I Tried the Latest Fitness & Wellness Wearables. Here's What I Learnt

Rumour has it, the whole 10,000 steps a day is based on....  kind of nothing. Apparently, rather than having any actual scientific backing, it was simply a clever sales tool to promote fitness devices after the Tokyo Olympics. If this troubles you, panic not - there are plenty of other metrics to *actually* help track your progress. And not a single one requires a scale.

But you're gonna need a wearable.

The first fitness wearable I ever bought was a FitBit. It counted my steps, told me broadly where my heart rate was, and roughly how long I'd slept for. It was frequently inaccurate, and looked kind of ugly. So I started shopping around, and experienced a whole new world of health and wellness data I previously hadn't even known existed. My inner geek awoke.

Bcos there was a time when owning a fitness tracker meant counting your steps and checking whether you had hit 10,000 before bed. Now, our wrists and fingers can tell us everything from our sleep quality and HRV to our training load, recovery, running economy and even how quickly we are moving a barbell.

The problem? With more wearables than ever competing for a place on our bodies, it is becoming increasingly difficult to work out which ones are actually worth wearing.

So I spent time testing some of the latest fitness and wellness tech, from smart rings designed to disappear into your everyday life to serious running watches and a rather clever piece of kit that can tell you what is actually happening during your strength session.

Here's what I learnt.

Garmin

Garmin was my first foray into taking my training more seriously. It offered considerable benefits over the Fitbit - not least HRV and more in-depth sleep analysis. It looked more like a proper watch, and whilst I went for the colour I liked (white) over functionality (I ended up choosing the Forerunner music, with scant regard to the fact I run with my phone and would never ever use its USP function), it did the job.

The slightly tricky thing with Garmin is that there are so many model options (and price brackets) to choose from. Their latest premium running watch is built around performance, with multi-band GPS, maps, advanced running metrics, training features and up to 15 days of battery life in smartwatch mode. Full disclosure: my Garmin is not an expensive Garmin. 

On mine (the Forerunner 265s), the running stats are good - things like cadence and power - if a little confusing. And its ability to recognise muscle groups used during a HIIT session continues to slightly blow my mind. It also has GPS which is great for tracking a run, and incident detection on certain sports like skiing and cycling. I think this basically means that if you come to a sudden stop, it'll trigger some sort of notification to your emergency contact. Thankfully, I've never actually had to test this feature. 

One feature I certainly do make daily use of is 'find my phone'. If only I could sync it to my keys....

So it's smart. But.

I would argue that relying on a Garmin is a bit like working with a friend rather than a personal trainer. Someone who you can bully into saying what you want to hear. Yes, suggested recovery times flash up after a workout, but there is absolutely no penalty for non-adherence. Before you can hit go on a run, any over-training will merit an extra screen suggesting a recovery pace or rest. But that's easily dismissed. And if you're proudly maintaining a Strava streak of any kind, following Garmin's fairly prescriptive recovery hours advice kind of lacks incentive.

I would still delay starting a run if it ran out of charge though.

Best for: runners and performance-focused athletes who love health data.

Oura Ring 5:

Yes there've been some niggles along the way (the excitingly shiny but ultimately impracticably non-scratch-resistant Oura 4, for example), but ask anyone and Oura is the OG of smart rings. Thing is, with a £5.99 monthly subscription on top of the not-insubstantial initial cost (circa £500 for the latest model), my big question was whether it would do anything my subscription-free Garmin wouldn't. Easy answer: yes.

Oura's strength lies in it being treated as more of a general wellness tracker than a fitness tracker. Yes, it can track a workout, or you can manually log one after the fact. But where it really out-shines Garmin is recognising NEAT - non-exercise activity time. So everything from housework to walking gets counted.

The bigger question IMO is Oura 4 vs Oura 5 - and honestly the biggest difference I noticed was aesthetic. Oura says the Ring 5 has 40 per cent less volume than its predecessor, measuring 6.09mm wide and 2.28mm thick compared with the Ring 4's 7.9mm width and approximately 2.88mm thickness. It is also fully titanium and has redesigned sensors. So it's more discreet, and should in theory tarnish / scratch a little slower.

But underneath, the Ring 5 continues to track the same metrics - sleep, heart rate, HRV, temperature, blood oxygen, activity and stress. It will still tell you to stretch your legs hourly (note: this is actually really annoying if you're in a non-moveable position, like on a flight. I'm sure you can disable the feature but have never figured out how). It will still only just about confirm that you're alive if you choose to usurp the monthly fee and opt instead for the free plan.

Recovery incentive is also a little more prevalent with Oura - your stats are displayed like a sliding scale of individual great-ness, and the decline of any one factor will reduce your readiness score. Of course, that too is easily ignored. But then there's a decent argument for bothering to buy, wear and charge a wearable in the first place if you're just going to ignore what it tells you...

Probably my favourite stat on Oura is sleep latency - aka how long it takes you to fall asleep. As a consistently mid sleeper, this can provide some comfort when I'm convinced it took me "hours to fall asleep" when infact it was 34 minutes. I think it uses things like heart rate and skin temperature to figure this out, but I'm not really sure. My dad likes to point out that I don't need a ring to tell me how well I slept, I can tell when I wake up. And I understand this one of thinking, but I still like to be told.  

I take my Oura off for strength training (the metal scratches ridiculously easily), and instead have a complicated system from my Garmin via Strava to log my workouts. I keep it on for running, but still use the Garmin-Strava-Oura pathway, because Oura tends to calculate that a 7km tempo run burnt something like 68 calories, and that slightly bums me out. That said, I do love how intuitively Oura recognises what I've been up to. It flashes up suggestions of activity - things like housework, and even Padel (no idea how it knows I'm doing that and not tennis tbh).

Best for: sleep, recovery and people who want detailed health data without wearing a watch.

Find out more here.

Reebok Smart Ring:

Reebok's entry into the smart-ring market takes a slightly different approach to Oura. Not that that stopped Oura filling a lawsuit for patent infringement last year.

Rather than presenting you with endless charts and metrics, the Reebok Smart Ring rolls your data into something called One Score. The idea is simple: your activity, sleep, HRV and stress data are combined into one daily snapshot.

It also tracks heart rate, blood oxygen, skin temperature, sleep stages, activity and stress, while offering specific exercise tracking.

I can see the appeal. Fitness technology can sometimes feel like having a second job. You finish a workout and suddenly you have 17 different numbers to interpret.

The Reebok approach is much more accessible. If you are interested in understanding whether you are generally moving, sleeping and recovering well, without becoming obsessed with the minutiae, it makes sense.

It also works with Apple Health and Google Health Connect (the android version), which is useful if you already have a wider health-data ecosystem.

The downside is that anyone who loves analysing every last metric may find the experience less sophisticated than Oura.

Best for: beginners, wellness-focused users and anyone who wants their wearable to simplify rather than complicate their health data.

Find out more here. 

Amazfit Balance 2:

The Amazfit Balance 2 sits somewhere between a traditional smartwatch and a dedicated training device.

It has more than 170 sports modes, GPS, strength training, sleep and recovery tracking, and even dedicated HYROX training and competition modes. It also offers downloadable maps and up to 21 days of battery life in typical use. 

That battery life alone is impressive. One of the biggest frustrations with smartwatches is remembering to charge them, particularly when you want to track sleep. A device that can go for days and days without being plugged in makes continuous tracking much more realistic.

The Balance 2 also brings together training and recovery data through the Zepp app, including VO2 max, training load, training effect, recovery time and HRV. 

What struck me most is how much functionality you get without moving into the very top end of the smartwatch market.

It is not quite as specialised as the Garmin Forerunner 970 for serious runners, but that is also its strength. If you want one watch that can handle running, strength training, sleep, everyday activity and general wellness, it is a compelling option.

Best for: people who want one device to cover pretty much everything.

Find out more here. 

Amazfit Helio Ring: 

The Amazfit Helio Ring takes a different approach from a performance smartwatch. Rather than trying to replace your watch, it is designed to complement it.

Wear the watch when you train. Wear the ring when you recover.

The Helio Ring focuses heavily on sleep and recovery, tracking sleep stages, sleep breathing, resting heart rate, HRV, temperature and readiness. It also has an EDA sensor for monitoring physiological changes associated with emotional states. 

The clever part is that it can work within the wider Amazfit ecosystem. If you wear the watch and ring together, the data can be combined in the Zepp app to produce a more complete picture of your training and recovery.

It is also incredibly light, weighing less than 4g, and is just 2.6mm thick.

For me, this is where the wearable market is heading: not necessarily one device trying to do everything, but different devices doing different jobs and sharing the information.

The question, of course, is whether you really need both.

Best for: athletes who already use Amazfit and want a dedicated recovery and sleep tracker.

Find out more here. 

REMAKER: 

One of my most sustained criticisms of the miriad smartwatches I've tried has consistently been poor tracking of strength sessions. With a focus on heart rate, traditional fitness trackers labelled even heavy leg days somewhere around "recovery". Which is kinda frustrating IMO. REMAKER is the odd one out in this list, because it is not really about counting steps, sleep or calories.

It is about what happens when you lift.

The REMAKER system uses two small pieces of hardware, MOVE and LINK, which can be worn or attached to equipment to measure strength and movement. MOVE can track things including bar speed, power, range of motion and jump performance, while LINK is designed for cable, tension and isometric exercises. 

The interesting bit is the real-time feedback.

Instead of simply recording that you did three sets of ten squats, REMAKER can tell you how your performance changed rep by rep. That means you can see when your velocity starts to drop, monitor power and use the data to make decisions about your training.

There are more than 40 metrics available, including peak force, power, velocity, impulse, range of motion, time under tension and reactive strength index. 

For someone who enjoys strength training but has never been particularly interested in the science behind it, it is fascinating. For coaches and serious athletes, it is potentially even more useful.

It also has an increasingly sophisticated app, including performance intelligence, audio feedback and AI-generated training sessions. 

It is not a replacement for an Oura or Garmin. It solves a completely different problem.

Best for: People wanting to actually make progress in strength-focused training 

Find out more here.