Yesterday we got our first proper look at the Xiaomi Smart Band 11 family, including the surprise All-metal Edition. Now another leaked image appears to fill in a much more important part of the story: what the thing will actually do.

And there is quite a bit here to unpack.

Some Band 10 Pro features are coming down the range

The advertising card has been shared on various social media platforms. It lists sleep HRV monitoring alongside the usual heart rate, blood oxygen and sleep tracking. Rather than just showing nightly HRV, Xiaomi appears to be building a personal baseline around it, which should make it useful as a recovery metric.

This is not completely new territory for Xiaomi. Sleep HRV arrived on the Smart Band 10 Pro earlier this year, along with upgraded health sensors. What is interesting is seeing it apparently move to the regular Smart Band 11.

The same applies to the gaming mode. The card shows a dedicated screen displaying heart rate, session duration and an “excitement” score while gaming. Smart Band 10 Pro already has a gaming mode that can monitor heart rate and stress during supported games, so Xiaomi seems to be pulling another Pro feature into its mainstream band.

The imagery suggests Xiaomi is moving toward a more prominent daily score and ring-based presentation rather than simply presenting steps, calories and standing time separately. A bit like the Apple ring.

A microphone and revamped software

One of the more unexpected additions sits at the far right of the card. Xiaomi describes standalone audio recording, with recordings subsequently synchronised to a Xiaomi phone. Which means Smart Band 11 packs a microphone.

The software also looks different. Xiaomi labels this part of the card “Xiaomi HyperOS” with “all-new visuals”, and some of the rounded, translucent iconography looks very close to the Soft Glass design language introduced with HyperOS 4.

Xiaomi is also leaning harder into Apple support

Another section is labelled “Apple ecosystem friendly”. The card suggests the Band 11 can receive notifications in a dual-device setup involving an Android phone and an iPhone. Xiaomi already introduced this idea with Smart Band 10 Pro, where someone carrying an iPhone alongside a Xiaomi phone can receive calls, messages and other notifications through the band.

If that functionality carries across unchanged, the regular Smart Band 11 should effectively become much less tied to a single phone ecosystem. The leaked image even shows an incoming call from an iPhone 17 Pro.

The NFC version gets another group of extras. Xiaomi mentions transit cards, access cards, car keys and payment functions, along with Alipay and WeChat Pay. There is also a separate “tap to pay” section.

Of course, this will largely be region-dependent, predominantly aimed at China. Nothing here suggests Xiaomi is suddenly bringing Google Wallet or unrestricted NFC payments to the global Smart Band 11.

Still no built-in GPS

For all these additions, Xiaomi still appears to be leaving one obvious feature out. Smart Band 11 does not have built-in GPS, so outdoor route tracking will continue to rely on the connected phone.

That creates an interesting product. Xiaomi doesn’t seem to be turning the regular Smart Band into a miniature GPS sports watch. Instead, it is adding features that make the band more useful during the other 23 hours of the day.

Sleep HRV, a microphone, better cross-platform connectivity, expanded NFC and gaming tracking amount to a nice upgrade. The big question now is how much of this survives the trip outside China.

The post Xiaomi Smart Band 11 leak reveals voice recording, HRV and dual-phone support appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

7.5

Design 7.5/10

Blood pressure monitoring 8.5/10

Health and fitness tracking 7.0/10

Ease of use 7.0/10

Value for money 7.5/10

Pros

• – Inflatable cuff works well
• – Consistent blood pressure readings in my testing
• – Surprisingly slim and comfortable
• – Tracks all the usuals
• – Easily lasts a week between charges

Cons

• – Blood pressure readings cannot be scheduled automatically
• – No GPS or connected GPS
• – Very basic workout analysis

Design and comfort

The thing that surprised me most about the BP Doctor Fit is just how normal it feels on the wrist. I was expecting something noticeably bulkier because of the inflatable cuff, but that really isn’t the case. At first glance it looks much like a regular smartwatch, and there is even a bit of an Apple Watch feel to the rectangular case and rounded corners.

The clever part is all hidden in the strap. It is a little wider than what you would normally get on a smartwatch, but not by much, and I never found it awkward or cumbersome. Considering there is an actual inflatable cuff built into it, YHE has done an excellent job of keeping the whole thing slim.

It is also very easy to wear. The strap is simple to fasten, getting the right fit takes very little effort, and it feels comfortable.

The 1.9-inch AMOLED display is fine as well. There is nothing particularly special about it, but it is bright, clear and easy to read in all conditions. Touch response is good and the interface is simple enough to get around. When exercising, I would tighten the strap slightly so the sensors stay firmly against the wrist.

As far as build quality, I would say – it sits somewhere in the middle. It doesn’t look or feel especially premium, but it doesn’t come across as cheap either. Everything feels solid and functional, which is probably exactly where a watch like this needs to be. The bigger achievement is that you can wear something with a working inflatable blood pressure cuff and, most of the time, completely forget that it is there.

Blood pressure tracking

Blood pressure is really what the BP Doctor Fit is all about. The watch does plenty of other things, but it feels pretty obvious that most of the work has gone into getting this part right. And that is probably a good thing, because this is the feature that makes the watch interesting in the first place.

The thing to know here is – rather than trying to estimate blood pressure using optical sensors, the Fit has an actual inflatable cuff built into the strap. A bit like a traditional upper arm blood pressure monitor, only this one works from your wrist.

Start a measurement and the strap slowly begins to tighten. It inflates very gradually and is surprisingly quiet, so the whole process feels a lot less dramatic than you might expect.

A reading takes around 30 seconds. You do need to sit still and hold your wrist at roughly heart level while it is doing its thing to ensure accuracy. If you move around the watch will refuse to take a reading. But the whole process is quite easy, and after a reading or two it becomes second nature. I found myself taking readings quite regularly simply because there is no need to dig out a separate blood pressure monitor.

I compared the BP Doctor Fit against my Withings blood pressure monitor and the results were pretty close. The Fit was sometimes a little lower, usually by around three or four points, but I didn’t see anything that looked wildly off. Repeated readings were also consistent, which is probably the most important thing for me. Getting one close measurement is nice, but getting similar numbers when you repeat the test gives you much more confidence in what the watch is showing.

Plus this works out of the box. With watches that estimate blood pressure via a heart rate sensor, you need to do regular calibration with a traditional blood pressure monitor. Here there is none of that non-sense.

The one thing I would really like to see is automatic scheduled measurements. At the moment, every blood pressure reading has to be started manually. It would be much more useful if you could tell the watch to take a reading every hour, or perhaps at a few set times during the day. That would give you a much better picture of how your blood pressure changes without having to remember to keep checking it yourself.

Even without that, blood pressure monitoring is easily the strongest part of the BP Doctor Fit. The measurements have been consistent in my testing, and taking a reading takes very little effort.

Health and fitness tracking

Everything else on the watch feels secondary to the blood pressure feature, so it is easy to see where YHE put the most focus. But you do get other health and fitness data.

For general health tracking, the BP Doctor Fit spits out the usuals. Heart rate monitoring has been good during the day and overnight. You also get the usual basic activity information, including steps, calories and general daily movement.

Sleep tracking is also part of the package and generally does a decent job, although I found that it tends to overestimate how much sleep I get. I am a light sleeper and often sleep with headphones, and the watch seems to count some of those awake periods as light sleep instead.

There is nothing especially advanced here, as far as health and fitness data. But it is useful enough if you mainly want a general picture of your activity, heart rate and sleep rather than detailed analysis.

Exercise tracking is similar. Heart rate during workouts has been quite temperamental in my testing. On some runs it tracked reasonably well, but on others it was clearly off, so I wouldn’t rely on it if you care about accurate training data.

There is also no built-in GPS and no connected GPS through your phone. That means the watch has to estimate running distance from your movement instead of actually tracking where you went. Unsurprisingly, that isn’t particularly accurate. In my case it mostly underestimated the distance I had actually run.

The post-workout analysis is also extremely basic. You get enough information to know that you exercised, but not if you want to analyse a run or track training properly over time.

So I wouldn’t consider the BP Doctor Fit an exercise watch in any meaningful sense. For everyday heart rate, sleep and basic activity tracking, it does a decent job. But if running, cycling or structured training is important to you, you will want something else on your wrist.

The app and smartwatch features

The smartwatch side of the BP Doctor Fit covers the essentials. You get call and message notifications, alarms, weather, a timer, stopwatch, calculator, always-on display and a selection of watch faces. There are also brightness controls, mute settings and the usual raise-to-wake behaviour.

Notifications work as you would expect. Calls, texts and alerts appear on your wrist, but interaction is limited. You are mostly just seeing that something has arrived rather than doing much with it.

The interface itself is straightforward. Swiping around the watch is easy enough, menus are simple, and I never found myself getting lost trying to find a setting or feature. It is functional rather than polished, which pretty much sums up the smartwatch experience here.

The companion app follows the same pattern. It syncs data from the watch, keeps a history of your health and workout information, and lets you manage things such as reminders and notifications. It works, but the design feels fairly plain and there isn’t the same depth or polish you get from the apps made by the larger smartwatch brands.

That is probably the main limitation of the BP Doctor Fit as a smartwatch. It has enough everyday features to be useful, but not much beyond that. If you are used to something like an Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch or a higher-end Garmin, this side of the experience will feel quite stripped back.

Battery life

Battery life is one of the easier parts of the BP Doctor Fit to live with. You don’t need to think about charging it very often, and in my use I could comfortably get around a week between charges.

That includes normal everyday wear and regular blood pressure measurements, so there is no need to baby the battery or avoid using the main feature. For a watch that is meant to stay on your wrist most of the time, that is exactly what you want.

Charging is quick enough when you do eventually need it, but the bigger advantage is simply how rarely that happens. A week of real-world use feels like a good fit for this type of device.

Who this watch is for

The BP Doctor Fit makes the most sense for someone who wants an easy way to check blood pressure throughout the day without carrying around a separate monitor. That is really the reason to buy it. The cuff works well, measurements are quick, and having the whole thing sitting on your wrist makes regular checks much easier.

It also works well enough as a general health watch. Heart rate, sleep and basic activity tracking are decent, battery life is good, and the smartwatch features cover the essentials. So if your priorities are blood pressure first and everyday health tracking second, the overall package makes sense.

The post BP Doctor Fit review: Putting a real blood pressure cuff on your wrist appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

Screenshots posted on Weibo show the new device inside the Xiaomi Health Research app. The supported variants include: Smart Band 11, Smart Band 11 NFC, Smart Band 11 Ceramic Edition and Smart Band 11 All-metal Edition.

The all-metal version is the interesting one

The standard and NFC models are no surprise. We already found two closely related Xiaomi bands moving through regulatory approval earlier this summer, with model numbers M2616B1 and M2617B1 pointing to the regular Smart Band 11 and NFC version respectively.

Those filings also referenced a 233mAh battery, the same capacity used by Smart Band 10. So far, there has been nothing to suggest Xiaomi is making a big move on battery size with this generation.

The Ceramic Edition isn’t particularly unexpected either. Xiaomi has played with ceramic versions for several generations, including Smart Band 10, where the ceramic model sits alongside the regular metallic-frame version.

The All-metal Edition is different. The Chinese name shown in the app is “小米手环11 全金属版”, which translates directly to Xiaomi Smart Band 11 All-metal Edition. A separate screen also shows images of the device.

Exactly what “all-metal” means is unclear. The obvious interpretation is that Xiaomi is using metal beyond the middle frame, potentially extending it to parts of the body that normally use plastic or ceramic. It could also refer to a complete metal body and bracelet combination, although the leaked image doesn’t give us enough to confirm that yet.

This leak comes from Xiaomi itself

There is another reason to pay attention to this one. Xiaomi Health Research isn’t a third-party app or a retailer accidentally publishing a product page early.

It is Xiaomi’s own health research application, package name com.mi.healthresearch, published by Beijing Xiaomi Mobile Software. The current public version is 1.4.6, which dates back to April. This strongly suggests Xiaomi is feeding supported devices into the app from its servers rather than shipping the Band 11 information inside a new APK.

Apparently, it also appeared in the Mi Fitness app. Although we couldn’t spot it in the APK of the global version. Perhaps it appeared in the Chinese variant of the software.

The Smart Band 11 family is getting crowded

There is also a fifth Band 11-branded device floating around, although it isn’t included on this particular screen. The Xiaomi Smart Band 11 Active has already appeared in retailer material with a 1.47-inch LCD, 300mAh battery and an expected price around €40.

That means Xiaomi could eventually have at least five models carrying the Smart Band 11 name in some form. The Active sits below the regular band, while the Ceramic and All-metal editions give Xiaomi more expensive material options without necessarily changing the underlying electronics.

We’ve also previously covered a much more detailed Smart Band 11 specification leak claiming a 1.78-inch display, HRV, body-temperature sensing, EDA-assisted stress data and a barometer. Those specifications remain unconfirmed, so this new app appearance doesn’t validate them. What it does confirm much more convincingly is that Xiaomi is preparing several Smart Band 11 variants and that the launch is getting close.

The post Xiaomi Smart Band 11 leaks in Xiaomi’s own app with four versions appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

Fenix 9 sales are now properly underway

Garmin announced the new Fenix 9 family on August 25, but August 28 was always the date when orders were due to open. Amazon has now flicked the switch, although not every configuration has appeared there yet.

At the time of writing, the live Amazon listings include the 47 mm Fenix 9 Pro, along with the 47 mm and 51 mm Pro Solar models. The inReach versions are also beginning to appear, including 43 mm and 47 mm AMOLED models and the larger Solar inReach configurations.

The regular Fenix 9 models don’t appear to have fully landed on Amazon yet, so the selection should expand as inventory comes through. That also means it is worth checking the exact configuration before ordering because the Fenix 9 lineup is unusually broad this time around.

As we covered ahead of launch, Garmin has split the family across three sizes and a mixture of AMOLED, Solar and inReach configurations. The Pro models bring the full titanium case, sapphire lens and upgraded hardware, while the optional inReach versions add LTE and satellite connectivity.

There’s no launch discount here. These are Garmin’s normal retail prices, so the news is simply that Amazon availability has started, which makes the Fenix 9 considerably easier to buy – at least in the US.

And if you aren’t sold on the new generation, there is an interesting side effect. Amazon has already started cutting prices on the outgoing Fenix 8, with some models currently around $250 below their original price.

You can check out the latest discounts on our deals page.

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The D3 finally shows its face

A little over a week ago, we spotted the Huawei Watch D3 in certification records, with two versions carrying the model numbers RIV-B10 and RIV-B11. At the time, we knew what Huawei was working on, but had no idea what the watch would actually look like.

That part has now been cleared up. Huawei has released its first teaser for the Watch D3 under the rather direct tagline “Blood Pressure Management, Made Slimmer”, and the images give us a pretty good look at the new hardware.

The basic formula hasn’t changed. This is still a rectangular smartwatch built around blood pressure monitoring. The major difference, this time around, is that the new model looks noticeably less bulky.

Huawei even uses a side-on comparison in its teaser to drive the point home. The D3 case appears substantially thinner, particularly around the section where the blood pressure hardware sits. The edges are more rounded and the whole thing looks less like a medical device strapped to your wrist.

Blood pressure is still the main event

The teaser doesn’t leave much doubt about what the D3 is for. One of the watch faces prominently shows systolic and diastolic readings, a blood pressure graph and heart rate, while Huawei’s own launch material describes it specifically as its next-generation blood pressure monitoring watch.

There is another new piece of information. Huawei says the Watch D3 has received CE-MDR certification in Europe. That confirms Huawei is continuing to treat the D series as a proper medical-device product rather than simply adding another estimated blood pressure metric to a normal smartwatch.

The existing Watch D2 uses an inflatable airbag built into the strap and the oscillometric method to take measurements. It can also run ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, automatically taking readings at scheduled intervals over a 24-hour period. Huawei hasn’t explained what has changed internally on the D3, so we don’t yet know whether the slimmer design comes with a redesigned airbag, pump or pressure sensor.

The new images do show at least two finishes. There is a lighter gold version with a white strap and another warmer rose-gold finish paired with brown. They look slightly different in size in some of Huawei’s promotional shots.

We don’t have long to wait for the rest. Huawei has now confirmed that the Watch D3 will launch at its September 2 event in Munich alongside its other new wearables, including the Watch GT 7 series and the Watch 6.

Sources: Huawei launch announcement

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The complete system costs $189 in the US and is available in six colours, including mirrored and standard versions. There is no subscription to pay, either.

Speedo is focusing on technique

According to the official Speedo iQ product page, the system tracks pace, distance, strokes, breathing and turns. It can also examine head position, breathing angle, distance per stroke, turn time and carry angle across freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly.

Once the swim is finished, the Speedo iQ app lets you replay the session, compare performances and follow your progress over time. It also turns the recorded data into recommendations and suggests drills aimed at the parts of your technique that need more work.

The module records everything independently, so there is no need to keep a phone beside the pool. It can also be removed and fitted to another compatible pair of Vanquisher goggles. So worn or damaged goggles can be replaced without throwing away the electronics.

Speedo says its smart googles have been approved by World Aquatics. They can be worn during official competitions as well as normal training. So that’s something to keep in mind if you are serious about your swimming pursuits.

The missing display is a big choice

What’s interesting here is that the company has taken a very different approach from FORM and FINIS. There is no heads-up display showing your pace, lap count or other information as you swim, with all the analysis saved until afterwards. Plus, you can turn a pair of dumb goggles into smart goggles.

In our FORM Smart Swim 2 review, the real-time display was one of the strongest features. It shows heart rate, split time, stroke rate, distance and workout instructions directly in your line of sight, although the goggles cost $249 and some of the more advanced coaching tools require a subscription.

The FINIS Smart Goggle offers a similar approach to Form. It also puts live performance information in front of the swimmer while keeping the overall design close to a normal pair of goggles.

Speedo is instead betting that some swimmers would rather have an uncluttered view and dig into more detailed technique data once they leave the water. That makes their goggles less useful for adjusting pace halfway through a session, but potentially more interesting for swimmers who want to understand how they move through the water. Speedo IQ also bring one of swimming’s biggest brands into a category that has remained fairly small.

The post Speedo takes on FORM with its first smart swim goggles appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

If you have not installed the new software just yet, you might want to hold off on doing so.

Bluetooth worked before the update

Garmin released firmware 2.50 on August 20 and has now completed the rollout. Its entire changelog consists of “improvements to OHR,” with no mention of Bluetooth or changes to heart-rate broadcasting.

Owners in a growing Garmin Forum thread say the trouble began after installing the update. Reports cover Garmin Edge 530 and 840 computers, Zwift, TrainerRoad, Rouvy, Strava and MyWhoosh across iPhones, iPads and Bluetooth-enabled exercise equipment.

CIRQA is often still detected as an available heart-rate sensor, but it either refuses to connect or gets stuck switching between connected and disconnected. ANT+ appears to be working normally, which points to a Bluetooth-specific problem rather than heart-rate broadcasting failing completely.

That is particularly annoying because broadcasting is one of CIRQA’s more useful training features. As we noted in our Garmin CIRQA and Fitbit Air comparison, it lets the screenless band double as an external sensor for a watch, bike computer or indoor-training setup.

The problem does not affect everyone

The reports do not point to a complete failure across every device. Some owners can still connect CIRQA to an iPhone or Garmin’s Tacx app, while ANT+ broadcasting appears to be working normally.

Removing CIRQA and pairing it again has helped in at least some cases. However, it is possible that these may simply have reconnected through ANT+ rather than repairing the affected Bluetooth connection. So it is not a dependable fix.

A Garmin representative has joined the forum discussion and asked owners for more information about the connection and CIRQA’s status light. The company has not yet confirmed a firmware bug or said when a fix might arrive.

This is not CIRQA’s first problem involving live heart-rate data. Garmin initially restricted the live workout reading to Connect+, before changing course and making it available without a subscription. Now some owners cannot reliably send that data to external apps and equipment over Bluetooth.

The post Garmin CIRQA update breaks heart-rate broadcasting for some owners appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

The application, US 2026/0248448 A1, was published on August 27 under the title “Techniques for migraine detection using a wearable device.” It is a continuation of earlier work rather than a completely new project, but the newly published document gives us a detailed look at how Oura thinks migraine prediction could work.

The ring would look for changes before a migraine

The basic idea is fairly straightforward. Oura would establish what is normal for an individual, then look for changes in their physiological data that have previously been associated with migraines.

Sleep plays a big role in the patent. The system can look at total sleep time, REM sleep and other sleep stages, then compare those numbers with the person’s recent baseline. A machine learning model could identify changes such as reduced sleep duration or a drop in REM sleep that tend to occur before a migraine.

Body temperature is another important input. Oura plots both sleep and temperature across the two weeks before and after migraine symptoms appear, showing the types of changes the company believes could provide an early warning.

The system could also use heart rate, HRV, movement and other physiological information already available from the ring. This would not rely on one magic migraine sensor. Instead, Oura is describing a model that looks at several small changes together and asks whether that pattern resembles the period before one of the user’s previous migraines.

That approach is fairly close to the direction Oura has already taken with Health Radar. The current feature looks for unusual changes across several background signals, while this patent applies the same broad idea to a much more specific outcome.

Oura could warn you before symptoms start

The useful part is what happens after the ring detects that pattern. Oura describes creating a “migraine prediction metric” that represents how likely the person is to experience a migraine during an upcoming period.

It could go further and estimate when that period is likely to begin. The app could then send a warning before symptoms appear, rather than simply noticing that something changed after the migraine has already started.

Oura even includes a mock-up showing how that could look. One notification tells the user that their data suggests they may be heading towards a migraine on Thursday and recommends taking the medication they normally use before going to bed. Another notices that their sleep has fallen over several days and asks whether they are experiencing migraine symptoms.

That second part would help the system learn from the individual. Users could log migraine events and symptoms, giving the model more information about what their own pre-migraine pattern looks like rather than relying entirely on population averages.

So this is a bit different from RingConn’s feature. Its Headache Signs tool looks at your biometrics alongside local barometric pressure and tries to flag a possible headache episode as it develops, whereas Oura’s patent is specifically about predicting a migraine before symptoms start and estimating when it may arrive.

Our takeaway

This is still a patent, so there is no indication that Oura is about to add migraine prediction to the app. But unlike some more speculative wearable patents, this one describes a feature that fits with the data the ring already collects and the way Oura is increasingly using that data.

Oura has been exploring other ways of making its existing sensor data more useful rather than simply adding more measurements. A recent Oura patent looked at detecting poor ring fit, for example, with the aim of catching conditions that could weaken the quality of those measurements in the first place.

Migraine prediction would be a much bigger step. Whether Oura can make it accurate enough for real-world use is another question.

This article originally appeared on Gadgets & Wearables, the first media outlet to report the story.

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Digging further into the FCC documents gives us one useful clue. WM50 is based on the same hardware platform as Whoop MG, but Whoop removed the NFC subsystem and its supporting circuitry.

What we know about WM50

The FCC approved WM50 on May 15, listing it simply as a “Sensor Device” operating over Bluetooth between 2.402 and 2.480 GHz. Singapore followed on June 10, where IMDA also registered WHOOP WM50 as a Bluetooth sensor device.

Neither filing gives us a commercial product name. There is nothing identifying it as Whoop 6.0, another MG model, a cheaper Whoop or anything else, so for now WM50 is simply an unreleased Whoop device.

The more interesting detail sits deeper in the FCC paperwork. Whoop states that WM50 is “derived directly from the WS50 hardware platform”, with no additional components added to the PCB.

WS50 is the regulatory model number used for Whoop MG. The standard Whoop 5.0 uses WG50 instead.

That does not tell us what WM50 will eventually become. It only tells us which existing hardware platform Whoop used as its basis.

The NFC removal is the interesting part

Whoop identifies one specific change from WS50. The company says the “NFC Tag Reader transmitter subsystem and its associated supporting circuitry” have been removed from WM50.

The likely role of that NFC hardware is not the actual charging itself. The current Whoop MG has a 13.56 MHz NFC radio, and the WB50 PowerPack also uses 13.56 MHz alongside Bluetooth. That suggests the NFC link is there so the sensor and battery pack can recognise each other and exchange information, potentially including things like battery status. Whoop does not publicly spell out the exact function, so that part remains an informed interpretation rather than a confirmed feature.

That leaves WM50 with Bluetooth connectivity in its FCC filing, but without the 13.56 MHz NFC radio found in WS50. Nothing in the documents explains why Whoop made that change or what it means for the finished product.

WM50 removes that NFC subsystem completely. That could mean Whoop has changed how the sensor communicates with the PowerPack, or that WM50 is intended to work differently in some other way. The FCC documents do not tell us which.

So the interesting thing here is not simply that one radio has disappeared. Whoop has taken the existing WS50 platform and deliberately removed a component that appears to be involved in communication with the battery pack, and we do not yet know why.

Our takeaway

WM50 could eventually sit somewhere else in Whoop’s lineup, but there is no evidence yet to say where. It could also serve a completely different purpose, and the regulatory documents do not give us enough information to narrow that down.

One thing we can probably rule out is the muscle oxygen sensor Whoop is working on. That project points to a very different type of wearable, designed for use on different parts of the body and built around optical sensing and muscle oxygen measurements.

For now, WM50 remains a mystery, although we may not have to wait too much longer for another clue. The FCC confidentiality period covering its internal and external photos lifts on November 11, 2026, which should give us a much better idea of what Whoop is actually building.

The post Whoop has an unreleased WM50 and one hardware detail stands out appeared first on Gadgets & Wearables.

That charging limitation is the main catch here. Whoop’s own product page says Meridian is not compatible with charging and that users need to swap bands first.

Whoop finally gets a proper metal band

Meridian uses Milanese-style mesh made from 100% titanium, with a magnetic clasp that allows continuous adjustment. It comes in Gold, Rose Gold, Matte Black and Alloy, with the darker finishes using PVD coating.

There are separate versions for Whoop 5.0 and Whoop MG, but both cost $149 in the US. UK pricing is £119, while European pricing sits at €129.

The idea makes sense. The normal Whoop strap works well for training, but it still looks like a fitness band, and Meridian gives it a much more watch-like appearance for work, dinners or anything slightly smarter.

That seems to be exactly what some Whoop users wanted. Reaction on social media is mixed, but several people liked finally having something that looks less sporty, while others immediately questioned the price.

Charging becomes less convenient

The bigger issue is that Meridian interferes with Whoop’s wireless charging setup. The metal band has to come off before the charger can be used, so you need another compatible strap available whenever the battery runs low.

That is not a huge problem given the Whoop 5.0 lasts around 14 days between charges. But one of Whoop’s nicer hardware features is being able to charge while continuing to wear the tracker, and Meridian removes that convenience.

The $149 price will probably bother some people more. That is on top of the Whoop membership, and the band itself costs more than some complete screenless trackers we included in our 2026 screenless fitness tracker guide.

For Whoop MG owners, the same deal applies. The hardware differences between Whoop MG and Whoop 5.0 remain unchanged, with Meridian simply giving both versions a dressier strap option.

Meridian is available now. It solves one fairly obvious Whoop problem, the tracker never looked particularly smart, but charging it becomes more awkward in the process.

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