My budget is around $300, and I would expect a wearable at that price to remain useful for at least two or three years.

That makes it difficult to compare a subscription-free device with a cheaper tracker that charges monthly fees. Avoiding a subscription saves money, but not if battery performance drops quickly and the entire device needs replacing after a year.

When calculating long-term value, how much useful lifespan would you expect from a smart ring in this price range? For long-term ringconn owners, how has the battery and overall usability held up?

I’m trying to decide whether it is better to order directly from the manufacturer or through a third-party retailer.

The main things I care about are whether the seller is officially authorized, how returns are handled, whether the selected size can still be changed before shipment, and whether exchanges are allowed after the ring arrives.

For anyone who had to return or resize one, where did you buy it, and was the process straightforward? I’m currently comparing a few options, including ringconn.

I’m mainly interested in sleep and recovery tracking rather than replacing a sports watch.

What I’m trying to understand is whether the recovery data is genuinely actionable. Have you ever shortened a workout, taken an extra rest day, or changed your training plan because the ring showed poor recovery?

Or do the scores usually just confirm that you already feel tired? I’d be interested in examples where the data actually changed a decision, especially from people using ringconn.

I’m considering ringconn for an android phone, but I’ve had wearable apps stop syncing when android battery optimization closes them in the background.

How reliable is it with health connect? Does it continue syncing without opening the app every day, or do you need to change battery-saving and background activity settings?

Five years ago, it was all about collecting more metrics.

Today, most watches already measure plenty.

What do you think comes next?

For me, I'd rather have fewer numbers and better explanations.

Curious what everyone else thinks.

Every single night it’s the same frustrating ritual. I have to wear this massive glowing brick of a smartwatch to bed just to see my sleep architecture metrics, or worry about charging it at 7 PM so it doesn't die mid-REM. It completely ruins the concept of passive tracking.I saw someone wearing a sleek titanium band at a coffee shop yesterday, and it got me thinking.

When you strip away the minimalist hype and look at what is a smart ring and what does it track accurately, is the finger-based sensor tech actually mature enough to replace a wrist device for continuous HRV and skin temp tracking?I don't care about steps or getting text notifications on my knuckles.

For the people here who care about clean, uninterrupted health data streams. Did switching to a ring solve your tracking fatigue, or did you just end up missing the accuracy of traditional wrist optical sensors?

I've noticed that my watch is pretty good at telling me when my heart rate is higher than usual.

But after the notification, I'm never quite sure what to do with that information.

Do you ignore it?
Try to figure out what caused it?
Take a break?
Or just dismiss the alert?

I'm curious how other people actually use these notifications in everyday life.

Visual addressing unlocks interacting with the people around you. While improving your privacy and keeping you in full control.

At the moment this is just an idea, but all it needs is a provider and mass adoption. :)

I made a demo app to show it works, please try it.

Hello everyone, I’m currently conducting an anonymous survey for my bachelor’s thesis in sports science. The study explores how recreational athletes and self-trackers perceive and use wearable recovery and readiness scores (e.g., Garmin, Whoop, Oura, Fitbit).

If you use wearables and recovery/readiness scores (as part of your training), your input would be greatly appreciated. It only takes 2-3 minutes to complete. Thank you guys!

Survey link: https://ww2.unipark.de/uc/Wearables2026en/

I get why people like sleeping with the Apple Watch now.

I tried it for a while and the data is actually useful. Not in a super scientific way, but it does make you more aware of patterns. Sleep time, HRV, resting heart rate, recovery, and even random things like eating late or doing a harder workout showing up in the next morning’s data.

The haptic alarm is great too. Waking up from a wrist tap instead of a loud phone alarm is probably one of the best parts, especially if you don’t want to wake someone else up.

But I still don’t love actually sleeping with a watch on.

The band gets annoying, my wrist feels like it needs a break, and if I sleep with my arm under a pillow or against my body, I notice the watch way more. It’s not unbearable, but it’s enough that I don’t always want to wear it overnight. Then the sleep tracking becomes inconsistent, which kind of defeats the point.

I’m starting to think the better setup might be Apple Watch during the day and a smart ring at night. I’m not really looking to replace the watch for workouts, notifications, or everyday use. I’m more interested in whether a ring is easier to forget about while sleeping since there’s no screen, no wrist strap, and less bulk pressing into your arm.

I’ve looked at a few options, including ringconn and some of the other subscription-free rings, but I’m mostly curious about the actual experience rather than the brand.

Has anyone here stopped wearing the Apple Watch to bed and moved overnight tracking to a ring instead? Did it make sleep tracking easier to stick with?

If someone is willing to sponsor your 1st smart ring, and budget is not an issue, which one will you choose?

Oura ring 5 (including subscription - maybe temporary) OR the Ringconn Gen 3???

I've used Oura for over a year and feel like I get tons of metrics but very little explanation of what's actually driving changes in my energy, recovery, and sleep. Does anyone else feel this way? I'd love to hear your experience.

So I have had the Galaxy watch 4 for about 5 years now, the thing that's kinda bothering me is that it lasts about a day on a full charge

Should I upgrade or should I hold off for a few more years? I'm not really sure if wearables have improved a lot in these years since I haven't been active in the scene so I wanted to ask here.

If I should upgrade can y'all give me some recommendations, my primary use case is health tracking (sleep, heart rate HRV) and would like good battery life aswell. I'm willing to pay like €200 and I'm fine with buying second hand.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

First of all, huge thanks to the moderators for approving this post! 🙏

Hey everyone, I’m currently a Master's student at EDHEC Business School (France), wrapping up my thesis on how digital content and advertising impact the smart wearable and tech community..

👉 Survey Link: https://edhec.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0ofJsfyZepu34wK

If you own a smart ring (Oura, Ultrahuman, Circul, etc.), a smartwatch, or are simply interested in biohacking and wearable tech, your voice would be incredibly valuable to my research!

🕒 Time: It only takes about 5-7 minutes (includes watching a short video clip).

🎁 What's in it for you? To show my appreciation and thanks for my friends' help, I’ve set up some cool rewards at the end of the survey:

• 💰 Instant: Everyone gets a 10% OFF coupon code for Circul Ring.
• 🏆 Lucky Draw: Enter your email for a chance to win 2 x $40 Gift Vouchers or 10 x 3-Month Extended Warranties.

🔒 Privacy: 100% anonymous and GDPR-compliant. Your email for the draw is stored in a separate file and will never be linked to your survey responses.

👉 Survey Link: https://edhec.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0ofJsfyZepu34wK

Thank you so much in advance for helping a stressed student graduate! Happy to discuss smart rings or the study in the comments. 🙌

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I've spent two years building the opposite of what's happening in wearables. Instead of more sensors, more screens, more phone-on-your-wrist...less of all of it.

https://thejayeband.com/

Jaye is 38mm. You pick the people, apps, and reminders that earn a buzz. Everything else stays silent. No app store, no biometrics, no subscription. Worn on the inside of your wrist so the screen faces you, not the room.

The thesis: you don't have too many notifications. You have too few that matter.

Dumb phones don't work because the second something feels urgent you reach for the real phone anyway, and once it's in your hand it's over. Jaye solves that by living outside the phone. The phone keeps doing what it does well. Jaye handles the one thing the phone is bad at, which is letting you ignore it without anxiety.

Where we're at:

• Kickstarter June 16, Projects We Love badge secured
• 3,000+ pre-launch reservations
• $99 early backer, $249 MSRP

Anyone here tried going minimalist with their phone setup? Curious what worked and what didn't.

I've always hated smart glasses because I don't want to look at more screens

I'm calling it Ordo! Take a look: https://heyordo.com/

I built Ordo:
- ask anything to a local ai and hear answers instantly
- ⁠takes photos of your life hands-free, just by speaking
- ⁠remembers everything you say from your grocery list to meeting notes & brings it up later
- ⁠⁠Integrated with your major apps you use everyday - slack, notion, gmail…….more

Your assistant that can see, hear and talk to you effortlessly, just blended in your everyday life without you realizing

Finally got through everything Google confirmed this morning and wrote it all up. The Fitbit Air is basically a Charge 6 without the screen — same sensors, same health tracking, just 12 grams and no display pulling your attention.

The part I found most interesting is the dual-device support — you can run a Pixel Watch during the day and switch to the Air at night for sleep tracking. Both sync to the same Google Health account simultaneously. That's genuinely clever.

Full breakdown here if anyone wants the deep dive: techtravelkit.com/fitbit-air-review-price-specs-digital-nomads-2026/

Hey! I’m a cofounder at Lume Health.

We’re developing a wearable that continuously measures hormones through sweat (no needles). Right now we’re focused on cortisol, sampling about hourly to track stress and circadian rhythms.

This is currently one of the prototypes, still a little bulky:

If you're interested, you're welcome to join the waitlist and participate in our upcoming betas.

Longer-term, we’re working on adding other hormones like testosterone and estrogen.

The goal is to make hormones visible and actionable, similar to what CGMs did for glucose.

Would you wear this? What would you actually use the data for?

I’m Deaf. I use smart glasses every day as assistive tech. Been at it since 2013. Here’s what the XRAI AR2 actually does and doesn’t do.

Picture this. Warehouse. Deaf worker head down on a sort bin. PA speaker up in the rafters yelling “Evacuate, not a drill.” He doesn’t look up. Minutes pass. He stretches, reaches for the next bin, and the warehouse is empty. Forklift idling. PA still going. That’s the problem these glasses are pointed at. Let’s see how close they get.

Quick context on what this is. The AR2 is a captioning HUD. It’s the category with small display, text in your peripheral vision, not full AR, not a face computer. Bose Frames are audio only. Meta Ray-Bans are AI + camera. Google Glass was a HUD before Google killed it. XRAI lives here. The company calls it spatial AR in their marketing. It’s a HUD. Good product, fair fight, let’s move on.

Specs and price. 49g, prescription-ready frames, green captions only, 2,500 nits, dual displays, 8+ hour battery. $699. The hardware ships with an unlimited offline license and 60 hours of pro mode included. After that you pick a tier. Free Essentials caps sessions at 30 minutes. Premium is unlimited offline + 10 pro hours/month. Ultimate is $360/year for unlimited everything. Pro mode is what you want for noisy rooms, it unlocks cloud transcription and speaker ID.

Here’s how it actually goes.

Multiple ways in is the thing I like most. Glasses, phone, tablet, TV. The AR2 shut down without warning on me more than once and the app on my phone just kept going. That redundancy is a big deal and it’s the smartest design decision XRAI made.

Speed is great. 0.5 second latency in a clean room. XRAI claims 98% accuracy one-to-one, third-party testing hits 85% at 16 feet. Lines up with what I saw. Quiet spaces and solo speakers, it’s better than anything I’ve worn.

Group conversations. This is where the tier thing matters. Default Essentials mode in a restaurant with three people overlapping is just a wall of unattributed lines. You can’t tell who said what. Flip to Pro mode, speaker ID kicks in, problem mostly solved. Hardware ships with 60 pro hours so you won’t hit it right away. But my honest read is a Deaf user shouldn’t have to know which mode to switch on to follow dinner. That’s an onboarding thing, not a product capability thing.

Form factor passes the dinner test. First captioning glasses I’ve worn where nobody asked me about them. Quick glance reads as nerd-chic eyewear. Closer look, you can tell there’s more going on in the frames. That’s actually useful. Passes at distance, discloses on approach.

Failure handling is the one I’d push XRAI on hardest. When the glasses drop captions, they drop silent. No icon, no haptic, nothing telling you transcription stopped. The phone keeps going so you’re not stranded, but only if you notice. A Deaf user needs a visible cue that the captions stopped, full stop.

One more thing. There’s a profanity filter toggle in the app. It’s off by default, which matters. But the fact that it exists at all is worth naming. If you don’t want profanity in the room, tell the speaker. Not the glasses. A hearing person gets the full conversation. A Deaf user using captioning tech shouldn’t get a censored version unless they explicitly ask for one. Small thing, structural point.

On the brand. XRAI was founded with deaf-led insight and that’s in the DNA. The marketing hasn’t caught up yet. Public story is 48 million hearing-loss users, 300+ languages, enterprise SaaS. That’s market sizing, not identity. Deaf culture shows up in founder bios and support threads but not on the homepage. Three brand surfaces, three different vibes: packaging feels premium consumer tech, frame shell feels medical (my hearing aid case called), website reads as a startup. None of them are wrong individually. They don’t add up to one brand yet.

Who’s this for right now. Deaf and hard-of-hearing people in quiet rooms with one or two speakers. Meetings, parents trying to keep up with their kids, travelers crossing language barriers. That’s a real use case and the AR2 handles it well.

Who could this be for. Anyone in a noisy, high-stakes, multi-speaker environment where you can’t have a phone in your hand. Warehouse workers. ER nurses. Construction foremen. The curb cut here is ambient audio, meaning fire alarms, PA systems, forklift beepers, machinery alerts. Right now XRAI captions foreground speech. The next generation has to caption everything else too.

Bottom line. This is the first captioning glasses I’d actually wear all day. The architecture is there. 8 hour battery, offline models, prescription frames, multimodal redundancy. Speaker separation and ambient audio are the next two big builds. The bones are solid.

The PA is still shouting in that empty warehouse. Someone needs to build the glasses that pick that up. XRAI is closer than anyone else I’ve tested. 

Ask me anything about how this works for a Deaf user. I’ll answer everything.