I wore a smart ring for three weeks straight without telling anyone, just to see if people would notice. Nobody did. That's either the best or worst thing about the current generation of wearable tech outside of smartwatches — it's invisible. And depending on what you need, that's either the whole point or a total waste of money.
Smartwatches still dominate the conversation. Apple Watch Ultra 2, Galaxy Watch 7, Pixel Watch 3 — they're everywhere. But there's a whole category of wearables that doesn't get nearly enough attention, and some of it is genuinely impressive. Some of it is also genuinely terrible. Let's sort through it.
Smart Rings: The Underdog Worth Taking Seriously
The Oura Ring 4 is the one everyone talks about, and honestly, the hype is mostly earned. It's a $349 USD titanium ring that tracks sleep, heart rate variability, body temperature, blood oxygen, and activity. No screen, no notifications — just passive data collection that syncs to your phone.
I tested it alongside my Galaxy Watch 7 for about a month. Sleep tracking on the Oura was noticeably more detailed. It caught things my watch missed — like a night where my HRV tanked and my resting heart rate spiked, which turned out to be the night before I got sick. The watch flagged nothing. The ring flagged it two days before I felt bad.
The catch? Oura charges a $5.99/month subscription for full access to its insights. Without it, the app is pretty bare. That's annoying, but I've grudgingly accepted it because the underlying data is actually good.
The Competition Is Real Now
Samsung released the Galaxy Ring in mid-2024 at $399 USD, and it's a solid alternative — especially if you're already deep in the Samsung ecosystem. No subscription fee is a big deal. But the health insights aren't as mature as Oura's yet, and the ring itself is a bit chunkier.
Then there's the RingConn Gen 2, which launched at around $219 USD with no subscription and a genuinely impressive 12-day battery life. I spent way too long figuring out whether the accuracy was comparable to Oura — the short answer is: it's close, but not quite there for HRV tracking. Still, for the price, it's the best budget option in the category by a wide margin.
The form factor genuinely matters here. If you hate wearing things on your wrist to bed — a lot of people do — a ring is a much easier ask. It weighs around 4–6 grams depending on size, which you basically don't feel after the first day.
Who should buy a smart ring? If you care about sleep and recovery data and don't need your tracker to also show you texts, the Oura Ring 4 is the pick. If you're Samsung-first and don't want a subscription, go Galaxy Ring.
Smart Glasses: Finally Getting Interesting
This category had a disastrous decade. Google Glass was a punchline. Snapchat Spectacles were a novelty. But something shifted around 2023-2024, and I think we're finally in a spot where smart glasses are worth talking about seriously.
The product that changed my mind is the Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses — specifically the second generation, which runs around $299 USD. I was fully prepared to dismiss them. I did not dismiss them.
Meta Ray-Ban: What Works and What Doesn't
Here's what they do well: open-ear audio through built-in speakers that sound surprisingly decent, a 12MP front camera for hands-free photos and video, and the Meta AI assistant built in via voice. The battery lasts about 4 hours of active use, which extends to roughly a full day with the included charging case.
The AI integration is where it gets genuinely useful. You can ask it what's in front of you, get real-time translation, have it read text from a sign — all without pulling out your phone. I used this in an airport and it was honestly one of those moments where I thought "okay, this is what wearables are supposed to feel like."
What doesn't work: they're still glorified Bluetooth headphones with a camera. There's no display. No augmented reality overlay. You're not seeing information in your field of view — you're hearing it. That's a meaningful limitation.
"The Meta Ray-Bans are the first smart glasses I'd actually wear in public without feeling like I was doing a bit." — My honest take after three weeks of daily use
The AR Glasses Race in 2025-2026
True AR glasses — ones with a heads-up display — are coming, but they're not quite here for consumers yet. Meta Orion prototypes have been shown publicly and they look incredible, but Meta hasn't announced a consumer release date or price as of early 2026. The hardware challenges around weight, battery, and optics are still real.
Xreal Air 2 Pro at $449 USD takes a different approach — they're basically a wearable display, not AR glasses. Connect them to your phone or laptop via USB-C and you get a virtual 330-inch screen floating in front of you. I tested these on a long flight. Genuinely useful for watching content. Not something I'd wear walking around, but for stationary use? Solid.
If you're waiting for true see-through AR glasses at a consumer price point with real-world utility, I'd say 2026-2027 is the more realistic window. Right now the Meta Ray-Bans are the only smart glasses I'd actually recommend to a regular person.
Smart Patches and Biosensors: Niche But Growing
This is the category most people haven't heard of yet. Continuous glucose monitors have existed in medical settings for years, but they're starting to cross over into consumer wellness products.
The Stelo CGM by Dexcom became available over-the-counter in the US in 2024 — no prescription needed. It's a small patch you wear on your arm for 15 days that continuously monitors your blood glucose and sends data to your phone. It costs around $99 for a pack of two sensors.
I'm not diabetic. I tried this purely out of curiosity. And look — the data is fascinating if you're into quantified self stuff. You can see exactly how different foods affect your glucose levels in real time. I learned that white rice spikes me way harder than pasta does, which I honestly didn't expect.
For people managing pre-diabetes or just deeply invested in metabolic health tracking, the Stelo makes sense. For everyone else, it's an interesting experiment but probably not a regular purchase.
Fitness Trackers That Aren't Watches
The Whoop 4.0 is one of the most polarizing products I've tested. It's a screenless band worn on your wrist (or with an optional bicep strap) that's entirely subscription-based — $30/month or $239/year, and the hardware is bundled in. No upfront device cost, which is either brilliant or infuriating depending on your perspective.
The data it provides on recovery, strain, and sleep is legitimately detailed. Wirecutter called it "the most in-depth fitness tracker available" in their 2024 update. I'd agree with that characterization. But it's also expensive over time — two years of Whoop costs more than an Apple Watch Series 10.
There's also the Garmin HRM-Pro Plus chest strap at $129 USD — not a standalone tracker, but worth mentioning because chest-based heart rate monitoring is still significantly more accurate than wrist-based during high-intensity exercise. If you're a serious runner or cyclist, pairing a cheap GPS watch with a chest strap will give you better data than any smartwatch alone.
Hearables With Health Features
The line between earbuds and health trackers is blurring fast. The Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro include heart rate tracking directly from the ear canal, which is actually one of the better spots on your body to measure it. Apple AirPods Pro 2 added hearing health features in a 2024 software update — a clinically validated hearing test and over-the-counter hearing aid functionality, which is a genuinely remarkable feature for something that also costs $249 USD.
I think this is where wearables are headed in general. Not one device that does everything, but a constellation of small, passive sensors that you're already wearing for other reasons — earbuds, a ring, maybe glasses — that collectively build a picture of your health over time.
The Honest Buying Guide
Here's how I'd break it down based on what actually matters to different people:
- Best smart ring overall: Oura Ring 4 ($349 + $5.99/month) — best sleep and recovery data, clean design, comfortable 24/7 wear
- Best smart ring for Samsung users: Galaxy Ring ($399, no subscription) — good data, great ecosystem integration
- Best budget ring: RingConn Gen 2 ($219, no subscription) — impressive battery, decent accuracy, no recurring costs
- Best smart glasses right now: Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses ($299) — actually wearable, useful AI features, good audio
- Best fitness tracker without a screen: Whoop 4.0 ($239/year) — best for serious athletes who want detailed recovery data
- Best CGM for non-diabetics curious about metabolic health: Dexcom Stelo ($99 for 2 sensors) — fascinating data, use with context
The category I'm watching most closely heading into late 2026 is the AR glasses space. Meta, Apple (with whatever follows Vision Pro), and a handful of startups are all racing toward lightweight, genuinely useful heads-up display hardware. When that lands at a sub-$500 price point with real battery life, it'll be the most significant shift in personal tech since the first iPhone.
Until then — a smart ring paired with whatever phone you already have might be the most underrated combo in consumer tech right now. Don't sleep on it. Literally — it'll track that too.