smartwatch
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India’s smartwatch market in flux as unknown brands challenge heavyweights
India’s smartwatch market has transformed, seemingly overnight. For years, it has been dominated by its homegrown players, while global giants like Apple and Samsung have struggled for presence, amid the hundreds of millions of annual shipments. Suddenly, however, the category has been flooded with unknown brands, which have no prior and significant existence. These have…
OnePlus’ Watch 2 gets 100 hours of battery thanks to a pair of chips and Wear OS tweaks
OnePlus’ first smartwatch was a lot of things. Unfortunately, particularly good or memorable weren’t among them. If you’re going to enter a category as established as the smartwatch, you’re going…
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Why OnePlus waited three years to release a new smartwatch
OnePlus’ second smartwatch captured media interest this week, courtesy of its stated 100 hours of battery life. The device utilizes a clever dual-chip system, seamlessly switching from the Snapdragon W5 to the far more power-efficient BES 2700 MCU. If the device does its job correctly, users won’t notice the shift, beyond the extra battery life…
OnePlus took a three-year ‘reflective pause’ before increasing its smartwatch battery
It’s 2024. All smartwatches should offer multiple days of battery life, full stop. As things stand now, there’s a jaw-droppingly wide range across the devices. I would go so far…
Samsung this morning announced that the Galaxy Watch line has received FDA approval for sleep apnea detection. The move is a big one for the smartwatch category, where health and…
As promised, Apple has officially removed the Watch Series 9 from its online shop. Word on the surprise move arrived earlier this week, when the company confirmed that an ongoing…
Apple Watch Series 9 sales to be halted over patent dispute
Update 12/21: Apple has officially halted its online sales of the Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2. Apple will be halting sales of its Series 9 smartwatch, TechCrunch has confirmed.…
Google’s Pixel Watch 2 brings new sensors for improved health tracking
After years of rumors and reports, Google finally released its first smartwatch last year. It was a long overdue debut for the company behind the nearly 10-year-old Wear OS. Getting…
Withings introduced the original ScanWatch in Europe back in 2020, before bringing it to the U.S. the following year, with FDA-cleared features like atrial fibrillation (afib) detection. Announced today during…
Nothing will launch earbuds and a smartwatch under its new budget line, CMF
Nothing has always brushed off suggestions that it releases budget devices. The London-based hardware startup prefers to position itself as a lifestyle — or even fashion — brand, with design…
Android smartwatches are getting Spotify’s AI DJ, WhatsApp and updated Google apps
Google is updating Wear OS to bring new features, apps and app experiences to its smartwatch OS platform, the company announced today at its Google I/O developer conference. The features,…
Google previews Wear OS 4 with better battery life, third-party watch face support
At Google’s I/O developer conference today, the company previewed the next version of its smartwatch operating system, Wear OS 4. The new release promises to bring improved battery life and…
Samsung adds temperature-based period tracking to its Galaxy Watch5
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch5 will now offer improved period tracking features thanks to a new partnership with Natural Cycles that leverages the smartwatch’s temperature sensors to make better predictions. The launch…
India pips North America to become the biggest smartwatch market
India surpassed North America to take the top global spot in the smartwatch market in the quarter that ended in September, according to a report from market research player Counterpoint.…
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Google gets serious about wearables with the Pixel Watch
2021 was the Pixel’s year. The Pixel 6 saw Google finally getting its act together and introducing a flagship that could rival the likes of Samsung and Apple. But while the line is getting a solid upgrade this year with the Pixel 7, it was inevitable that the handset was going to have play second…
Want a glimpse at the Apple Watch Series 9? Look no further than the Ultra
Apple’s familiar playbook suggests that the Ultra won’t be the last new variant of the company’s smartwatch line.
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Apple Watch Ultra first impressions
We posted a pair of Apple Watch reviews this time last week. Both the Series 8 and second-gen SE received high marks for their categories — flagship and budget, respectively. Were Apple to stick to those two products, it’s easy to imagine the company maintaining roughly a third of the smartwatch market share it currently…
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Apple Watch Series 8 review: Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst
Let’s pretend, for a minute, that you’re Apple. You didn’t create the smartwatch market, but you currently control more than one-third of it. You’re caught up in a yearly refresh cycle (of your own design). It’s not easy, but you’re used to it. That’s how your hardware — and pretty much everyone else’s — operates.…
Apple announces 2nd-gen Apple Watch SE with updated chip for $249
Apple unveiled a new Apple Watch SE with an upgraded chip and new materials for manufacturing today at its fall hardware event. This second Generation SE uses the same chip…
JBL’s new earbuds have a case with touchscreen, because we don’t have enough displays
Tired: JBL announced the Tour PRO 2 earbuds with active noise cancellation (ANC). Wired: The case has a touchscreen. That’s right. In the off-chance you didn’t have enough screens in…
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Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 review
We’ve had a Samsung review blitz over the past two weeks, covering all the products the company announced at its recent Unpacked event. In my write-up of the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, I noted how understated the product line was, in contrast to its flash, bombastic foldables. The Galaxy Watch line, meanwhile, exists somewhere between…
The Pixel Watch remains the big looming question mark over the horizon for Google’s wearable ambitions, but for now, the Fitbit lines are carrying on like nothing much has changed.…
Samsung ditches the physical bezel, picks up a Pro Model for the Galaxy Watch 5
Samsung giveth and Samsung taketh away. The latest additions to the Galaxy Watch line present a bit of both. The headline on each side of that equation is the addition…
Samsung announces One UI update for Galaxy Watches with a QWERTY keyboard and assistive features
Samsung announced its One UI 4.5 update for Galaxy Watches, including a full QWERTY keyboard, customizable watch faces and dual-SIM support. The update will sit on top of Wear OS…
Here’s everything you need to know from the Google I/O 2022 keynote today
It’s Google I/O keynote day! Once a year Google kicks off its developer conference with a rapid-fire stream of announcements, finally unveiling so many of the things they’ve been working…
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Google’s Pixel Watch arrives this fall
Here’s something to wrap your brain around: Google has never made its own smartwatch. The company has played in and around the space at least since 2014, with announcement of Android Wear, but it’s never gone as far as making its own product. Given that the market has been as hot as it has for…
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Google’s Pixel Watch may finally be on its way
Everything old is new again. Someone leaves a prototype in a bar, prototype makes its way into some blogger’s hands, chaos ensues. It’s hard to imagine another device coming along soon that’s shrouded in the same layer of security as the iPhone 4. Both gadgets and tech journalism have evolved since those halcyon days, but…
Oppo’s first self-developed chip is all about imaging performance
Chinese smartphone giant Oppo revealed its first in-house chipset at its annual innovation event hosted in Shenzhen on Tuesday. The MariSilicon X chip announced — named after the Mariana Trench —…
Leaked photo of Facebook’s Meta smartwatch shows camera notch
Meta — that is, the company formerly known as Facebook — may be developing a smartwatch that can take photos and videos. A new leaked image shows a smartwatch with…
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Apple Watch Series 7 review
The entire smartwatch category had a good Q2, as numbers jumped 27% year over year. That, in turn, was up 20% from a year prior, in spite — or perhaps because of — COVID-19 concerns. The popularity of these devices are the proverbial rising tide, with most of the big players benefiting from an overall…
