Wearables
Wearables track sleep stages, heart rate variability, and resting heart rate on your wrist or finger; here are reviews, accuracy notes, and field tests.
Smartwatch Deals and the 2pm Rule: Five Watches, One Evening Coffee, Six Weeks of Data
Every September the wearables go on the front page, and a certain kind of buyer — me, for about six years — starts justifying the upgrade with sleep. The pitch writes itself.
Apple Watch Deals Before the Series 12: I Wore Three Generations to Bed for 41 Nights
The sleep-tracking upgrade you're waiting for already shipped, and it shipped in 2022. Everything after that has been faster charging, a brighter screen at 3 a.m., and a slightly nicer thing to have…
The Smartwatch Comparison Nobody Runs: One Number, Three Sports Watches, and 31 Nights of Being Wrong About My Own Sleep
Every smartwatch comparison I read before buying ended in a spec table, and every spec table put sleep staging in it like it was a settled measurement — same column, same confidence, as water…
I Hand-Counted 1,004 Steps to Stress-Test Sleep Tracking Technology
The tally counter cost four dollars and does exactly one thing. I carried it in my left hand around a measured loop of my block, clicking once per heel strike — left and right, no doubling, no…
What 41 Days of Hand-Counted Steps Taught Me About AI Fitness Technology
For six weeks I carried a mechanical tally counter in my left pocket and clicked it once per footfall on eleven measured routes. The point was never to count steps.
Your Wearable Device Ecosystem Is a Streaming Service: 30 Nights, 3 Devices, One Coffee Cutoff
I spent thirty nights trying to prove that the most expensive part of my wearable device ecosystem was also the least useful part. It is. The sensors are quietly good.