when I test a watch without this feature, I do miss it.

The main limitation is app depth. I would not buy Balance 3 expecting an Apple Watch or Wear OS experience. It handles the useful smartwatch stuff well enough, but the real reason to buy it is still the fitness package, battery life and large screen.

Amazfit Balance 3 can be purchased from Zepp Health or Amazon*

The post Amazfit Balance 3 review: A serious Garmin alternative gets closer appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

8.3

Design 8.5/10

Ease of use 7.5/10

Use of information 8.0/10

Value for money 9.0/10

Pros

• – Comfortable to wear day and night
• – Screenless design removes distractions
• – Strong sleep tracking focus
• – Useful health metrics
• – Lower price than most rivals

Cons

• – Limited workout feedback
• – Google Health app is good but needs polish
• – Not ideal for serious training

Design, hardware and comfort

It might sound strange, but Fitbit Air makes more sense on the wrist than it does on paper. Bear with me. A screen-free Fitbit sounds limited at first, yet the design works because the device is small, light and easy to forget about.

Comfort is easily the best feature here. If a passive tracker irritates your skin or feels bulky, the whole concept falls apart. The Fitbit Air avoids this completely, and it is easy to wear for days at a time, including to bed, without feeling like another demanding gadget is strapped to your arm.

Ditching the display is a smart move. You do not have to deal with buzzing notifications, tiny menus, or awkward watch-style interactions. It feels more like a discreet health pod than a traditional fitness band, which is exactly the kind of low-profile approach I appreciate.

Of course, you have to accept some trade-offs with this design. Any basic feedback needs to come from the Google Health app, the vibration motor, or the tiny battery light. While this keeps the hardware clean, you lose the instant gratification of glancing at your wrist for stats.

Fitbit Air*

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The internal tech is simple but covers the essentials well. The device tracks heart rate, movement, blood oxygen, and skin temperature variations, while the vibration motor is ideal for silent morning alarms.

The physical design is a huge win. The hardware is light, comfortable, and out of the way, making it much easier to wear continuously than a Whoop or most other fitness trackers I have tested over the years. Google got the hardware right.

Setup and app experience

Setting up the Fitbit Air is a breeze. It pairs up through Google Health, asks for the usual permissions, and then just fades into the background. That is exactly how it should be for a screen-free tracker, since the last thing you want is a complicated setup before you even put it on.

Things get trickier once you open the app. Because the Fitbit Air does not have a display, Google Health has to do all the heavy lifting. It is your screen, your settings menu, and your dashboard all rolled into one, which puts a lot of pressure on the software.

The main screen looks clean enough when you first open it. The layout is easy to scan, and being able to view data from different sources side by side is a nice touch. It makes the device a lot more useful if you like comparing trends instead of just trusting one tracker blindly.

Still, Google Health definitely feels like a work in progress. Some parts are cleaner than the old Fitbit app, but others just feel clunky. It often takes too many taps to get to the raw numbers or see a clear trend line.

The AI Coach is a perfect example of this. It is fine if you want a casual explanation or a quick nudge based on your recent stats, but sometimes it just feels like it is getting in the way. There are plenty of days where you do not want to chat with an AI, you just want your data.

Luckily, Google is already pushing out updates to fix these software gaps. They are bringing back missing features and listening to early feedback, which is great news because a screen-free tracker like this completely relies on its companion app to be useful.

Living without a screen

Living with Fitbit Air means giving up quick glances. There is no watch face, no step count on the wrist, no workout screen and no easy way to check whether something is being tracked.

That bothered me less than expected. After a few days, I stopped treating Fitbit Air like a normal tracker. It works best as something that collects data quietly in the background.

There are benefits to that. It does not distract you, show notifications or pull your eyes to the wrist. Silent alarms also make sense on this kind of device. You set them in the app, the tracker vibrates and that is all it needs to do.

Fitbit Air*

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The downside is control. If you want to check battery, confirm a setting or look at an automatically detected activity, you need your phone. Workouts also feel limited because there is no live pace, distance or heart-rate zone on the wrist.

For daily health tracking, I can live with that. For serious exercise, I would not.

Health and sleep tracking

Health tracking is where the Fitbit Air feels most at home. As a tool that builds a health picture in the background.

The core metrics are all covered. The device tracks heart rate, sleep, daily activity, blood oxygen, and skin temperature trends. And it does this with reasonable accuracy. It also supports background AFib notifications, which adds a serious layer of health monitoring without turning the tracker into something you constantly need to check.

Sleep tracking stands out as one of the best use cases. The hardware is small enough to wear overnight without a second thought, which matters far more than a massive list of niche metrics. If a sleep tracker bothers you in bed, the data becomes useless anyway because you will just stop wearing it.

The results were useful during my testing, but I noticed placement matters. I experimented with wearing the device on my ankle and noticed that it recorded shorter sleep durations than when worn on the wrist. That does not mean one position is definitely right and the other is wrong, but it highlights why the companion app needs to explain these placement differences better.

For day-to-day health tracking, Google Health does a decent job. Sleep, resting heart rate and temperature trends are easy enough to follow, and the app turns passive data into something readable. Even if it sometimes feels like it is trying to do too much. A lot of the time, I just ignored the AI suggestions.

I liked to have the passive AFib notifications running in the background. But you have to remember this is not an on-demand ECG device. The hardware can watch for irregular rhythms while you rest, but it will not replace a dedicated device with a proper ECG app if that specific feature is what you need.

Ultimately, general health and sleep monitoring suits the Fitbit Air well. It takes the best of Fitbit tech and packages it into a small form factor. The device shines brightest when it collects passive data, shows long-term trends and stays out of the way.

Silent alarms and vibration

Silent alarms are one of Fitbit Air’s simplest features, but also one of the most useful. They fit the whole idea of the device well because there is no screen involved and very little interaction needed.

You set the alarms in Google Health, and Fitbit Air does the rest with a vibration on the wrist. You can create up to eight alarms, choose between low and high vibration and dismiss them with a double tap. It is basic, but it works.

I found this more useful than expected. A screen-free tracker does not need many active features, but a silent alarm is exactly the sort of thing it should do well. It gives the device a practical role beyond passive tracking without making it feel like a smartwatch.

The vibration is not aggressive, which is good for comfort but may not suit everyone. The high setting is the safer option if you are using it as a wake-up alarm, especially if you sleep deeply. The low setting feels better for reminders during the day.

Sports tracking

Sports tracking is where Fitbit Air feels most limited, but not useless. The hardware can collect decent workout data, but the lack of a screen changes what you can realistically expect from it.

For casual activity, it does the job. Steps, heart rate and automatically detected exercise all fit the idea of a passive tracker. You wear it, let it collect data and check the app later.

My wrist-based 5K result was better than I expected. Fitbit Air came very close on heart rate, with average heart rate matching my reference device, and distance coming in only around 40 metres short. That is a strong result for a small screen-free tracker.

But the overall exercise experience still feels basic. If you care about pacing or want feedback while training, Fitbit Air is not the device for that. It does not have a display.

Automatic detection is useful, but it also exposed a software gap. When I wore Fitbit Air on the ankle, it picked up the 5K run automatically, but started too early and finished too late. That pulled down the average heart rate because the session included time before and after the actual run.

The problem was not simply detection. That worked well enough. It was what happened afterwards. Google Health does not currently give you enough control to clean up that kind of mistake properly. For a screen-free tracker, the app should give you more flexibility..

So I would not treat Fitbit Air as a serious sports or running tracker. It is fine for logging movement and giving you a broad view of activity, and the wrist run result shows the sensors can perform well. But the training experience is too limited for anyone who wants live feedback, detailed workout tools or proper post-session control.

Battery life and charging

Battery life is one of the easier parts of Fitbit Air to live with. Google quotes up to seven days, and that feels like the right kind of target for this device. A screen-free tracker should not need daily charging.

In normal use, I found the battery low-maintenance. There is no display draining power, and the device is designed to sit quietly in the background, so it does not feel like something you constantly have to think about.

Charging is handled through a magnetic charger. A full charge takes around 90 minutes, while a quick five-minute top-up can give roughly a day of use. That makes it easy enough to charge while showering, working at a desk or getting ready in the morning.

Fitbit Air*

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The main annoyance is checking battery status. With no screen, you have to rely on the app or the small battery light. That is fine most of the time, but it does remove the quick glance you get from a normal tracker.

Subscription and value

The Fitbit Air is a whole lot easier to justify because you do not need a monthly subscription just to see your basic data. At $99, the price feels fair for a tiny, screen-free tracker that just focuses on passive health stats.

Don’t get me wrong, the subscription side is still there. Google Health Premium is basically the new version of Fitbit Premium, and it throws in the AI Coach, personalized fitness plans, daily workout guidance, and extra help making sense of your health data. It also lets you log things like meals and workouts using text, voice, or photos.

The good news is you do not actually need any of that for the essentials. The Fitbit Air still tracks your sleep, heart rate, daily steps, and core health metrics completely free. I would treat the subscription as a nice extra rather than something you need just to make the device work.

The value equation changes completely if you already pay for Google AI Pro or Google AI Ultra. Google bundles Google Health Premium into those plans, which works out well for me since I already have a Gemini subscription. It means I am not looking at the Fitbit Air as yet another gadget that adds an extra bill to my monthly budget.

Even so, I would still judge this tracker on the core experience first. The AI Coach and deeper guidance can be helpful, but they are not essential.

What works well

Comfort is definitely the biggest win here. It is tiny, incredibly lightweight, and so easy to wear for long stretches, including to bed. It never feels like you have another bulky smartwatch strapped to your arm, which is perfect if you want to track your health without adding more screen time to your day.

The passive tracking matches this physical design perfectly. Things like heart rate, sleep, daily steps, skin temperature trends, blood oxygen, and background AFib notifications all make total sense on a device you do not constantly need to check. The hardware is much better at quietly gathering data in the background than trying to act like a mini training watch.

Silent alarms are another simple but great feature. They are easy to set up, the vibration is discreet, and the whole thing works flawlessly without needing a display. It is exactly the kind of low-friction feature that suits this form factor.

I also really like the side-by-side data view inside the Google Health app. It makes the tracker a lot more useful if you already have health metrics from other devices, since you can easily compare broad trends instead of treating one specific tracker as the absolute truth.

The overall value also works well, as long as you do not need a full smartwatch. The price is reasonable, the battery life is low-maintenance, and you do not need a separate monthly subscription just to see your core data.

The Fitbit Air is at its absolute best when you keep your expectations realistic. It is not a sports watch, and it does not try to be one. As a small, passive tool for tracking sleep, health stats, silent alarms, and background data, it handles its job much better than I expected.

What needs work

The real issue here is not the hardware at all. It is the software built around it. The Fitbit Air relies completely on the Google Health app, and that interface still needs plenty of polish, better user control, and much faster access to the stats that actually matter.

The automatic workout detection definitely needs some work. When the app guesses the start or end time of a session wrong, there should be an easy way to trim or correct the workout afterwards. This becomes a much bigger deal on a screen-free tracker because you cannot just manually start, stop, or check things on your wrist.

Google Health also needs to do a better job of explaining the data without burying it under too many menus. The AI Coach might be fine for some, but it should never feel like a barrier between you and your own health metrics. There are plenty of times when the app just needs to show the raw numbers clearly and get out of the way.

Ditching the screen works fine for passive tracking, but it gets annoying when you just want a quick confirmation. Checking your remaining battery life, tweaking a setting, or confirming your workout status always forces you to reach for your phone.

Fitness tracking also stays pretty basic. The tracker can gather helpful daily activity data, but it is just not built for real-time workout feedback, pacing, heart-rate zones, or deep training analysis.

The physical device itself shows a lot of promise. Now, the Google Health app just needs to catch up to the hardware.

The post Fitbit Air review: The tracker that disappears on your wrist appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

8.6

Design 9.0/10

Ease of use 8.0/10

Use of information 9.0/10

Value for money 8.5/10

Pros

• – Comprehensive health metrics
• – Vascular trends
• – Vibration feature has potential
• – 14-day battery life
• – No subscription required

Cons

• – Exercise heart rate still varies
• – Wake-up vibration alarm not available yet

Design and comfort

RingConn Gen 3 does not rewrite the company’s smart ring design, but it does move things on in a few ways. The overall shape is familiar, with the same squared-off outer profile and rounded inner surface that has become RingConn’s signature look. It is still very much a health-focused ring rather than a jewellery-first device, but this generation feels a little more polished in the hand.

The biggest design change is the new hand-brushed finish. RingConn Gen 2 had a cleaner glossy look, while Gen 3 adds more texture and a slightly more premium visual feel. It also helps reduce the appearance of fingerprints, which is useful on a ring that is constantly being touched, twisted and taken on or off.

There are five finishes this time around. Future Silver is the one I have. Beyond that, you can also get Royal Gold, Matte Black, Brushed Silver and Brushed Rose Gold.

What’s worth noting is that Gen 3 is slightly thicker than Gen 2, due to the addition of a vibration motor and larger battery. The new model measures 2.3mm thick and weighs between 2.5 and 3.5 grams, depending on size. By comparison, Gen 2 comes in at 2.0mm and weighs between 2 and 3 grams. On the finger, though, I did not find the difference noticeable.

Comfort is still very good. The inner surface is smooth, the edges do not dig into the skin and the ring is light enough to wear overnight without thinking about it. In fact, the edges feel a bit more rounded than on the previous generation, which makes the ring look more narrow.

As with any smart ring, fit is everything. Too loose and the sensors may shift around. Too tight and it becomes annoying during exercise, warmer weather or after a salty meal. Gen 3 uses a slightly different sizing system, so existing RingConn users should not assume their Gen 2 size will carry across. I chose the same size 11 for both Gen 2 and Gen 3. There is perhaps a fraction of a difference between them, with Gen 3 feeling a tad larger. But not so much that I cannot wear it on the same finger as Gen 2.

I prefer the index finger because it usually gives the most stable fit and tends to work well for sensor contact. If the fit feels slightly off during workouts, switching hands or fingers can help. That flexibility is useful, especially if your fingers change size during the day.

The orientation issue is still worth mentioning. RingConn relies on the shape and inner sensor placement to guide how the ring sits, but I would still like a clearer visual marker. In everyday use, I rarely found myself obsessing over it and it seemed to capture metrics perfectly well. But when exercising I did make sure the sensors were positioned correctly.

Water resistance remains strong. Gen 3 carries an IP68/ATM10 rating, so there is no need to remove it for hand washing, showers or swimming. That is important for a ring designed around continuous tracking. The less often you take it off, the fewer gaps you get in the data.

Overall, RingConn Gen 3 is still one of the more comfortable smart rings I have worn. It is not quite as thin as Gen 2, but the added features feel like a fair trade-off.

Hardware and battery life

RingConn Gen 3 adds a few useful hardware upgrades, but the basic idea stays the same. This is still a smart ring you put on and mostly forget about, rather than another gadget that needs constant attention.

The main hardware changes are a larger battery, a new vibration motor, new optical heart rate sensors, an upgraded temperature sensor and an upgraded 3-axis accelerometer. I’ll get into vibration, Vascular Trend and tracking performance later, but from a hardware point of view, RingConn has added more without making the ring feel overbuilt.

RingConn Gen 3*

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Offline data storage has also improved. Gen 3 can store up to 10 days of data, compared with 7 days on Gen 2. It is not the most exciting spec on the sheet, but it is useful if the ring does not sync with the phone every day.

Battery life is still one of the best things about RingConn. Gen 3 is rated for 11 to 14 days with vibration switched off, or 10.5 to 13 days with vibration switched on. That is exactly the kind of range you want from a device that is meant to stay on your finger day and night.

In practice, these figures do feel realistic. I charged the ring only once in these two weeks, so you won’t be constantly thinking about when to refuel it. That is the whole point of a smart ring. It works best when it fades into the background.

The charging case helps too. Gen 3 now uses a universal wireless charging case, so you no longer have the slightly awkward size-specific setup from Gen 2. Charge it, throw it in a bag and you are good for days.

Technical specs: RingConn Gen 3 vs Gen 2

Gen 3 is the most complete RingConn model. It adds vibration alerts, newer sensors, longer battery life and a universal wireless charging case. Gen 2 remains the slimmer titanium option, while Gen 2 Air is the cheaper entry point with stainless steel, shorter battery life and no sleep apnea pattern feature.

The trade-off is simple. Gen 3 gives you the most features, Gen 2 keeps things slimmer and Gen 2 Air keeps the price lower.

Health, alerts and tracking

RingConn is built around passive tracking, so most of the useful stuff happens quietly in the background while you sleep, work and go about your day. That is exactly what you want from a smart ring.

The core tracking mix includes sleep, heart rate, HRV, SpO2, skin temperature, respiratory rate, stress, activity, cycle tracking and sleep apnea pattern insights. That gives you a broad daily picture without needing to start and stop things constantly. It is not trying to be a sports watch, but as an always-on wellness tracker it covers everything you’d want – and more.

The app has had a recent redesign, and it feels cleaner now. There is still a lot tucked away inside, so you do need to poke around a bit. Some people might find the amount of data a little much at first, but the layout has a sensible top-down feel to it. You get the big-picture insights first, then you can dig as deep as you want.

Sleep remains one of the stronger parts of the experience. The app gives you the usual breakdown of sleep duration, stages, resting heart rate, HRV, SpO2 and breathing data, then rolls that into broader recovery-style insights. As before, the real value is not one night of data. It is seeing how your sleep and recovery shift over time.

In the morning, you could literally spend a half an hour just digging through all the different sleep data. Light exposure, circadian rhythm alignment and lots of other really interesting stuff.

Then there are the daily stress and readiness-style metrics. RingConn is best when you treat it as a trend device. If your sleep drops, resting heart rate rises or stress stays elevated, the app gives you a way to spot that pattern. It is simple enough to understand without making everything feel too crowded. I even got a headache alert which coincided with a late night out.

I like that RingConn keeps a lot of this passive. You are not constantly being asked to log how you feel or manually start every little thing. The ring collects data in the background, and the app turns it into something readable.

Of course, there is still room for polish. Some of the app language can feel a little busy, and not every insight feels equally useful.

Vascular Trend

Vascular Trend is a new feature on RingConn Gen 3, and it is the one that gives the ring a different angle from Gen 2. What’s worth noting – it is not trying to replace a cuff or act like a medical device. Think of it more as a long-term wellness feature that looks at patterns over time. The value is in seeing whether the trend changes over days, weeks and months.

RingConn Gen 3*

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Setup takes a little effort at the start. Before it starts working properly, you need to complete a short survey and enter a few cuff-based baseline values during the first 24 hours. It is not difficult, but it is not completely automatic from the first minute either.

Once set up, Gen 3 can collect automatic vascular trend samples when you are in a relaxed state, with sampling happening roughly every 15 to 20 minutes during day and night use. The app keeps historical records so you can look back at overnight and daytime trends.

The overnight side is probably where this gets most interesting. A ring is easier to sleep with than most watches, and RingConn’s long battery life means you are less likely to take it off and miss data. The app also separates daytime and night-time averages, which makes the data easier to understand at a glance.

In my testing, I was always in the stable green section. That is also where I expected to be, and the few comparisons I made with a traditional cuff gave me no reason to question the trend shown in the app. So in my case, Vascular Trend did not reveal anything surprising, but it did behave in a way that matched what I was seeing elsewhere.

You can also start an on-demand insight from the app. When you do that, it asks you to sit still and then takes about 30 seconds to complete. The app is quite sensitive during this process, so you need to stay still and keep the hand relaxed. If your finger is cold, you may need to warm it up first before trying again.

I also like that RingConn has not put this behind a subscription. Like everything else, Vascular Trend is part of the Gen 3 package, which helps the ring stand apart in a category where ongoing fees are becoming harder to avoid.

Vibration alerts

As mentioned, vibration feedback is the other new headline feature. Smart rings do not have screens, so a short buzz on the finger actually makes a lot of sense. It gives the ring a way to get your attention without turning it into a tiny smartwatch.

In the app, vibration can be switched on or off for Battery Reminder, Sedentary Reminder and Wellness Notifications. As long as you don’t close the app – and keep it minimised, it will work. The buzz itself is subtle and short. You feel it, but it does not nag you in the way a watch can.

In my testing, this still feels like a work in progress. I did get vibration alerts, but they were not always consistent across the supported reminder types I had enabled. Still, the alerts that did come through worked really well. The buzz is discreet, clear and useful, giving you a small nudge without sending you back to a screen.

The main missing piece is alarms. Gen 3 does not currently support a vibration alarm for waking up in the morning, or custom vibration reminders at specific times of day. So you cannot yet use it for a silent wake-up alarm, a breathing reminder or a timed nudge to pause during work.

That is where I can see the most potential. If RingConn lets Gen 3 buzz as a wake-up alarm, the vibration motor becomes far more useful. A silent alarm on a ring makes more sense than the same feature on a watch, especially for people who do not want to wake someone else or sleep with a screen on their wrist.

RingConn has indicated that vibration alarm features are planned through OTA updates in Q3 to Q4 2026. The exact timing still depends on the official rollout. For now, vibration is promising rather than fully finished, but it already gives Gen 3 a more interactive feel than previous RingConn models.

Accuracy of activity metrics

Accuracy has always been a strong point of RingConn devices. And Gen 3 is no different. As with the previous model, I found the step count to be consistently within a 3-4% margin of error when compared against manual counting and other reliable devices.

Exercise tracking also looks better than it did on Gen 2, although there are still limits. I compared RingConn Gen 3 against a high-end Garmin Forerunner on two outdoor runs in central London, using Garmin as the reference point.

The distance numbers were very close. RingConn came in 1.6% lower than Garmin on one run and 1.0% higher on the other, which is a good result for a smart ring. This is not a running watch, so I would not expect it to replace a Garmin, but the basic distance tracking held up well in these tests.

Heart rate tracking was more mixed. On the May 28 run, RingConn averaged 136 bpm compared to 135 bpm on Garmin, which is excellent. On the May 25 run, RingConn averaged 141 bpm compared to 134 bpm on Garmin, so it was clearly higher.

Maximum heart rate still seems to run hot. RingConn reported 156 bpm and 167 bpm across the two runs, compared to Garmin’s 147 bpm and 156 bpm. That points to the same broad limitation most smart rings face during exercise, especially when movement, grip, temperature and blood flow can interfere with finger-based optical readings.

Still, this feels like progress compared to Gen 2. RingConn Gen 3 looks dependable for daily activity and it can also give usable workout data for casual runs. But I would still reach for a dedicated sports watch or chest strap if heart rate accuracy during harder sessions is the priority.

Accuracy of recovery stats

To assess recovery accuracy, I compared 14 days of nightly resting heart rate, heart rate variability and sleep duration with data from Whoop and a Garmin Forerunner.

The results are interesting because they do not simply repeat what I found with RingConn Gen 2. In that earlier review, RingConn tracked much closer to Whoop than Garmin for resting heart rate and HRV. With Gen 3, the picture is more mixed.

Here’s the recovery data correlation.

For resting heart rate, RingConn Gen 3 correlated more strongly with Garmin than Whoop. Heart rate variability was much closer between the two comparisons, with RingConn sitting slightly nearer to Whoop by correlation, but not by enough to make a big claim.

RingConn Gen 3*

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Sleep duration was the most consistent metric. RingConn and Whoop showed the strongest correlation at 94%, while RingConn and Garmin were also close at 91%. In real use, all three landed in broadly the same place for total sleep time.

The averages back this up. RingConn measured resting heart rate at 48 bpm, sitting very close to Garmin’s 47 bpm and lower than Whoop’s 51 bpm. For HRV, RingConn averaged 36 ms, placing it between Whoop at 33 ms and Garmin at 38 ms.

So the takeaway is that RingConn Gen 3 lines up more closely with Garmin for resting heart rate, sits between Garmin and Whoop for HRV and remains very close to both for sleep duration. As always with recovery metrics, the trends are more useful than comparing absolute numbers too literally across different ecosystems.

Q&A

Is RingConn Gen 3 better than RingConn Gen 2?

Yes, but it depends on what you want from it. Gen 3 adds Vascular Trend, vibration alerts, newer sensors, longer battery life and a universal wireless charging case. Gen 2 is still thinner and remains a solid smart ring, but Gen 3 feels like the more complete device.

Does RingConn Gen 3 need a subscription?

No. RingConn Gen 3 does not need a subscription, which remains one of its biggest advantages. You buy the ring and get access to the main features without adding a monthly fee on top.

How long does the RingConn Gen 3 battery last?

RingConn Gen 3 is rated for up to 14 days with vibration switched off, or around 10.5 to 13 days with vibration switched on. That makes it one of the easier smart rings to live with, because charging is not something you need to think about every few days. 

Can RingConn Gen 3 be used as a silent alarm?

Not yet. Gen 3 has a vibration motor, but it does not currently support wake-up alarms or custom timed vibration reminders. RingConn has indicated that vibration alarm features are planned through OTA updates in Q3 to Q4 2026, so this may change later.

What is Vascular Trend on RingConn Gen 3?

Vascular Trend is RingConn’s new long-term wellness feature for Gen 3. It looks at vascular patterns over time rather than acting as a one-off reading or a replacement for a cuff. The idea is to give you another layer of context about how your body is trending across days, weeks and months.

Is RingConn Gen 3 accurate?

For passive tracking, RingConn Gen 3 performed well in my testing. Sleep, resting heart rate and longer-term wellness trends are where the ring makes the most sense. As with all smart rings, I would not treat it as a replacement for a sports watch during workouts or for dedicated medical equipment.

Who is RingConn Gen 3 for?

This smart ring is best suited to people who want long battery life, passive health tracking and full app access without a subscription, rather than those looking for a workout-first wearable.

Should Oura users switch to RingConn Gen 3?

RingConn Gen 3 makes a strong case for Oura users. You get long battery life, vibration alerts, Vascular Trend and full access to the main features without a monthly fee. Oura still has a polished app and a mature ecosystem, but RingConn is now the more tempting option if you want a capable smart ring without ongoing costs.

The post RingConn Gen 3 review: Subtle alerts and bigger health ambitions appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

That alone makes it an interesting device to test. The real question is not whether it can display blood pressure numbers, but how closely those readings match a clinically validated upper-arm cuff in day-to-day use. In this review, I’ll be looking at accuracy, consistency and whether this is genuinely practical as an everyday wearable.

One minute review

The Wellue BP Watch gets an important thing right: blood pressure tracking. The cuff-based system delivers reliable readings and, in my testing, this is where the device really stands out. The automatic hourly reading option is particularly useful, making it easy to build a picture of how blood pressure changes through the day without having to remember manual spot checks.

A traditional upper-arm blood pressure monitor will still remain the gold standard for absolute accuracy, but the BP Watch comes closer to that experience than standard smartwatches that claim blood pressure monitoring through sensors and calibration. That makes it far more useful for anyone who needs to keep a close eye on their numbers.

Outside of that core feature, the overall experience is limited. The wider health tracking is quite basic, sleep data can be inconsistent, sports tracking is minimal and the smartwatch features are sparse. It is also a chunky plastic device that looks and feels much more like a medical tool than a lifestyle wearable.

The other main cuff-based options are the Huawei Watch D2 and the older Omron HeartGuide. The Huawei comes in at roughly $450, so it is considerably more expensive than the Wellue’s $179, but it offers a much more complete smartwatch experience with better sleep, fitness and smart features. The Omron typically sits even higher, anywhere up to $500 depending on where you buy it.

That actually makes the Wellue BP Watch look pretty competitively priced. At $179, it undercuts both of the other proper inflatable-cuff watches by a fair margin, while still delivering the key feature, blood pressure readings.

If you are after a more rounded smartwatch or sports watch experience, you are better off looking elsewhere. But for users who prioritise blood pressure readings and want to track from the wrist, this is easy to recommend.

Wellue BP Watch can be purchased from Wellue’s website*. At checkout use code “GW10” for 10% discount.

Design, hardware

Look & feel

The first thing that hits you with the Wellue BP Watch is the sheer thickness of the device. This is not just about the strap housing the inflatable cuff, the watch body itself is chunky too. On the wrist it has a noticeably tall profile, and that gives it more of a dedicated health device feel than a regular smartwatch. At 54 grams, it is not excessively heavy, but the thickness makes it feel more substantial than the number alone suggests.

The plastic construction reinforces that impression. It feels solid enough for everyday use, but there is little attempt to disguise its purpose as a health-focused device. More than anything, it comes across like a wrist-worn medical monitor, and in this case that is not necessarily a drawback. The design feels driven by function rather than aesthetics.

The 1.83-inch display is a good fit for this kind of device. The large screen makes readings easy to view at a glance, whether you are checking blood pressure values, pulse rate or stored measurements. It also helps the watch avoid looking disproportionately bulky, as the larger display gives the front face a more balanced appearance.

Two physical buttons can be seen on the right side of BP Watch. You use these, in combination with the touchscreen, to navigate the menus.

One thing that takes a bit of getting used to is the strap. This is not your usual smartwatch band. Instead, it uses a more specialised fastening mechanism that feels a little unfamiliar at first, but once you get used to it, it does a good job of keeping the device securely in place. Also, parallel to the strap itself is a thin inflatable piece for taking blood pressure measurements.

Overall, the BPW1 gives off a distinctly clinical feel. Between the thick case, plastic finish and its sheer wrist presence, it feels closer to a compact medical device than a conventional smartwatch. That is likely to be the immediate first impression for most people taking it out of the box.

Under the hood

The real technology inside the device revolves around its cuff-based blood pressure system. Rather than relying on software estimation, the watch integrates a micro air pump, inflatable airbag and a high-precision pressure sensor directly into the device.

When you start a reading, the cuff inflates and the internal pressure sensing system captures the oscillations in blood flow to generate systolic and diastolic values. Wellue specifies an accuracy of ±3 mmHg, which puts it much closer to a proper home blood pressure monitor than a conventional smartwatch.  

Beyond blood pressure, the watch also includes an accelerometer for movement tracking, along with heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring. These extra sensors help broaden its day-to-day health tracking capabilities.

What makes this interesting from a wearable tech perspective is that the engineering focus is very different from most wrist devices. This is first and foremost a medical-style sensing platform built around pressure measurement hardware, with smartwatch-style health tracking added around it.  

Battery life

Battery life is decent. Wellue quotes up to 15 days of standby time from the 330mAh battery, with around 7 days under more regular use. The latter is likely the more realistic figure for anyone taking multiple blood pressure readings throughout the day.

In real-world use, longevity will depend heavily on how often the cuff inflates. This is not like a standard smartwatch where battery drain mainly comes from the display and optical sensors. Here, every blood pressure reading activates the micro air pump and pressure sensing system, so more frequent checks will naturally have a noticeable impact on battery life. If you are using hourly scheduled monitoring, expect it to sit closer to the lower end of the quoted range.

Wellue BP Watch*

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Charging is handled via a magnetic charger and a full top-up takes around two hours. For a device that may be used repeatedly during the day, that feels like a reasonable turnaround.

Technical specs

Blood pressure tracking

As you’d expect, blood pressure measurements are where this device separates itself from the vast majority of smartwatches. Most watches that claim blood pressure tracking use optical sensors, essentially the same light-based sensors used for heart rate monitoring, and then apply algorithms to estimate blood pressure from changes in blood flow.

These systems are useful for spotting general trends, but they are still estimates and need regular calibration against a standard cuff monitor. Studies on cuffless smartwatch methods have also shown a tendency to drift toward the calibration point, which can make them less reliable at higher or lower pressures.  

The BP Watch takes a very different approach. It uses a proper cuff-based oscillometric system built into the strap, with a micro air cuff that inflates during each reading. This is the same core measurement principle used by conventional upper-arm blood pressure monitors, just miniaturised for the wrist.

Which means that instead of estimating pressure from optical signals, it directly measures pressure oscillations in the artery. This is why the readings tend to be much closer to what you would expect from a home monitor. That medical focus is also reflected in its regulatory credentials, with the device carrying both CE marking and FDA clearance.

The difference is immediately noticeable in day-to-day use. It feels like taking a proper measurement and, in my testing, the readings were in line with a traditional blood pressure monitor. At times a few points off – but not by much.

Even the sensation is familiar, with the small cuff inflating around the wrist in a way that feels very similar to using a standard blood pressure monitor. It slowly tightens around your wrist – but not too tight that it feels uncomfortable.

But what I particularly like is the automatic reading option. You can set it to take a measurement every hour. For anyone monitoring hypertension or trying to understand how stress, activity or time of day affects their numbers, this is far more useful than the trend-style estimates most smartwatches offer. It moves the experience much closer to a wearable medical device than a standard health watch feature.

Another thing I like is that the device only takes measurements when you are at rest. If there is too much movement, it discards the reading rather than logging unreliable data, which makes the results far more useful. For the best accuracy, you should also keep your wrist roughly at heart level. That happens naturally when you are lying down, so taking readings in that position work well.

Wider health & sports tracking

Now for the less impressive part. Outside of blood pressure tracking, the wider health and sports features are much less polished. Step counting is generally fine for everyday use and gives a reasonable picture of daily movement, but beyond that the experience is a bit hit and miss.

Sleep tracking in particular was not always reliable in my testing. On a few occasions, the sleep statistics ended up with gaps if I did not sync the watch the following day, which is frustrating if you are trying to build up a continuous picture of your sleep patterns. That makes it feel noticeably less dependable than the core blood pressure functionality. And when it worked, it tended to overestimate mu sleep time.

Blood oxygen monitoring is also more limited than on many mainstream smartwatches, as it is only available on demand rather than as continuous background tracking. Heart rate monitoring works, but the sampling interval appears to be around once every minute or so. And while this is fine for general wellness checks it is not ideal if you are expecting detailed workout-style heart rate curves or more granular overnight trends.

Sports tracking is also very limited and clearly feels like an afterthought rather than a core feature. If you start a workout from the smartphone app, it will log your distance using connected GPS, but it will not record your heart rate. If you start a workout from the watch itself, connected GPS is not used, so distance tracking is missing, while heart rate is recorded directly on the device.

The problem is that those heart rate figures are often not very accurate, which makes them difficult to trust for anything beyond very casual activity. Workout syncing from the watch to the app is also inconsistent. Sometimes sessions transfer without issue, other times they simply do not, which adds another layer of frustration.

So this is not really a device I would recommend for anyone who cares about workout tracking or serious fitness use. This is not what this watch is about.

That really sums up the device quite well. As a blood pressure watch, it does its main job well. As a broader health and sports wearable, not so much, with the additional tracking features serving more as extras than reasons to buy it.

App experience & smartwatch features

The BP Watch does include a handful of smartwatch-style features, but this is very much a basic experience rather than anything close to a modern smartwatch platform. Notifications come through to the wrist, which is useful for quickly checking calls, messages and app alerts without reaching for the phone. In day-to-day use this works well enough for simple glanceable information.

Wellue BP Watch*

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Beyond that, the feature set is fairly limited. You get the essentials such as alarms, basic reminders and access to stored health data, but there is very little here in terms of apps, watch customisation or smart tools. This is not the sort of device you buy for productivity features or an extended app ecosystem.

Q&A

Is the Wellue BP Watch accurate?

Yes, in my testing the blood pressure readings were in line with a standard home monitor. This is helped by the fact that it uses a proper inflatable cuff and oscillometric method rather than relying on estimated readings. Of course, traditional upper arm devices still remain the gold standard for accuracy.

Does the Wellue BP Watch take automatic readings?

Yes, and this is one of its best features. You can set it to take automatic readings at regular intervals, such as every hour, which makes it much easier to track blood pressure trends throughout the day.

Is it a good smartwatch?

Not really, at least not in the conventional sense. The smartwatch features are fairly basic, with limited smart functions, very basic sports tracking and wider health tracking that is serviceable rather than impressive. This is much more of a dedicated health device than a lifestyle smartwatch.

Is it comfortable to wear?

It is wearable, but it is definitely chunky. The watch itself is thick and the overall plastic design gives it more of a medical-device feel than a regular smartwatch.

What other options are there?

The main alternatives with proper inflatable cuffs are the Huawei Watch D2 and the older Omron HeartGuide. The Huawei is much more expensive at around $450, but offers a far more complete smartwatch experience. The Omron usually sits in the $300 to $500 range and leans even more toward the medical device side. At $179, the Wellue undercuts both by a fair margin.

Who is it best for?

This is best suited to anyone who needs regular blood pressure monitoring and wants the convenience of having that on the wrist. If accurate blood pressure readings are your priority, it is a strong option. If you want a more rounded smartwatch experience, there are better alternatives, but outside of the small number of cuff-based devices, most of them will not do a particularly good job of delivering reliable blood pressure readings.

Wellue BP Watch can be purchased from Wellue’s website*. At checkout use code “GW10” for 10% discount.

*We are a review site that receives a small commission from sales of certain items, but the price is the same for you. Purchasing items by clicking on links in this article allows us to run this website. We are independently owned and all opinions expressed here are our own. See our affiliate disclosure page for more details.

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The post Wellue BP Watch review: Does cuff-based wrist blood pressure really work? appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

Muse S Athena

8.5

Design8.0/10

Features9.5/10

Ease of use8.5/10

Value for money8.0/10

PROS

• Well-built, soft headband
• Adds fNIRS for tracking mental effort
• Cognitive and recovery scoring after sessions
• Accurate EEG-based sleep-stage tracking
• Brainwave and blood-flow visualisation

CONS

• Requires the open app for sleep tracking
• Acoustic feedback can sometimes be distracting
• Some features require a subscription

Jump to

Design & hardware
How to use for daytime meditation
How to use to enhance sleep

Muse S Athena review: Design & hardware

• Breathable stretch fabric offers a secure and comfortable fit, day or night
• Redesigned sensor pod with low-profile button and hidden LED indicators
• Includes, for the first time, fNIRS sensors
• Enhanced internal electronics deliver faster, more accurate feedback

Look & feel

At first glance, Muse S Athena looks almost identical to Muse S. The soft, fabric headband design is still here. That familiar, wraparound style remains unchanged, and if you’ve used Muse S before, Athena will feel instantly familiar.

There are a few subtle changes worth pointing out. The pod that holds the sensors has a slightly different shape, though it still snaps into the middle of the band using strong magnets. The enclosure has also been tweaked a bit.

Another tweak are to do with the multi-coloured LED lights, which are now located on the front of the pod. You’ll notice the indicators stay hidden when inactive and light up to show battery status and other basics when active. A single physical button at the bottom of the pod powers the device on or off. The main lights will turn off during sleep, but there are a two tiny LED lights on the underside that helps you confirm whether the device is running.

The strap system is still there and there was no need to change that as it works well. Clip at the back, elastic section for adjustability, soft fabric all the way around. For me it is pretty easy to get a good fit, and the strap stays in place—something that matters if you plan to use the device to track sleep through the night. With Muse devices, signal quality is import and it largely depends on proper contact with the skin.

For care, you can hand-wash the fabric band using mild, unscented detergent. Wipe the pod with a dry cloth only—avoid any chemicals or moisture. So make sure to remove the pod if you are planning any spring cleaning.

All in all, the design doesn’t stray too far from Muse S. And that’s probably a good thing. That device was already well-designed, and Athena keeps that same comfortable feel.

Under the hood

Athena takes everything Muse S did and builds on it. It keeps the same headband format and core idea of helping you train your mind and sleep better, but pushes the tech inside forward in a few important ways. This makes it feel more grown up.

The biggest new addition is a sensor called fNIRS. It tracks how oxygen flows through the front part of your brain using near-infrared light. That might sound a bit sci-fi, but the idea is simple.

EEG shows what your brain is doing and how efficiently it processes tasks through changes in brainwave activity. fNIRS, on the other hand, shows how hard your brain is working, i.e how much energy it is using. Whether you’re trying to stay focused or mentally winding down, Athena can now measure the effort behind those states, not just the end result.

With fNIRS, the idea is that with regular practice, you can train your brain to work harder and recover more quickly. A bit like lifting weights and cooling down after a workout.

The company says they’ve also improved EEG performance. The signal is now sharper and more detailed thanks to higher resolution readings and upgraded internal referencing. If you’ve used Muse before, you’ll probably notice faster signal lock and fewer hiccups during sessions.

Heart rate tracking got an upgrade too. The PPG sensor now uses three wavelengths: infrared, near-infrared, and red. This helps with more accurate heart and sleep data. On top of that, Athena uses silver-thread sensors that should hold up better over time and deliver a cleaner signal. 

Finally, they’ve also updated the wireless chip. Bluetooth LE 5.3 is faster and more stable than the older version.

As far as battery life – it is unchanged from before. You can expect around 10 hours between charges which, depending on use, is enough to get you through a few days of meditation. This sort of battery life is also good for a single night of tracking sleep. So if you intend to use the device for that purpose – you will need to charge every day.

Muse S Athena vs Muse S: the differences

Here’s a summary of the improvements Muse S Athena brings over its predecessors.

Muse S Athena review: How to use for daytime meditation

• Easy app-based setup with multiple meditation modes
• Strength session trains focus like a mental workout
• Cognitive scores offer insight into sharpness and recovery

Muse S Athena can be used for daytime meditation in much the same way as earlier models. The setup process is straightforward. Download the Muse app for iOS or Android, pair the device, and you’re good to go. Everything is controlled through the app, which is cleanly designed and easy to navigate. The default “Meditate” tab takes you straight into the available sessions.

I found the pairing process to be quick and easy. Also, I had no problems switching between my iPhone and iPad, as at times I preferred to view the results on a larger display

You’ll find the familiar options still there: Mind Meditation, Heart Meditation, Body Meditation, Breath Meditation, and Timer. Each one uses different sensors depending on the focus—whether that’s your brain, heart, breath, or stillness. They let you choose the session length and soundscape, and in some cases, you’ll get guided instructions.

The classic Mind Meditation is still my favourite. You calm your mind and the app reflects that with fewer environmental sounds. The calmer you are, the quieter it gets. Bird sounds let you know when you’re on track. You can earn badges and track progress over time. It still feels strange and a bit magical to control something with your mind alone.

The upside is that the acoustic feedback makes it really easy to catch when my mind starts to wander, and it helps snap me back to the breath pretty fast. The downside is that sometimes the sounds can be distracting on their own, pulling my attention outward when I’m trying to go inward. That said, the biofeedback does its job. It works.

Plus, if you find you would like silence while meditating – there is an option for that as well. Choose external audio sessions – without actually listening to external audio. What I like to do is, in this setting, I opt to hear the birds. They are never distracting and allow me to know when I am in deep focus.

There’s something for everyone when it comes to the types of meditations available. In fact, the variety can feel a bit overwhelming at first. It takes a few days to explore the options and figure out which ones suit you best. It’s definitely a learning experience.

And if that is not enough – you can opt for the Premium Subscription. It unlocks 500+ sessions, allows for sync with external apps and spits out some more advanced data. The good news? You don’t really need it as there’s plenty on offer without it.

What I also like are the simple explanations and tips that are sprinkled throughout the app. There really is a lot to take in and this helps to keep the learning curve manageable.

But what’s really new in Athena is how it pushes all of this further.

A new kind of feedback

As mentioned earlier – Muse S Athena introduces a new kind of feedback experience through its fNIRS sensors. These track oxygenated blood flow in your prefrontal cortex, giving you a read on how much mental effort you’re actually exerting. Alongside the standard EEG feedback, this opens the door to a new type of training: cognitive endurance.

One example is a new session type called Strength. In it, you’re asked to generate as much mental effort as possible by concentrating on the horizon in the image. Your focus propels an owl forward. The harder you push mentally, the quicker it flies.

It’s an interesting shift. Instead of just calming the mind, you’re now training it to perform—similar to how physical workouts build muscle. Your brain, like any other part of your body, needs oxygen to function. The harder you think, the more oxygen your prefrontal cortex demands. Athena measures this in real time and uses that data to assess your cognitive endurance.

It’s definitely an interesting addition. In practice, I found it works well. Having said that, I did have one session where I could not get the owl to move no matter how hard I focused. I am still not sure if that was to do with me or incorrect headband positioning.

Real-time brainwave visualisation is now part of the package

Last year, the company added a new brainwave visualization feature to its app. Which means can now see your brain activity during and after sessions, broken down into gamma, beta, alpha, theta, and delta waves. Each of these relates to a different mental state, so it gives you a clearer picture of what your brain is doing while you are meditating.

You get detailed reports after each session with this type of data, and there’s a mode where you can watch your brainwaves in real time. With Muse S Athena you can even view a livestream of your brain blood oxygenation.

All of this is definitely interesting to look at, but I haven’t found much practical use for the data yet. Maybe with more time, it’ll become more useful.

Cognitive Performance and Brain Recharge score

Worth a special mention are the Cognitive Performance and Brain Recharge scores, available exclusively on Muse S Athena. You’ll find them in the post-session reports, and they’re designed to give you a quick snapshot of how your brain is functioning that day.

Cognitive Performance uses something called alpha peak frequency, which links to focus, processing speed, and overall mental sharpness. A higher score generally means you’re more alert and better prepared for mentally demanding tasks. The system sets a baseline after a few sessions and tracks future scores against it. So this is a score that you can aim to increase over time.

Brain Recharge, on the other hand, is based on alpha power. It gives you a sense of how well-rested or mentally recovered you are—basically, your brain’s version of recovery status after a workout.

These scores are still pretty new, but I’m already finding them useful. They also signal a shift in direction: Muse is starting to move beyond just meditation and into the space of cognitive fitness. Which makes the device more useful.

On the flip side, it seems you will need a premium subscription to access these metrics. I do wish the company reconsiders and includes them as part of the free subscription – as they are very useful.

Muse S Athena review: How to use to enhance sleep

• Tracks brainwaves, heart rate, breath, and movement for accurate sleep stage detection
• Go-to-Sleep Journeys use real-time biofeedback to ease you into sleep
• Digital Sleep Pill restarts audio if you wake up, helping you drift back off

Muse S Athena isn’t just for meditation, it also tracks your sleep. You can wear it overnight or for naps, and the data it captures goes beyond what you’d get from a typical smartwatch. While I wouldn’t personally use it every night, it’s great for checking in on your sleep quality from time to time. That’s actually what InteraXon recommends.

The advantage here is that Athena S tracks brainwaves directly using EEG, along with heart rate, breathing, movement and brain oxygenation. This combination gives it an edge in identifying sleep stages accurately. The app presents everything in a clean, easy-to-read format, along with a Sleep Score after each session. It’s useful if you want more insight than what you’d get from a wrist-based device.

You’ll also find a feature called Go-to-Sleep Journeys. These are responsive audio experiences designed to help ease you into sleep. They use real-time biofeedback—your brain activity, heart rate, breath, and movement—to adjust the soundscapes and voice guidance. Think of it like a smart bedtime story that knows when you’re drifting off. You can set how long it plays, and the app fades out automatically once you’re asleep.

Comfort is better than earlier models, though it still takes a bit of adjusting to get the fit just right for overnight use. If you tend to toss and turn, the pod can shift slightly, which might end a session early. But once it’s in place, it generally stays put. For anyone curious about their sleep patterns—or dealing with sleep issues—it’s a solid tool to have on hand.

Out of curiosity, I compared sleep stats from the Muse S Athena with those from the Garmin Forerunner 955 on my wrist. The results were actually quite close. In the example above, Muse recorded a total time in bed of 8 hours and 22 minutes—just 6 minutes more than Garmin.

What really caught my attention was how closely the REM and deep sleep figures matched up, with only a few minutes difference between them. I did not expect that. The larger difference came in the light sleep and awake time categories. Muse seemed more sensitive here and did a much better job pinpointing when I was actually awake versus just in light sleep. I listen to podcasts at night and tend to have a low heart rate, which can throw off wrist-based trackers. But Muse handled this much better and felt more accurate in detecting true sleep.

Digital Sleep Pill uses smart fade technology

The Digital Sleep Pill is still here. It builds on the Go-to-Sleep Journeys with a more intelligent system that uses smart fade technology. The idea is that it not only fades out sound once you fall asleep, but it can also detect if you’ve woken up during the night. When that happens, it gently fades the audio back in—whether that’s a sleep story, ambient soundscape, or guided meditation, depending on your settings.

You can customise how long the fade lasts, the volume, and other small details. In practice, it’s a strange but interesting experience. If you’re a light sleeper or taking a nap, the audio can feel like it’s blending with your dreams. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether you’re awake or still drifting. It’s the kind of feature that could be genuinely useful for people who struggle with falling—or staying—asleep.

A final word on safety

Safety deserves a quick mention. It’s good to be cautious with any tech that involves sensors on the head.

Muse S Athena uses passive sensors—EEG and fNIRS. That means it’s not sending any electrical current into your brain. EEG just reads the tiny voltages naturally produced by your brain’s activity. fNIRS uses low-intensity infrared light, which is non-ionizing, to measure blood oxygenation in your prefrontal cortex. Neither of these technologies is inherently dangerous. They’re also used in clinical and research settings with tight safety regulations.

So there’s no obvious reason to expect harm. Still, it’s worth being mindful of any physical discomfort, avoiding overuse, and taking breaks if you notice skin irritation or sensitivity.

Those ready to dive in can pick up the Muse S Athena for $474.99 from the choosemuse.com website. To save 15%, use code “gadgetsandwearables” at check-out.

The post Muse S Athena review: Tracking brain states, sleep and now effort appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.