The watch is also being called the Moto Watch 27 in some markets. It succeeds the original Moto Watch Fit from 2025 and keeps the same lightweight, rectangular design.

Polar gives the Fit more depth

Motorola has been expanding its use of Polar technology across its smartwatch range. The two companies announced their partnership earlier this year, and Polar’s algorithms later appeared on other Moto watches.

The Fit 27 now gets a much broader set of those tools. Nightly Recharge measures overnight recovery using sleep and autonomic nervous system data, while Sleep Plus Stages handles sleep tracking and staging.

Running Index is also included. This estimates aerobic running performance using heart rate and pace data, giving runners a way to track changes in fitness over time without relying only on VO2 max.

Active Intensity Zones show how much time is spent at different effort levels during exercise. Energy Sources estimates the proportion of carbohydrate, fat and protein used during a workout. Smart Calories, Daily Activity Goal and Daily Activity Score are included as well.

That is a noticeable step up from the first Moto Watch Fit. That one focused mainly on basic heart rate, SpO2, sleep, stress and workout tracking.

Better GPS and a brighter screen

The Fit 27 uses a 1.85-inch gOLED display with a peak brightness of 1,500 nits. The previous model had a slightly larger 1.9-inch screen but topped out at 1,000 nits, so the new panel should be easier to read outdoors.

Gorilla Glass 3 protects the display. The watch also keeps 5ATM water resistance and an IP68 rating.

Dual-frequency GPS is also part of the package. The original Fit already had built-in GPS, but the new positioning tech should improve accuracy.

Motorola has also added a microphone and speaker. That means users can make and receive Bluetooth calls from the wrist when the watch is connected to a phone.

Qira support is coming later. Motorola says its AI assistant will work from the watch when paired with a compatible Motorola phone, allowing users to trigger it by voice.

Battery life drops to 12 days

Battery life is actually lower than before. Motorola rates the Moto Watch Fit 27 for up to 12 days between charges, compared with up to 16 days for the original Moto Watch Fit.

Twelve days is still a strong figure for a smartwatch. Motorola continues to use its lighter RTOS platform on the Fit rather than Wear OS, which helps keep battery life well above most full smartwatch platforms.

The Moto Watch Fit 27 will start at €119. Motorola says it will roll out across selected markets in Europe, North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific in the coming weeks.

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If you have been wondering how long Garmin plans to keep MIP around, we finally have a decent answer. The company is not promising to keep it forever, but it is also not ready to dump it.

Speaking to TechRadar, Garmin COO Brad Trenkle said the biggest reason to keep MIP is still battery life. AMOLED has closed a lot of the gap over the past few generations, but not enough for Garmin to treat the two display technologies as interchangeable.

Other media have interpreted that as MIP going away. But Trenkle said the battery gap between OLED and MIP is closing, but “has not completely converged,” and that “until it does” Garmin does not think MIP will completely go away.

MIP still earns its place

You can see the logic in Garmin’s current lineup. AMOLED is everywhere now, including models that once would almost certainly have used MIP. But Garmin still keeps the older display technology around where endurance matters more.

The Enduro 4 is probably the clearest example. It sticks with a MIP solar display and can run for up to 36 days in smartwatch mode, or as much as 90 days with enough solar exposure.

AMOLED Garmin watches are hardly struggling, though. Battery life has improved massively, particularly on the larger Fenix models, and for plenty of people the difference is already small enough that they would happily take the brighter display.

But Garmin is looking at the extremes. Someone heading out for a long expedition or spending days tracking GPS activities has a very different definition of “good enough” battery life from someone who charges every couple of weeks.

MIP also behaves differently outdoors. It reflects ambient light rather than fighting against it, so bright sunshine actually helps visibility instead of forcing the display to pump out more light. That combination still gives Garmin a reason to keep it around.

Garmin users were worried about this

Garmin users have been asking where MIP fits into the company’s future for a while now, especially as AMOLED keeps spreading across the lineup. Earlier this year, we covered a poll of more than 1,100 Garmin users asking what they would do if Garmin stopped making MIP watches. Roughly a third said they would move to another brand, while another group said they would rather keep buying older MIP models.

That is a pretty strong reaction to a display technology. But for those users, MIP is tied to the whole reason they bought a Garmin in the first place: long battery life, an always-visible screen and excellent outdoor readability.

Trenkle’s comments should calm some of those worries. Garmin is clearly not keeping MIP around simply because a few long-time users like it. It still sees a practical advantage.

The more interesting part is what happens when that advantage disappears. Garmin is effectively saying that MIP stays while it continues to offer something AMOLED cannot quite match.

Solar could be the next piece

There is another part of Trenkle’s interview that caught our attention. He was asked whether solar charging could eventually work with AMOLED, which could remove another reason Garmin currently keeps MIP around.

Trenkle pointed to the different solar technologies Garmin already uses. In particular, crystalline silicon can sit around the edge of the display rather than over the active screen area, avoiding the hit to image quality that comes from putting a solar layer directly on top.

That is interesting because Garmin has already been working on this problem. Last year we covered a Garmin patent designed to combine solar charging with AMOLED, using a different approach that could create tiny photovoltaic areas without blocking the display underneath.

None of this means Garmin has a solar AMOLED Fenix ready to go. Trenkle was talking about what is technically possible, not teasing a new watch.

But put the pieces together and the direction is fairly easy to see. AMOLED keeps getting more efficient, Garmin is experimenting with ways to add solar, and MIP’s biggest advantages are slowly being chipped away.

The post Garmin says MIP is not going away, at least not yet appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

Polar wants to measure more than heart rate

US 2026/0345076 A1 is one of the more interesting Polar patents we’ve come across recently. The patch would sit between the watch and the skin, while an opening in the middle allows the normal optical heart rate sensor to keep working.

The patent specifically mentions glucose, lactate and cortisol. Polar links glucose with energy consumption and nutritional state, lactate with exercise intensity, and cortisol with recovery.

The system uses surface plasmon resonance, or SPR. Different sensing elements on the patch could be designed to detect different substances, meaning one part could look for glucose while another measures lactate or cortisol.

The patch could contain several sensing elements for the same substance as well. The watch would keep track of which ones had already been used and alert the wearer when the patch needed replacing.

Polar has explored other unusual sensing ideas before. We previously covered a Polar patent that combined heart rate monitoring with abdominal fat measurements. But that one has not seen the light of day yet so remains in concept stage.

The watch could even trigger sweat production

There is one practical problem with analysing sweat. Sometimes there isn’t enough of it.

Polar addresses that in the patent as well. One version of the patch includes an electrically activated element containing pilocarpine, which can stimulate local sweat production.

The watch could first determine whether enough sweat was present. If not, it could activate the element and generate enough sweat underneath the device to take a measurement.

That means the device could poentionally allow for measurements outside hard exercise. The system would not necessarily have to wait until the wearer was already sweating heavily.

This is not a normal glucose monitor

It is important not to confuse this with a conventional continuous glucose monitor. Polar is talking about measuring substances in sweat, not directly measuring glucose in blood or interstitial fluid.

That still leaves plenty of potential value for sports use. Lactate and cortisol, in particular, fit with Polar’s existing focus on training intensity and recovery, while glucose could provide another signal around energy use.

The concept is unusually detailed for a wearable patent. Polar has worked through how the patch could fit underneath an existing sports watch, how optical heart rate measurements could continue, how the biochemical sensors could be replaced and even how the system could produce sweat when needed.

Whether it ever reaches a commercial Polar watch is another matter. But glucose, lactate and cortisol sensing from a replaceable patch is certainly more interesting than another algorithm trying to squeeze a new score out of the same old heart rate data.

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The idea is fairly simple. Garmin already knows where a cyclist is during a LiveTrack session, and the new integration appears designed to pass that location to Waze so nearby drivers can see that someone is riding ahead.

Garmin is building a Waze sharing feature

Garmin Connect 5.31 includes references to “Share Location with Waze”, “Share your rides with Waze” and “Waze Location Sharing”. There is also a dedicated consent flow and onboarding material for the feature.

The clearest wording says that when location sharing is enabled during a cycling activity, the rider’s LiveTrack position can be shown to people using Waze. Another string tells cyclists that drivers using Waze will be able to see their location.

That makes this more than a basic link between two apps. Garmin appears to be preparing a system where live cycling location data is sent into Waze while the ride is taking place.

LiveTrack already lets friends and family follow a Garmin user’s activity in real time. Depending on the setup, they can see the rider’s current position as well as information from the activity.

Waze sharing would use that location data in a different way. Rather than showing it only to someone who has received a LiveTrack link, Garmin could make the cyclist visible to drivers who are actually approaching them on the road.

The dedicated consent process also suggests this will be optional. That would be important because sharing a location with nearby motorists is quite different from sending a private LiveTrack link to a friend or family member.

Our takeaway

Waze is Google’s navigation app and focuses heavily on live information from the road. Drivers can already see things such as crashes, stopped vehicles, road closures and hazards while navigating.

A cyclist marker would fit naturally into that system. A driver approaching from behind could potentially see that a cyclist is ahead before actually reaching them, which could be useful on narrow roads, around bends or in poor visibility.

The useful part is that the driver would not need a Garmin device. Garmin would provide the cyclist’s location, while Waze would display that information to motorists using its app.

There are still some important unknowns. The app does not reveal which Garmin devices will support Waze sharing, whether Garmin Connect+ will be required, or whether the feature will initially be limited to certain countries.

It is also unclear what drivers will actually see. Waze could display a cyclist icon, a warning that a rider is ahead, or something that updates continuously as the cyclist moves.

APK teardown note

This article is based on an APK teardown. Code found inside an app can reveal features or devices that are under development, but there is no guarantee they will appear in a future public release.

The post Garmin is preparing to put cyclists on Waze maps appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

Impressive stats

Crippa completed the New York City Marathon in 2:06:14, averaging 2:57 per kilometre along the way. The figure that immediately jumps out is the average heart rate. Maintaining 2:57/km for a full marathon while averaging 151 bpm sounds very restrained, particularly when viewed through the lens of the heart-rate numbers most recreational runners see at much slower speeds.

Of course, 151 bpm does not mean the same thing for everyone. We do not know Crippa’s true maximum heart rate from these graphics, nor do we have his lactate threshold heart rate or his individual training zones. That makes it impossible to turn 151 bpm into a precise percentage of race intensity.

Zepp Health does give us a maximum recorded value of 171 bpm during the marathon. That means his average was around 88% of the highest value recorded during the race, although 171 bpm should not be confused with his actual physiological maximum.

The heart-rate graph is interesting as well. Rather than showing Crippa sitting at one huge number for two hours, it moves considerably throughout the race, with several obvious rises and falls before climbing again later on. Without the underlying data or course markers it is difficult to attach those movements to specific sections of the race, but it gives a much better picture than a simple finishing time.

His cadence is just as impressive

The other number worth looking at is 191 steps per minute. That is Crippa’s average cadence across the marathon.

Put pace and cadence together and the difference between elite marathon running and everyday running becomes easier to visualise. Based on those rounded averages, Crippa was covering roughly 1.8 metres with each step while still turning his legs over more than three times every second.

That does not mean recreational runners should go out and try to force their cadence to 191. Cadence depends on speed, leg length, running mechanics and the individual athlete. Crippa’s number is useful because it shows what happens when a very high turnover is combined with the stride length required to hold sub-three-minute kilometre pace.

If that wasn’t impressive enough, we dug up some stats on a “shakeout” 18km run he did only a few days before the marathon. Average pace 3:53, average heart rate 133 bpm. Insane figures.

So now you know what it takes to finish near the front of a major marathon. The rest of us can go back to feeling pleased about closing our rings.

The post What a 2:06 New York Marathon looks like in heart rate and cadence appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

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

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

Battery life is on another level with the X3

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

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

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

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

The X2 is much better if you want the actual ECG

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

Frontier X3

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View Frontier X3

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

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

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

The screen has disappeared

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

Frontier X3

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View Frontier X3

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

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

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

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

I recently reviewed the device and found the hardware more interesting than the software around it. The new update now looks like Speediance is starting to make better use of some of those sensors.

EDA stress monitoring gets more attention

EDA stands for electrodermal activity. The sensor measures small changes in the electrical properties of the skin, which can reflect changes in sweat gland activity and, indirectly, physiological stress.

In my testing, the device was already producing minute-by-minute Stress Score data. But this does not appear to have made use of EDA data. That is notable because the EDA sensor is one of the clearer hardware differences between the Strap Pro and the non-Pro version.

It also helps separate the device from some of the other screenless trackers on the market, such as WHOOP, Garmin CIRQA and Fitbit Air. Most of these bands already cover heart rate, HRV, sleep and activity fairly well, but they do not include an EDA sensor.

Another feature separating the Speediance Strap Pro from most rivals is its core body temperature estimate. Speediance uses this for features such as Peak Window, Warm-Up Readiness and Heat Load Monitoring, giving the gadget a couple of physiological metrics that you simply do not get from most screenless trackers.

Automatic workout recognition also improves

The new firmware also brings improvements to automatic workout recognition. This was an area that could still use some polishing when I tested the Strap Pro. The band can automatically recognise activity, but the overall experience did not always feel as mature as the underlying sensor hardware.

Speediance recommends using app version 4.23.00 or later with the new firmware. The update is rolling out through the Speediance app now.

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Almgren won in 2:06:01 on his marathon debut, with Crippa finishing in 2:06:14. That alone makes their choice of hardware worth a closer look.

2026 New York City Marathon

Men’s top 5 finishers

Place	Runner	Country	Time
1	Andreas Almgren	Sweden	2:06:01
2	Yemaneberhan Crippa	Italy	2:06:14
3	Kamohelo Mofolo	Lesotho	2:06:26
4	Benson Kipruto	Kenya	2:06:27
5	Haftu Strintzos	Australia	2:06:34

Just 33 seconds separated the first five finishers.

Almgren runs with the COROS PACE 4

Almgren is an unusual marathon winner because he started his career much further down the distance scale. The Swede was once a 1:45 800 metre runner before gradually moving up through the 5,000 metres, 10,000 metres and half marathon.

New York was his first attempt at the full marathon distance. He stayed with the leading group before making his move late in the race and pulling away from Crippa near the finish.

Almgren uses the COROS PACE 4, often paired with the company’s optical Heart Rate Monitor worn on the upper arm. He is particularly interested in training data, which perhaps is not surprising given that he also has a background in mathematics.

The PACE 4 is one of COROS’s more focused running watches. It weighs just 32 grams with its nylon strap and uses a 1.2-inch AMOLED display, while battery life stretches to around 41 hours with GPS enabled.

It is also relatively inexpensive at $249. That is notable when plenty of modern sports watches now cost two or three times as much. So don’t make the mistake of thinking the watch with the most bells and whistles will help you improve on your marathon time.

Crippa uses the Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro

Crippa, on the other hand, came into New York with rather more marathon experience. The Italian won the Paris Marathon earlier this year in 2:05:18 and has also won European titles over 10,000 metres and the half marathon.

His New York preparation included some huge training volumes, reportedly reaching around 200 km per week. The Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro has been part of that training setup and was also on his wrist when he won in Paris.

The recently launched Cheetah 2 Pro takes a different approach from the PACE 4. At 45.6 grams without the strap it is still light by sports-watch standards, but it packs in considerably more hardware.

There is a 1.32-inch AMOLED display with sapphire glass, a Grade 5 titanium frame, dual-band GPS, offline maps and 32GB of storage. Amazfit quotes up to 31 hours of battery life in its most accurate GPS mode and up to 20 days in typical daily use.

The price is also considerably higher at $449.99. That puts it closer to premium running watches.

Two different approaches to the same job

What stands out here is not simply that COROS and Amazfit finished first and second. The two watches represent quite different approaches to building a serious running watch.

The PACE 4 keeps things light, relatively inexpensive and heavily focused on training. The Cheetah 2 Pro adds premium materials, maps and considerably more storage while remaining reasonably light on the wrist.

Neither runner needed one of the giant flagship adventure watches that now dominate the top end of the market. After 42.2 km through New York, their respective timepieces were attached to the two fastest men in the race, separated by only a few seconds.

The post The running watches behind New York Marathon’s top two men appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

The HR264 now appears to have a proper name

When we first covered the HR 264 earlier this month, regulatory filings only identified it as a heart-rate monitor. The design strongly suggested something more interesting, though, with a compact screenless module, optical sensors and fabric straps that looked much closer to the new generation of screen-free fitness trackers.

The new photos seen by Gadgets & Wearables add an important detail. The rear of the device is marked “SUUNTO FLEX BAND” alongside HR264. We are not publishing the photos themselves because of potential copyright issues.

But the photos provide a much clearer look at the hardware. There is an optical sensor array on the underside, four charging contacts and a dedicated charging puck connected to USB-C, while the device itself sits inside a soft fabric band. No physical buttons that we could spot.

Another black fabric strap is shown separately, suggesting Suunto will offer at least different strap configurations or sizes. The front is about as minimal as it gets, with a plain dark surface, a small Suunto logo at the bottom and no display.

That keeps the Whoop comparison very much alive. It also puts the Flex Band into the same broader category as devices such as the Fitbit Air, Polar Loop and Garmin’s screenless CIRQA, all of which we cover in our screenless fitness tracker comparison.

€179 would make things interesting

The €179 price is only coming from our source at this stage, but it feels plausible for this type of product. It would position the Flex Band well above the cheapest screenless trackers while keeping it in roughly the same part of the market as more training-focused devices.

The price also suggests Suunto may see this as more than an accessory for one of its watches. A basic optical heart-rate strap at that price would be a harder sell, while a device tracking activity, sleep, recovery and training throughout the day would make considerably more sense.

The big unknown is what buyers actually get for that money. Suunto has been building more recovery and coaching features into its ecosystem, including the new Suunto AI Coach, so a screenless device capable of collecting continuous data could slot nicely into that strategy.

A launch may not be far away

The Flex Band is reportedly coming toward the end of Q4, which would point to November or December. An end-of-year launch would fit with how quickly HR264 has been moving through regulatory approvals.

The device has already appeared in several markets, including South Korea, Singapore and the UAE. Regulatory approval never guarantees an immediate release, but with what now appears to be production hardware carrying the Flex Band name, Suunto looks to be getting pretty close to launch.

The post Suunto’s screenless Flex Band may arrive this year for €179 appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

HybridCharge finally arrives on the Helio Ring

Most of the recent crop of Amazfit watches have transitioned from Readiness to HybridCharge. The Helio Ring now joins them. Once the firmware is installed, users should see the new status graphs inside the Zepp app rather than relying on the older Readiness setup.

We have covered the wider HybridCharge rollout before. This is essentially Zepp Health’s newer way of looking at how ready you are for training and everyday activity. It combines BioCharge with Training Load and LifeLoad, so the score can take into account recovery, exercise and some of the things happening outside training as well.

That makes the Helio Ring a particularly logical place for it. The Ring spends most of its time collecting exactly the kind of background health and recovery data that HybridCharge needs.

Health tracking is getting more aggressive too

There are a couple of smaller changes in firmware 2.9.0.1. Automatic heart rate monitoring is now enabled by default, with the minimum measurement interval set to 10 minutes.

Automatic stress monitoring is also switched on by default. More interestingly, the Ring can now take stress measurements every five minutes, giving the Zepp app considerably more data to work with throughout the day.

That raises an obvious battery question. More frequent measurements usually come with some power cost, and the Helio Ring already has a much smaller battery than a smartwatch, so it will be interesting to see whether users notice any change in real-world longevity after installing the update.

The Helio Ring is still getting some attention

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this update is simply that it exists. Zepp Health has put a lot more visible effort into the Helio Strap family lately, while the original Ring has largely disappeared from the conversation.

The last major Helio Ring firmware update we covered arrived back in January. Version 2.7.0.2 focused on sleep tracking, heart rate accuracy and overnight battery behaviour, so owners have had a fairly long wait for something substantial.

Firmware 2.9.0.1 is rolling out gradually, so it may not show up for everyone immediately. If you own a Helio Ring, it is worth checking the System Update section in the Zepp app over the next few days.

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