What’s strange about this is that the watches still show software version 17.05. Garmin released that version back in January, so there is no obvious new Vivoactive 5 firmware that should have installed at the start of November.

Some watches are barely making it through the day

The first reports describe a fairly dramatic change. One Vivoactive 5 owner says the watch restarted as though it were installing an update on November 1, then dropped below 10% battery in around 12 hours.

Other owners have since reported similar behaviour. One watch fell to 4% in less than 24 hours, while another now lasts no more than 36 hours. A separate owner saw the battery drop by 14% within an hour of charging and then fall to 53% overnight. Before this started, the same watches were generally lasting several days between charges.

That is nowhere near the battery life normally associated with the device. Garmin rates the Vivoactive 5 for up to 11 days in smartwatch mode, or up to five days when using the always-on display.

The reports do not look like a simple case of someone switching on Pulse Ox or installing a battery-hungry watch face. Most affected owners say their settings had not changed.

The update itself is still a mystery

Garmin’s current Vivoactive 5 software page lists version 17.05 as the latest release. The company also confirmed in its support forum that 17.05 arrived on January 27, 2026, and nothing since then.

But several owners report that some sort of installation was done on their watch around a week ago. The watches may instead have received a supplemental component, attempted to reinstall an existing package or become stuck processing something in the background.

There is at least one clue pointing in that direction. An affected owner connected the watch to a computer and found an old file named D944502.zip sitting inside the Garmin/RemoteSW folder. After removing it, resetting the watch and charging it again, battery use reportedly returned to around 6% over 24 hours.

Garmin has replied to the latest reports, although it has not yet acknowledged a wider software problem. Its current recommendation is to connect the watch to Garmin Express and check for any supplemental updates that may not appear through the watch or Garmin Connect.

That is the sensible place to start. It may allow Garmin Express to finish or remove an incomplete package without the owner having to dig through the watch’s folders manually. A forced restart and a full uninterrupted charge are also worth trying. But for now, there is no single confirmed fix.

The post Garmin Vivoactive 5 owners hit by unexplained battery drain appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

The watch has the score, Connect does not

Reports started appearing this week from owners of several Garmin devices, including the Fenix 8, Enduro 3, Forerunner 955 and Forerunner 970. Users say their morning Training Readiness appears correctly on the watch, while Garmin Connect either shows no score at all or claims there is insufficient data. Other information such as sleep, HRV, Body Battery and activities continues to sync normally.

One Fenix 8 owner went a step further and pulled the metrics FIT file directly from the watch after getting a morning Training Readiness score of 87. The file was then sent through Garmin Express, which returned a duplicate-file response, suggesting Garmin’s servers had already received it. The data appears to be arriving, but for some reason it is not being turned into a Training Readiness entry.

Garmin Connect 5.31 is the common thread

A number of affected users point to Garmin Connect 5.31 as the point when the problem started. One Enduro 3 owner says everything worked normally before updating, while an iOS Forerunner 970 user also suspects the latest Connect version. Garmin Connect 5.31 arrived earlier this week and is already listed in our firmware and software update tracker.

That does not prove 5.31 caused the bug. The interesting part is that reports span Android and iOS and involve several different watch families, which makes a single-watch firmware problem look less likely.

Garmin has had its share of software cleanup lately. We recently covered the Fenix 8 heart-rate failure and subsequent 23.40 fix, although this new issue is quite different because the underlying metric still appears to be calculated properly on the device.

Garmin is investigating and there is a temporary workaround

Garmin has now acknowledged the reports on its support forum. A company representative said the concern is being looked into and asked affected users to check Garmin Connect Web as well as the mobile app.

There is also a slightly ridiculous workaround. Several users say Training Readiness suddenly appears after they record and save an activity, even though the score had been missing all morning. In other words, going for a run may currently be one way of convincing Garmin Connect that you were ready to go for a run. Reinstalling Garmin Connect has also been tried, but the results look less convincing.

For now, the sensible move is to trust the score shown on the watch and wait for Garmin to sort out the Connect side. The fact that Garmin is already investigating is encouraging.

The post Garmin Connect 5.31 users report missing Training Readiness appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

Garmin has already seen the pressure

The memory market is getting uncomfortable for consumer electronics companies. AI servers need huge amounts of high-performance memory, suppliers are prioritising that business, and conventional DRAM and NAND prices are rising as a result.

During its latest earnings call, Garmin said it had been partly protected by memory inventory bought earlier at lower prices. That buffer is now being used up, which means newer and more expensive components will increasingly work their way into costs.

Interestingly, Garmin’s launch prices this year do not yet show a broad jump. Across the watch families we checked, the average starting price rose from around $673 in 2025 to about $1,000 in 2026, but that figure is heavily distorted by the $2,500 MARQ Gen 3 and $1,600 tactix 8 Cerakote Edition.

Take those two premium outliers away and the 2026 average drops to about $700, only around 4% higher than last year. So Garmin has certainly pushed further into premium territory, but there is not much evidence yet of a general price rise across the range.

Apple is facing the same underlying problem on a much larger scale. John Ternus recently called current memory pricing “unprecedented” and said Apple expects the prices it pays for memory to keep rising beyond the December quarter.

Memory prices are still climbing

The latest forecasts show why manufacturers are paying attention. TrendForce expects conventional DRAM contract prices to rise another 10 to 15% quarter-on-quarter in Q4 2026, while NAND Flash prices are forecast to increase by 15 to 20%.

Those figures should not be confused with retail price increases. A 15% rise in memory prices does not make a smartwatch 15% more expensive because memory represents only one part of the total bill of materials.

Still, the direction is important when companies are building millions of devices. IDC has already identified wearables among the consumer-electronics categories likely to feel the effects of the wider memory shortage, particularly if tight supply continues well into 2027.

So what can we expect in 2027?

An obvious response could be higher retail prices, particularly on premium smartwatches where manufacturers have more room to absorb or pass on additional costs. That does not mean every Apple Watch, Garmin or Galaxy Watch will suddenly cost more next year, but the pressure is clearly moving in that direction.

There are other more nuanced ways manufacturers can respond. A company could keep the same launch price while making a smaller hardware jump, such as leaving storage unchanged for another generation instead of doubling it.

Discounting could also become less generous. A watch could launch at the same official price as its predecessor but spend less time being sold at 15 or 20% below retail, effectively increasing what many buyers actually pay.

Smart glasses may be even more exposed as cameras, video recording, local AI and larger storage capacities become more common. The BleeqUp Rover I recently reviewed carries 64GB of onboard storage, which puts it much closer to a small computing device than a traditional fitness tracker.

Simpler wearables sit at the other end of the scale. Smart rings and screenless fitness trackers generally need far less memory, although cheaper products also have less margin available to absorb even modest component increases.

Nobody really knows yet how much of this will end up on the price tag. But if memory stays expensive, 2027 could be less about one big wave of price hikes and more about pricier models here and there, smaller storage upgrades and fewer really good discounts.

The post Higher memory costs and what this means for your next Garmin or Apple Watch appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

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.

The post Moto Watch Fit 2 gets Polar tracking but loses some battery life appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

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.

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.

The post Speediance Strap Pro gets EDA stress monitoring appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

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.