The watch can escalate the response

Honor describes a four-level response system rather than a simple low-heart-rate warning. The Watch 6 Pro continuously assesses signals in the background, with Honor saying the initial dynamic assessment takes around 1.5 to 3 seconds. If the suspected cardiac arrest condition continues beyond three seconds, the watch moves to a strong vibration warning. 

Things become more interesting at the highest risk level. Honor says the watch can start calling emergency contacts, show AED resuscitation instructions across the display and send a request for help to people nearby. The idea is that the watch keeps trying to attract assistance even if the wearer cannot respond or call for help themselves.

That is a different approach from the usual abnormal heart-rate notification. Honor had already explored cardiac risk features on devices such as the Honor Watch GS 5, but the Watch 6 Pro pushes the concept further.

There are some important caveats. Honor says users need to join its cardiac arrest warning research programme to use the feature. And for now, this is only a China launch, so there is no reason to assume the same cardiac functions would be available internationally.

Blood pressure is another big part of the watch

The Watch 6 Pro also introduces what Honor calls Blood Pressure 2.0. The system uses its optical sensing hardware to estimate readings, so this is not a watch with an inflatable cuff.

Honor says the software can now provide AI-based interpretation and look at blood pressure alongside activity, sleep patterns and emotional state. But, this feature is tied to Honor’s health research programme and should not be confused with a conventional medical blood pressure monitor.

This is a sizeable step up from the standard Honor Watch 6 we reviewed earlier this year. That watch handled everyday heart rate, blood oxygen, sleep and fitness tracking well, but lacked ECG and the more ambitious cardiovascular features Honor is now putting into the Pro model.

Honor has changed the display as well

Health tracking is getting most of the attention, but Honor has made some unusual hardware choices too. The Watch 6 Pro has a 1.5-inch dual-layer OLED display, which Honor claims is a first for a wearable, with global excitation brightness reaching a whopping 4,500 nits, and up to 5,500 nits of local peak brightness!

Battery life is rated at up to 18 days under lighter use, around 10 days with typical use and seven days with the always-on display enabled. Turning on the full health-monitoring mode cuts that figure to around four days. 

Pricing starts at CNY 1,699 (around 250 USD) in China. The company is offering steel and nano-microcrystalline ceramic versions. Honor has not announced an international release, so there is no European or US price yet. 

Source: HONOR

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The deadline appears to have moved

Back in June, a Google Health Community specialist said September 30, 2026 was the exact date when the Fitbit Web API would be fully decommissioned and disabled. Existing authorisations and refresh tokens were also expected to stop working at that point.

But a developer posted on Google’s support forum on September 24 saying they had received a new email from Google. According to the message, Google is “extending the user migration deadline to October 30, 2026,” while official developer support for the legacy Fitbit API will still end on September 30. 

That suggests Google may now be separating two deadlines. Developer support would end on September 30, but existing Fitbit API connections could keep working until October 30 while users complete the migration.

Google’s own documentation still says September

Google’s main developer page still says the legacy Fitbit Web API will be turned down in September 2026 and tells developers to migrate before then. It does not currently mention the reported October 30 extension. So this is all yet to be confirmed.

There is some support for the later date elsewhere. MyDataHelps, which provides health-data tools used in research projects, has updated its own migration guidance to say the Fitbit API will shut down on October 30.

So October 30 increasingly looks like the new cutoff, but Google’s public-facing documentation remains inconsistent. With September 30 almost here, that is likely to leave some developers wondering exactly what will stop working this week.

Users still have to reconnect

Moving from the Fitbit Web API to Google Health is not something developers can handle entirely in the background. Google uses a different OAuth system for the new API, so existing Fitbit access and refresh tokens cannot simply move across.

Users therefore need to authorise the connection again. Google’s migration guide recommends temporarily supporting both systems, keeping existing users on the Fitbit API until they complete the new Google Health consent process. 

That makes an extra month useful. Developers may already have moved their apps to Google Health technically, but some users will not have opened the app, seen the migration notice or reconnected their Fitbit account yet.

The switch is part of Google’s wider move away from the old Fitbit software platform. The company has rebuilt the API around Google infrastructure and Google OAuth, while retaining access to data from Fitbit devices and Pixel Watches.

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The original UnaliWear complaint was all about smartwatch fall detection. The USITC opened an investigation in January 2026 after the company claimed that watches from Apple, Google, Samsung and Garmin infringed two of its patents.

Not an extension

The latest complaint is a separate action filed on September 21 under docket DN 3937. Samsung, Google and Garmin are back on the list, but Apple is nowhere to be seen this time.

There is another notable difference. The US International Trade Commission’s receipt notice describes the new case as covering “wearable activity and health monitoring devices and systems containing same,” which sounds much broader than the fall-detection wording used in the first investigation.

UnaliWear wants import restrictions and cease-and-desist orders covering products it believes infringe its intellectual property. Unfortunately, the Federal Register notice published on September 24 does not identify the patents, patent claims or products involved. And the USITC has not yet decided whether to open a formal investigation.

Apple’s absence is the interesting part

The first case cast a wider net. That investigation focuses on electronic watches capable of detecting when a wearer has fallen. The official institution notice identifies US patents 10,051,410 and 10,687,193, while the case remains pending before an administrative law judge. 

This time, Apple has disappeared from the respondent list. The omission could mean the new allegations concern technology or products that differ from Apple’s implementation, or it could reflect a separate legal strategy, but the public notices do not provide enough evidence to choose between those explanations.

It is possible the new dispute extends beyond fall detection. But we do not know for sure. Until the public complaint reveals the asserted patents and accused features, the broader title remains a clue rather than a conclusion.

No wearable faces a ban yet

Import-ban language tends to make these cases sound more immediate than they are. The Commission must first decide whether to institute an investigation, and any case it opens would then move through evidence, claim interpretation and an initial determination before reaching a possible remedy.

There is also no confirmed product list. Garmin recently completed its Venu 4 fall-detection rollout, but nothing in the new notice connects the Venu 4, its version 18.30 update or any other named Garmin device to DN 3937.

The same caution applies to Google and Samsung. Their presence in the complaint makes the filing relevant to Pixel Watch and Galaxy Watch owners, but it does not establish that every watch, or any specific watch, uses the technology UnaliWear says infringes its rights.

The next real update to this story will come when the USITC decides if it will formally institute an investigation. Hopefully then it will publish enough detail to identify the patents, products and health features at the centre of the dispute.

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Seven coordinate formats are now available

The new setting sits under Settings > Preferences > Coordinates. Owners running firmware 6.4.16 are reporting seven choices: decimal degrees, degrees and decimal minutes, degrees/minutes/seconds, MGRS, UTM, British Grid and Japan Grid. 

That makes the Cheetah 2 Ultra considerably more useful alongside conventional maps. UTM is widely used on topographic maps because it gives you a grid reference rather than forcing you to work with latitude and longitude, while MGRS provides another grid-based option for users who already work with that system.

British Grid should be particularly handy for people using Ordnance Survey maps in Great Britain. Japan Grid does the same sort of job for compatible Japanese mapping, so Zepp Health has gone beyond simply adding UTM and calling it a day.

Cheetah 2 Ultra navigation keeps getting better

This is not the first navigation upgrade the watch has received since launch. An earlier firmware release added remaining distance, ascent and descent to the next waypoint and final destination, alongside GPS improvements under tree cover. 

Zepp OS 6 then brought route previews and more mapping changes to the watch. That release also expanded the map scale options and continued pushing the Cheetah 2 Ultra further toward proper outdoor navigation. 

Adding proper coordinate formats fits that positioning much better than another general smartwatch feature would. It is the sort of thing most users will ignore, but for hikers, trail runners and anyone using a watch alongside printed maps, it fills a real gap.

One obvious piece is still missing

The strange part is that coordinates still cannot be added as a normal workout data field. Owners can view them from the map screen, but they cannot keep their current coordinates visible alongside fields such as elapsed time, distance or elevation.

That makes the new formats slightly more awkward to use than they need to be. If you are navigating with a paper map, having UTM or MGRS permanently visible on a workout page would be much quicker than switching back to the map whenever you want to check your position.

Waypoint management also remains fairly basic. The same firmware adds more waypoint icons, but users report that saved waypoints still cannot be renamed, while courses and waypoints cannot be sorted alphabetically or by distance. 

For now, though, firmware 6.4.16 gives the Cheetah 2 Ultra a noticeably better coordinate system. It is a useful step for anyone relying on the watch for outdoor navigation.

Sources: Zepp Health via Reddit

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The comment came from Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO He Gang during a recruitment event at Peking University. He said Huawei plans to release the device and that the technology behind it took four years to get to a point the company considered acceptable and ready for industrialisation.

That is about as close as Huawei has come to saying something new is actually on the way. The problem is that He Gang stopped there, so we still don’t know what the device looks like, how it works or whether it is even something you wear on your wrist.

Non-invasive glucose monitoring?

The obvious guess is that Huawei is working on some kind of non-invasive glucose monitoring. We already have finger-prick meters and invasive continuous glucose monitors, so it would be a bit strange to spend four years on research just to come up with another version of something that already exists.

Huawei still hasn’t actually said that, though. Gang didn’t explain how the technology works, whether it tracks glucose continuously or even whether the device sits on the wrist. But reading between the lines, non-invasive sensing looks like the most likely direction.

A wearable also feels like the obvious fit. Huawei has been pushing harder into health features for years, and the latest Watch D3 already uses a tiny inflatable airbag in the strap to take proper oscillometric blood pressure readings.

So Huawei clearly isn’t afraid of building unusual hardware around health tracking. Whether this blood sugar device ends up as a watch, another type of wearable or something separate is still unknown, but a conventional glucose meter would be the least interesting explanation.

There have been hints before. A report in September 2025 claimed Huawei was developing an advanced blood sugar monitoring wearable for 2026, although that came from a Weibo tipster rather than Huawei itself. At the time there was very little to back it up.

Our takeaway

This week’s comment carries considerably more weight than previous rumours because it comes directly from the head of Huawei’s consumer business. It also changes the wording from something being researched to something Huawei plans to release.

Separately, a few Huawei watches can already assess a user’s risk of elevated blood sugar, but that system doesn’t measure an actual glucose value. The recently launched Watch GT 7 series, for example, supports high blood sugar risk assessment in compatible markets. But again, it isn’t a glucose monitor.

So this is one to keep an eye on. There is still plenty of room between ‘ready for industrialisation’ and a product sitting on a shop shelf. Regulatory approval would also become a major part of the story if Huawei intends to market the device as something that genuinely measures blood glucose.

Sources: IT Home, Huawei Support, Weibo, Huawei Central

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We spotted the Galaxy Watch9 Classic in a Russian regulatory declaration last week. At first glance, the obvious explanation was that Samsung had planned the watch, changed its mind and left the name sitting in some old paperwork.

The timing makes that explanation less tidy. The document was not registered before Samsung unveiled its 2026 watches, it appeared afterwards.

The filing came after the Watch9 launch

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Watch9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra2 on July 22. There was no Galaxy Watch9 Classic, despite the Classic name having already appeared in the wider regulatory trail around Samsung’s smartwatch lineup.

Then, on August 14, a new Russian Declaration of Conformity was registered. The document explicitly lists Galaxy Watch9, Galaxy Watch9 Classic and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 together as smartwatches.

That puts the registration roughly three weeks after Samsung had already shown us its 2026 smartwatch lineup. The timing is what makes this more interesting than a forgotten pre-launch reference.

If the declaration had been registered months before Unpacked, it would be easy enough to dismiss the Watch9 Classic as a product Samsung considered and later cancelled. But someone was still filing paperwork containing that exact name after the Watch9 and Ultra2 were already official.

It could still be a cancelled watch

This does not definitely prove Samsung is preparing a Galaxy Watch9 Classic for release. Regulatory documents can include products that never make it to shops, so the filing alone is not enough to treat the watch as confirmed.

But there is the other possibility is that Samsung never intended the Watch9 Classic to arrive alongside the standard Watch9. A later release would explain why the name remained active in regulatory paperwork without appearing at the July event.

That is why the Galaxy Watch9 Classic remains a product to watch rather than something we can say is definitely coming. The filing gives us the name, but it does not give us a release date or tell us what Samsung intends to do with it.

Samsung’s current lineup does leave an obvious gap, though. The Galaxy Watch9 covers the mainstream end and Ultra2 sits above it, while anyone wanting Samsung’s physical rotating bezel still has to look at the previous-generation Classic.

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We first reported Xiaomi was exploring Apple Watch support back in December 2024. At the time it felt like one of those ideas that would eventually disappear, yet here we are nearly two years later with it actually launching alongside the Xiaomi 18 Pro series.

The feature was introduced alongside the Xiaomi 18 Pro series this week as part of HyperOS 4. Xiaomi’s own compatibility page now spells out exactly how it works, and this goes quite a bit further than simply forwarding the odd notification.

What actually works

Once connected, calls, text messages and app notifications from the Xiaomi phone can appear on the Apple Watch. Xiaomi’s Super Island live activities can also be sent across, while health and exercise information recorded by the Apple Watch can travel in the opposite direction and appear inside the Mi Fitness app.

There is also two-way device finding. A Xiaomi phone can make the Apple Watch ring, while the watch can do the same to the phone, which makes the connection feel more like a proper device pairing than a basic notification workaround.

Xiaomi handles this through its Xiaomi Connect app on the Apple Watch. After installing it, the watch displays a QR code that you scan using the Xiaomi phone, then you grant the relevant permissions on both devices.

The official compatibility requirements are fairly broad. Xiaomi says the phone needs HyperOS 4 or later, while supported Apple hardware includes Apple Watch Series 6 and newer, Apple Watch SE 2 and newer, and every Apple Watch Ultra model running watchOS 11 or later.

You still need an iPhone

There is a pretty big catch, though. This does not turn the Apple Watch into a normal Android smartwatch that you can buy, take out of the box and pair straight to a Xiaomi phone.

Xiaomi explicitly says the Apple Watch must first be paired with an iPhone and activated before it can connect to the Xiaomi handset. So an iPhone is still part of the setup process, even if the Xiaomi phone can take over some of the everyday interaction afterwards.

What the company has done is make the watch considerably more useful after someone moves from iPhone to one of its phones. You could keep an existing Apple Watch rather than immediately replacing it simply because you changed smartphone platform.

Part of a bigger push

Xiaomi has been steadily building bridges to Apple’s ecosystem, with file transfers and connectivity for iPhone, iPad and Mac already in place. The watch was always the toughest piece to crack. Xiaomi’s own watches are still the simpler choice, but they’re not who this is for.

Xiaomi admits some features depend on the specific device. It’s not full independence from the iPhone, but it’s a lot closer than anyone expected two years ago.

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Until now this was a real pain if you trained on a Garmin but lived in Google Health for everything else. The workout would show up fine, yet Cardio Load acted like it never happened. Google Health 5.09 fixes that.

Why Garmin users should care

Plenty of people split things up these days. Garmin does the serious training, while a Fitbit or Pixel Watch handles sleep, passive tracking and the Google side of things. I’ve written before about Fitbit Air working better alongside a Garmin than as a replacement for one.

The trouble was that a hard Garmin run did nothing for your Cardio Load. Pick the “wrong” watch for a session and your numbers looked lower than they should. People had been complaining about it for months. Google said it would pass the feedback on, and now it has actually done something about it.

Heart-rate data is required

There is one important condition. The imported workout needs heart-rate data, because Google uses that information when calculating how much Cardio Load to assign to the session.

For Garmin and Apple Watch workouts, that should not be a hurdle. Both normally record heart rate throughout exercise, although the relevant data still needs to make it through the sync into Google Health.

Google is not importing Garmin’s own Training Load score or Apple’s training metrics. It is taking the workout information it receives and using that data to calculate its own Cardio Load figure.

Which means Garmin’s Training Readiness, recovery metrics and deeper training analysis do not suddenly become Google Health metrics just because the workout has synced across. I saw that difference first-hand when I ran a 5K with Fitbit Air against Garmin. The basic heart-rate and distance figures were very close, but Garmin still provided far more depth once the workout was finished.

What actually syncs

Garmin data gets in via Health Connect on Android or Apple Health on iPhone. That covers workout summaries, heart rate, steps, distance, floors and calories. Garmin’s HRV, VO2 max and detailed lap data still don’t come through.

Apple Watch shares a bit more, including routes, VO2 max and some overnight vitals. For Cardio Load none of that really matters though. If the workout carries heart-rate data, Google can use it.

One odd detail

Google’s support page still says Cardio Load only uses first-party data, which flatly contradicts the 5.09 release notes. The update only started rolling out on September 25, so the help page just hasn’t caught up yet.

Small change, big win if you mix brands. You can train with whatever watch you like and still keep Cardio Load honest.

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A very specific watchOS update

Unusually, the firmware update is only available for the Series 12 and Ultra 4. Apple’s release notes are about as straightforward as they get, saying the update fixes an issue where Apple Watch may restart unexpectedly.

We covered the issue earlier this week. Series 12 and Ultra 4 owners had reported their watches suddenly showing the Apple logo and restarting, sometimes while actively using the watch and sometimes while it appeared to be doing very little.

The crashes were not tied to one obvious activity. Reports included reboots while using Siri, Maps, the App Store and watch faces, as well as during workouts. Some happened while the watch was apparently idle, which made finding a simple trigger difficult.

More importantly, several diagnostic logs shared by affected owners pointed toward the same Apple Neural Engine timeout. In those cases, the Neural Engine appeared to stop responding before a watchdog triggered a kernel panic and restarted the watch.

Apple moved quickly on this one

The two watches only went on sale on September 18, so the turnaround here was pretty quick. Reports started appearing almost immediately, and the dedicated patch followed less than a week after launch.

It also strengthens the likelihood that this was a software or firmware problem rather than something owners needed to solve by exchanging their watches. Some affected users had already tried wiping their Apple Watch and setting it up again, while at least one report involved the same problem appearing on a replacement unit.

That said, Apple only says the update fixes the unexpected restart issue. It has not published a detailed explanation of what changed.

For anyone affected, though, installing watchOS 27.0.1 is the obvious move before doing anything else. Apple says updates can be installed directly from the watch through Settings, General and Software Update, or through the Watch app on the paired iPhone. The watch needs at least 50 percent battery and should remain on its charger while the update installs.

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Pixel Watch gets the features for free

Google announced today that Health Guardian is rolling out in the Google Health app. Pixel Watch 3, Pixel Watch 4 and Pixel Watch 5 owners can begin setting up Blood Pressure Trends, Insulin Resistance Trends and Sleep Breathing Quality this week.

The first proper trend reports will not appear immediately. Google says they should begin arriving in early October, once there is enough data to work with.

Blood Pressure Trends requires at least five consecutive days of data during a week, while Insulin Resistance Trends needs at least seven days of data. The reports are then delivered at the beginning of each month. So these are not daily or real-time measurements.

We already had a pretty good idea the rollout was close. Last week, our Google Health APK teardown found Blood Pressure Trends, Insulin Resistance Trends and Sleep Breathing Quality wired into the app, complete with onboarding screens and places for the resulting data.

Fitbit Air gets a different deal

The odd part is Fitbit Air.

Google says Fitbit Air users will get Blood Pressure Trends and Insulin Resistance Trends later this year, but only with a Google Health Premium subscription. There is no equivalent subscription requirement attached to those features on Pixel Watch 3, 4 or 5.

Google Health Premium costs $9.99 per month or $99 per year, although Fitbit Air buyers receive three months with the device. It is also included with Google AI Pro and Ultra subscriptions, something we covered when Google bundled Health Premium into its AI plans.

That softens the subscription issue for anyone already paying for Google’s AI services. But for everyone else, there is now a fairly clear distinction between what the $99 Fitbit Air gets for free and what Pixel Watch owners receive.

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