The tariff fees are typically paid on a product’s declared value rather than the retail cost. So a $170 price bump could be close to what the company’s US arm will pay to import the Watch 3 in the midst of a trade war. Many technology firms have attempted to stockpile products in the US ahead of tariffs, but it’s possible OnePlus simply couldn’t do that because it had to fix its typo.
Losing its greatest advantage?
Like past OnePlus wearables, the Watch 3 is a chunky, high-power device with a stainless steel case. It sports a massive 1.5-inch OLED screen, the latest Snapdragon W5 wearable processor, 32GB of storage, and 2GB of RAM. It runs Google’s Wear OS for smart features, but it also has a dialed-back power-saving mode that runs separate RTOS software. This robust hardware adds to the manufacturing cost, which also means higher tariffs now. As it currently stands, the Watch 3 is just too expensive given the competition.
OnePlus has managed to piece together a growing ecosystem of devices, including phones, tablets, earbuds, and, yes, smartwatches. With a combination of competitive prices and high-end specs, it successfully established a foothold in the US market, something few Chinese OEMs have accomplished.
The implications go beyond wearables. OnePlus also swings for the fences with its phone hardware, using the best Arm chips and expensive, high-end OLED panels. OnePlus tends to price its phones lower than similar Samsung and Google hardware, so it doesn’t make as much on each phone. If the tariffs stick, that strategy could be unviable.
Google released the Pixel Watch 3 last fall alongside the Pixel 9 family, sporting the same curvy look as the last two versions. The Pixel Watch 3 came with a new feature called Loss of Pulse Detection, which can detect impending death due to a stopped heart. Google wasn’t allowed to unlock that feature in the US until it got regulatory approval, but the Food and Drug Administration has finally given Google the go-ahead to activate Loss of Pulse Detection.
Numerous smartwatches can use health sensors to monitor for sudden health events. For example, the Pixel Watch, Apple Watch, and others can detect atrial fibrillation (AFib), a type of irregular heartbeat that could indicate an impending stroke or heart attack. Google claims Loss of Pulse Detection goes further, offering new functionality on a consumer wearable.
Like the EKG features that became standard a few years back, Loss of Pulse Detection requires regulatory approval. Google was able to get clearance to ship the Pixel Watch 3 with Loss of Pulse Detection in a few European countries, eventually expanding to 14 nations: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. It noted at the time more countries would get access as regulators approved the feature, and the FDA was apparently the first to come through outside of Europe, boosting support to 15 countries.
The Pixel Watch 3 doesn’t include any new or unique sensors to power Loss of Pulse Detection—it’s just using the sensors common to smartwatches in slightly different ways. The watch uses a “multi-path” heart rate sensor that is capable of taking readings once per second. When the sensor no longer detects a pulse, that usually means you’ve taken the watch off. It’s quick to make that determination, locking the watch in about a second. That’s great for security but a little annoying if you were readjusting it on your wrist.
Imagine heading out for a run on a cold winter day clad in athletic gear with sensors and microelectronics woven into the very fiber to constantly monitor your vital signs, even running the occasional app. MIT scientists have manufactured a single fiber computer embedded with all the components to do just that, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature.
“Our bodies broadcast gigabytes of data through the skin every second in the form of heat, sound, biochemicals, electrical potentials, and light, all of which carry information about our activities, emotions, and health,” said co-author Yoel Fink, a materials scientist and engineer at MIT. “Unfortunately, most if not all of it gets absorbed and then lost in the clothes we wear. Wouldn’t it be great if we could teach clothes to capture, analyze, store, and communicate this important information in the form of valuable health and activity insights?”
As previously reported, consumers scooped up more than 100 million units of such wearable devices as smartwatches, fitness trackers, augmented reality glasses, and similar tech in the first quarter of 2021 alone. Sales in the category increased 34.4 percent in the second quarter from Q2 2020, making it one of the fastest-growing categories of personal electronics. But while these devices do produce useful data, there are drawbacks. They can be heavy, uncomfortable when worn for long periods, and inaccurate since they usually only measure bodily signals from one spot (e.g., the wrist, chest, or finger).
A fiber computer woven into apparel, by contrast, could monitor sensors and collect data from many points distributed across the body, according to the authors. In 2021, Fink’s group successfully created the first fiber, sewn into a shirt, with the ability to digitally sense, store, and analyze a person’s activity. Until then, electronic fibers had been analog. Hundreds of square silicone microchips were embedded in a polymer preform to create the fiber, and by controlling the polymer flow during manufacture, the team was able to ensure continuous electrical connection among the microchips in a fiber tens of meters long.
The resulting fiber was thin, flexible, easily sewn into fabrics, and washable and could incorporate optical diodes, memory units, sensors, and other components. As proof of principle, Fink’s team stored a 767-kilobit short movie file and a 0.48 megabyte music file in the fiber, envisioning a day when one could store one’s wedding playlist in the bride’s gown (or groom’s tuxedo).
After launching its AI Pin in April 2024 and reportedly seeking a buyout by May 2024, Humane is shutting down. Most of the people who bought an AI Pin will not get refunds for the devices, which debuted at $700, dropped to $500, and will be bricked on February 28 at noon PT.
At that time, AI Pins, which are lapel pins with an integrated AI voice assistant, camera, speaker, and laser projector, “will no longer connect to Humane’s servers,” and “all customer data, including personal identifiable information… will be permanently deleted from Humane’s servers,” according to Humane’s FAQ page. Humane also stopped selling AI pins as of yesterday and canceled any orders that had been made but not yet fulfilled. Humane said it is discontinuing the AI Pin because it’s “moving onto new endeavors.”
Those new endeavors include selling off key assets, including the AI Pin’s CosmOS operating system and intellectual property, including over 300 patents and patent applications, to HP for $116 million, HP announced on Tuesday. HP expects the acquisition to close this month.
Notably, Humane raised $241 million to make its pin and was reportedly valued at $1 billion before launch. Last year, Humane was seeking a sale price of $750 million to $1 billion, according to Bloomberg.
But the real failure is in the company’s treatment of its customers, who will only get a refund if they “are still within the 90-day return window from their original shipment date,” Humane’s FAQ page says. “All device shipments prior to November 15th, 2024, are not eligible for refunds. All refunds must be submitted by February 27th, 2025.”
AI Pins “will no longer function as a cellular device or connect to Humane’s servers. This means no calls, texts, or data usage will be possible,” according to the startup, which noted that users can’t port their phone number to another device or wireless carrier. Some offline features “like battery level” will still work, Humane said, but overall, the product will become $700 e-waste for most owners in nine days.
Other Humane charging accessories, like the Charge Pad, are said to be unaffected because Humane doesn’t use the same unnamed vendor for any parts besides the Charge Case Accessory’s battery.
Humane’s statement puts the blame on this anonymous third-party vendor. The company said it realized there was a problem when a user reported a “charging issue while using a third-party USB-C cable and third-party power source.” The company added:
Our investigation determined that the battery supplier was no longer meeting our quality standards and that certain battery cells supplied by this vendor may pose a fire safety risk. As a result, we immediately disqualified this battery vendor while we work to identify a new vendor to avoid such issues and maintain our high quality standards.
Impacted customers can get a refund for the accessory (up to $149) or a replacement via an online form. While refunds will go through within 14 business days, users seeking a replacement Charge Case Accessory have to wait until Humane makes one. That could take three to six months, the San Francisco firm estimates.
In the meantime, Humane is telling customers to properly dispose of their Charge Case Accessories (which means not throwing them in a trash can or the used battery recycling boxes found at some stores).
Another obstacle for Humane
A well-executed recall in the name of user safety isn’t automatically a death knell for a product, but Humane has already been struggling to maintain a positive reputation, and its ability to sell AI Pins in the long term was already in question before this mishap.
The AI Pin’s launch was marred by a myriad of complaints, including the pin’s inability to properly clip to some clothing, slow voice responses, short battery life, limitations with the laser projector working outside of dark rooms, and overall limited functionality. Soon after the product was released, The New York Times reported that the company’s founders, two former Apple executives, ignored negative internal reviews and even let go of an engineer who questioned the product. Humane spokesperson Zoz Cuccias admitted to The Verge in August that upon releasing the wearable, Humane “knew we were at the starting line, not the finish line.”
Google closed its Fitbit acquisition in 2021. Since then, the tech behemoth has pushed numerous changes to the wearable brand, including upcoming updates announced this week. While Google reshapes its fitness tracker business, though, some long-time users are regretting their Fitbit purchases and questioning if Google’s practices will force them to purchase their next fitness tracker elsewhere.
Generative AI coming to Fitbit (of course)
As is becoming common practice with consumer tech announcements, Google’s latest announcements about Fitbit seemed to be trying to convince users of the wonders of generative AI and how that will change their gadgets for the better. In a blog post yesterday, Dr. Karen DeSalvo, Google’s chief health officer, announced that Fitbit Premium subscribers would be able to test experimental AI features later this year (Google hasn’t specified when).
“You will be able to ask questions in a natural way and create charts just for you to help you understand your own data better. For example, you could dig deeper into how many active zone minutes… you get and the correlation with how restorative your sleep is,” she wrote.
DeSalvo’s post included an example of a user asking a chatbot if there was a connection between their sleep and activity and said that the experimental AI features will only be available to “a limited number of Android users who are enrolled in the Fitbit Labs program in the Fitbit mobile app.”
Google shared this image as an example of what future Fitbit generative AI features could look like.
Fitbit is also working with the Google Research team and “health and wellness experts, doctors, and certified coaches” to develop a large language model (LLM) for upcoming Fitbit mobile app features that pull data from Fitbit and Pixel devices, DeSalvo said. The announcement follows Google’s decision to stop selling Fitbits in places where it doesn’t sell Pixels, taking the trackers off shelves in a reported 29 countries.
In a blog post yesterday, Yossi Matias, VP of engineering and research at Google, said the company wants to use the LLM to add personalized coaching features, such as the ability to look for sleep irregularities and suggest actions “on how you might change the intensity of your workout.”
Google’s Fitbit is building the LLM on Gemini models that are tweaked on de-identified data from unspecified “research case studies,” Matias said, adding: “For example, we’re testing performance using sleep medicine certification exam-like practice tests.”
Gemini, which Google released in December, has been criticized for generating historically inaccurate images. After users complained about different races and ethnicities being inaccurately portrayed in prompts for things like Nazi members and medieval British kings, Google pulled the feature last month and said it would release a fix “soon.”In a press briefing, Florence Thng, director and product lead at Fitbit, suggested that such problems wouldn’t befall Fitbit’s LLM since it’s being tested by users before an official rollout, CNET reported.
Other recent changes to Fitbit include a name tweak from Fitbit by Google, to Google Fitbit, as spotted by 9to5Google this week.
Meanwhile, customers, especially Charge 5 users, are questioning whether their next fitness tracker will come from Fitbit Google Fitbit.
For example, in January, we reported that users were claiming that their Charge 5 suddenly started draining battery rapidly after installing a firmware update that Fitbit released in December. As of this writing, one thread discussing the problem on Fitbit’s support forum has 33 pages of comments. Google told BBC in January that it didn’t know what the problem was but knew that it wasn’t tied to firmware. Google hasn’t followed up with further explanation since. The company hasn’t responded to multiple requests from Ars Technica for comment. In the meantime, users continue experiencing problems and have reported so on Fitbit’s forum. Per user comments, the most Google has done is offer discounts or, if the device was within its warranty period, a replacement.
“This is called planned obsolescence. I’ll be upgrading to a watch style tracker from a different company. I wish Fitbit hadn’t sold out to Google,” a forum user going by Sean77024 wrote on Fitbit’s support forum yesterday.
Others, like 2MeFamilyFlyer, have also accused Fitbit of planning Charge 5 obsolescence. 2MeFamilyFlyer said they’re seeking a Fitbit alternative.
The ongoing problems with the Charge 5, which was succeeded by the Charge 6 on October 12, has some, like reneeshawgo on Fitbit’s forum and PC World Senior Editor Alaina Yee saying that Fitbit devices aren’t meant to last long. In January, Yee wrote: “You should see Fitbits as a 1-year purchase in the US and two years in regions with better warranty protections.”
For many, a year or two wouldn’t be sufficient, even if the Fitbit came with trendy AI features.
