Google is doing away with Safety Signal on Pixel Watch
Access to the emergency feature for LTE-connected wearables will end by December.
Tag Archives: Wearables
Garmin’s New Watches Go 320 Hours Without Dying on You
The most frustrating moment for a sports watch to fail is when you need it most: halfway through a long route with no easy way to recharge, or standing over a golf shot on an unfamiliar course with no clear sense of the distance. Garmin’s Enduro 4 and Approach S72 tackle different versions of that problem. One is built to keep working deep into an adventure. The other puts more useful information within reach before and after every swing.
They make an interesting pair because neither treats design as decoration. The Enduro 4 favors battery life, low weight and quick access to maps. The Approach S72 gives golfers a brighter, more visual way to understand the course and their game. Both have premium materials and comfortable fabric bands, but their real appeal is how those choices serve the person wearing them.
Designer: Garmin
Garmin Enduro
For the Enduro 4, battery life is the headline. Garmin rates it for up to 320 hours in activity mode or up to 90 days in smartwatch mode, with solar charging under the conditions behind those estimates. That is a meaningful promise for someone planning an ultramarathon, a backpacking trip or several days away from an outlet. I would still treat those numbers as best-case figures, but the design priority is clear: spend less time managing the watch and more time moving.
Its 51mm case is substantial, yet Garmin says the watch weighs 66 grams. A titanium bezel and scratch-resistant Power Sapphire lens bring durability, while a fiber-reinforced polymer case helps keep the weight down. The 1.4-inch MIP display is less showy than a vivid AMOLED screen, but paired with the solar lens, it suits a watch built around endurance. The fabric band and white-and-red LED flashlight are thoughtful details for long days that may turn into nights.
The improvements are not limited to how long the watch lasts. Garmin says the Enduro 4 has 50% more RAM than the Enduro 3 and map panning that is 30% faster. Grade-adjusted pace tools offer a better way to judge effort on hills, while stamina features help athletes see how their endurance changes during training. Garmin Epic can group activities across multiple days. Together, those features address a familiar problem: plenty of data, but not always enough context to use it.
Garmin Approach S72
The Approach S72 takes the opposite visual approach. Available in 43mm and 47mm sizes, it has a bright AMOLED display, a titanium bezel, a sapphire lens and a lightweight ComfortFit fabric band. I like the choice of two sizes here. A golf watch needs enough screen space to make a hole legible at a glance, but it also has to feel comfortable through a round and look at home afterward.
Its most intriguing idea is connecting golf performance to what is happening with the player. The watch can show heart-rate trends alongside a completed round, while swing metrics include hand speed, backswing length and wrist rotation. On the driving range, golfers can log practice sessions rather than leaving that work outside their broader activity record. None of this guarantees a lower score, but it could make practice feel more purposeful than guessing which part of a swing went wrong.
The course tools are more immediate. Green reading uses contour data to help golfers judge a line on select courses, while aerial imagery provides a clearer look at the hole ahead. Post-round putting analytics can reveal tendencies in speed, direction and make rate. These are the features that could save a few uncertain decisions during play, then give someone a specific thing to work on afterward. Some require a Garmin Golf membership, a detail worth checking before buying.
Battery life matters here, too, though on a different scale. Garmin rates the 47mm S72 for up to 20 hours of golf activity or 16 days in smartwatch mode; the 43mm model is rated for up to 15 hours and 10 days, respectively. Add heart-rate, stress and sleep tracking, and it becomes easier to see why Garmin designed this as an everyday watch rather than a device you pull out only for tee time.
Neither watch is trying to do everything for everyone. The Enduro 4 makes the strongest case for people whose plans regularly outlast ordinary battery life; the S72 is for golfers who want clearer decisions and better feedback. What connects them is a useful design principle: the best sports technology should reduce the little uncertainties that distract you from the activity you came to enjoy.
The post Garmin’s New Watches Go 320 Hours Without Dying on You first appeared on Yanko Design.
Xreal’s Aura Android XR smartglasses will cost you at least $1,279
Xreal's Aura smartglasses are powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon Reality Elite chip.
Oura Ring 5 vs. Apple Watch Series 12: Which smart health wearable is right for you?
These two wearables offer extensive health tracking, but one of these is going to be a clear winner for you.
Qalo SL-1 review: A barebones smart band that’s priced like a flagship
Qalo's first screenless tracker is too expensive for what it is.
ANREALAGE’s E Ink Dresses Give One Outfit Several Different Looks
Changing your outfit usually means heading back to your closet, but ANREALAGE’s Spring/Summer 2027 “SKIN” collection suggests a different solution. Six dresses at Paris Fashion Week use E Ink to switch colors and patterns while they stay on the body. You could call them wearable screens, though their scale-like surfaces make them feel closer to something that grows and changes with the wearer.
Fashion has always played with the idea of a second skin, from tight-fitting clothes to prints that mimic textures found in nature. ANREALAGE takes that idea rather literally, treating the outside of a dress as something that doesn’t have to stay the same all day. The silhouette remains recognizable, but the colors moving across it can make a familiar piece feel new.
Designer: Kunihiko Morinaga (ANREALAGE), E Ink
The changing surface uses E Ink Prism 3, which applies electronic paper technology beyond the e-reader screen. Each dress carries about 1,000 to 2,000 individual pieces arranged like scales, so the color shift happens across many smaller surfaces rather than one rigid-looking panel. That construction lets the dress keep its shape while its appearance follows a different script.
E Ink changes the effect of the technology, too. Unlike LEDs, these pieces aren’t glowing their way across the runway; their colors are visible in the surrounding light. That gives the dresses a quieter kind of drama, even when their patterns shift. It’s an important distinction for clothing, where a gadget stuck on top can pull attention away from the garment underneath.
That doesn’t mean the electronics disappear into the fabric. The scales give each dress a distinct texture, turning the thing that makes the color change possible into part of the design. ANREALAGE explores other shifting surfaces in the collection, including 3D-printed elements that look different as the viewing angle changes. Not every transformation needs electronic paper to make its point.
On a runway, those changes give a garment several appearances without anyone slipping backstage for another outfit. The same idea could be appealing in performance costumes, where a change in color can mark a change in mood or scene. For now, though, the point is what the design makes possible, not a promise that everyone will dress this way.
Of course, there are a few reasons why your next summer dress probably won’t come covered in electronic scales. Thousands of connected pieces raise questions about comfort, cleaning, repairs, and what happens when one stops working. E Ink suggests that changing the look of one garment might reduce the need for several, but that’s not the same as proving these dresses are easier on the environment.
That leaves “SKIN” somewhere between fashion experiment and material design. The dresses aren’t practical replacements for the clothes in your closet, but they do make the usual idea of a fixed pattern feel oddly limiting. A wearer can keep the same silhouette while the surface takes another direction, and you don’t need to understand E Ink to enjoy watching that happen.
The post ANREALAGE’s E Ink Dresses Give One Outfit Several Different Looks first appeared on Yanko Design.
Mobvoi TicNote smartwatch has one button, and it’s built to remember what you often forget
I know you will relate to one of these telltale moments. A meeting ends, someone gives you three useful details, and by the time you reach your desk, only one remains. The same thing happens after an interview, a doctor’s appointment, a lecture, or when someone rattles off directions while you’re already trying to keep up. We like to think we remember conversations better than we actually do.
Mobvoi’s TicNote Watch is designed to cover that very human failure. Instead of asking you to open an app, find a recorder, or reach for your phone, it gives the watch a dedicated physical recording button. Press and hold it to start recording. The recording can happen without a phone and even works offline. To me, the idea seems pretty interesting for capturing my team’s briefing.
Designer: Mobvoi
Mobvoi TicNote does the heavy lifting for you
Most smartwatches are defined by everything they can do. Notifications, workouts, calls, apps, payments, music, health tracking – the list keeps getting longer. TicNote Watch is different though, as its most important interaction is deliberately narrow. Just press a button and remember what just happened. That makes the hardware control more interesting than it might initially seem. There is something satisfying about a product that behaves more like a lighter, a film camera’s shutter, or a staple gun than another miniature touchscreen computer. The action is physical and doesn’t require you to navigate an interface while somebody is still talking.
In a world where dedicated controls have increasingly disappeared behind glass, putting one back on the wrist becomes a design statement. This smartwatch isn’t trying to make every interaction smarter; rather, it aims to make one interaction nearly impossible to mess up. The double-press gesture adds a smaller version of the same idea, letting users capture a quick thought of up to 60 seconds.
Simple input, surprisingly busy output
What happens after the button press is where the AI kicks in. TicNote Watch can transcribe conversations on the wrist, with live text supporting 17 languages, and users can tap to highlight important statements while a conversation is happening. Once the recording ends, the system can generate an AI summary and mind map. The intended audience for the wearable can be a journalist leaving an interview, a recruiter moving between candidates, a consultant bouncing between meetings, or a graduate student sitting through a campus lecture. For someone spending much of the day listening rather than typing, removing the act of note-taking can be genuinely useful.
There is, however, an obvious social wrinkle. A recorder that lives on your wrist is easy to reach for, but that doesn’t mean everyone around you will be comfortable being recorded. Consent and workplace etiquette matter, particularly in meetings or shared spaces. Mobvoi also claims more than 24 hours of continuous recording and up to 200 hours of local storage, so this isn’t unlimited memory in literal terms. At $249, with a limited-time introductory price of $199, TicNote Watch isn’t really competing on how many smartwatch features it can squeeze onto your wrist. It is built around a premise that doesn’t try to replace your phone, your notebook, and your entire day.
The post Mobvoi TicNote smartwatch has one button, and it’s built to remember what you often forget first appeared on Yanko Design.
The Samsung Galaxy SmartTag 3’s special feature is being a pet activity monitor
Not only can it keep tabs on your furball's location, it can monitor their motion and sleep too.
QALO launches a smart band to wear alongside its smart ring
QALO, better known for making silicone jewelry, is launching its own Whoop-esque fitness band.
Genius ‘Tilted’ Apple Watch Band Makes The Entire Experience 10x More Ergonomic
Have you noticed tilting always makes things ‘ergonomic’? A laptop stand tilts the keyboard towards you – ergonomic. A vertical mouse tilts your hands into a more natural position – ergonomic. A split keyboard often breaks and tilts the layout in two different directions for your hands – very ergonomic. It’s almost stupidly simple that the human body isn’t designed around perfect right angles. We’re filled with curves, joints, and limitations to how we move – so a simple tilt can often make life a lot easier. The Apple Watch apparently just got the memo.
Designed around a very clever 30° tilt, this Tilted Watch Band puts the Apple Watch at a slight slant, so it’s facing you even when your wrist isn’t. Normal protocol is to lift your wrist up perfectly horizontal, so the screen faces you in the right orientation. Tilt the band and you don’t have to make your wrist horizontal anymore – just hold it at a comfortable angle and the Watch screen faces you a lot more naturally, letting you read the time without flexing your hand or your neck too much… perfect for joggers or bikers who don’t have the luxury to orient their hands while mid-activity.
Designer: MXU
As ergonomically obsessed as Apple is, I’m surprised nobody from Cupertino thought of building a band like this. Does it mess with the symmetry? Absolutely. Could Apple still elegantly work around it? I have no doubt they could. They did such a brilliant job with the iPhone Duo’s folding animation, a tilted screen feels like child’s play.
The band comes in a variety of colors, although the best thing you could do is buy a bunch of them and mix and match pairs to create a dual-tone design. The silicone construction makes the band perfect for any kinds of sports, or for people with hypoallergenic requirements. One caveat, however, is that this watch’s tilt makes it so that it only works on the left hand. The clockwise tilt means if you wore the watch on the right hand, the tilt would work against you, requiring you to crane your neck even further than you originally would. Also, the crown would press into your forearm a lot more, which isn’t particularly fun considering you’d have to deal with constantly awakening Siri every few minutes.
The solution, however, is elegantly simple, and works better for smartwatches than it does for watches. You see, reading an analog watch at any tilt or angle is fairly easy – reading a notification on a screen while it’s tilted can be a chore. That specific detail makes the Tilted Watch Band pretty useful, as it reduces the strain on your wrist and neck while you glance down at your wearable.
The Tilted Watch Band is available online through retailers like Amazon, and works with all Watch series and sizes, even with the Ultra. So you can buy and keep the band even through all your watch upgrades over the years!
The post Genius ‘Tilted’ Apple Watch Band Makes The Entire Experience 10x More Ergonomic first appeared on Yanko Design.