2 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Wearable

The Verge is covering the rapidly evolving world of wearables. We test everything from smartwatches like the Apple Watch, to smart glasses like the Meta Ray-Bans, to fitness trackers like the Oura Ring to find out which ones deliver on their promises. Follow along to find out whether covering our bodies in screens and sensors can actually make us smarter and healthier.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Smartwatch purchases should now appear in your Google Wallet transaction history.

Instead of only showing purchases made with your phone, 9to5Google reports that the Wallet app’s transaction history can now also show money spent using the NFC chip in a Wear OS watch in one combined view.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Apple’s Vision Pro and smart glasses leader reportedly leaves for OpenAI.

With its Vision Pro headset suddenly even more expensive, and plans for smart glasses apparently in the works, Bloomberg reports Apple is losing Paul Meade, the hardware VP who was in charge of those projects. The report says he’ll reunite with former Apple designers, including Jony Ive, Tang Tan, and Evans Hankey, at OpenAI, which purchased their startup last year, as the executive shakeup under new Apple CEO John Ternus continues.

Sometimes, health tracking accuracy is overrated

I measured my body composition on five devices. I still don’t know what my exact body fat percentage is.

Victoria Song
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Casio’s new collaboration gives the G-Shock a Pokémon makeover.

If you’re a fan of rugged wearables and pocket monsters you’ll want to mark July 1st in your calendar as the day you can preorder Casio’s new Pokémon-themed G-Shock GA-110 watch through a lottery system on the company’s Japanese online store. It’s priced at ¥33,000, or around $204, and expected to release on July 17th.

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1/5Image: Casio Japan
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Samsung’s new watches might look just like its old watches.

Leaked renders of the Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 suggest not much is changing in Samsung’s new wearables, at least from the outside. There should be performance upgrades though, plus the bump to Samsung’s take on Wear OS 7. Expect both next month alongside new foldable phones.

Leaked render of Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 from the front
Leaked render of Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 from the front
Leaked render of Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 from the back
Leaked render of Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 from the back
Leaked render of Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 from the side
Leaked render of Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 from the side
1/6
The Galaxy Watch 9 is keeping the circle-in-a-squircle look.
Image: OnLeaks / Android Headlines
The Fitbit Air takes a smarter approach to the AI health dumpster fire

8

Verge Score

Google Health remains a work in progress, but it could be so much worse.

Victoria Song
Meta launches cheaper smart glasses without Ray-Ban

They’re $80 cheaper, and Alex Himel, Meta’s VP of wearables, says privacy improvements are on the way.

Victoria Song
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Apple says dropping support for some Watches is about processing power.

Cait Dooley, Apple Watch and Health Product Marketing Manager, was quick to tell TechRadar that older Apple Watch models will still work with newer iPhones and receive security updates. It’s just that Siri AI and some other watchOS 27 features require a bit more horsepower.

“The great new features in watchOS, including the capabilities of Siri AI and the new tap gesture, work best with the processing power that is in Apple Watch Series 9 and later, Ultra 2 and later, and SE 3. Older devices can still be paired with iPhones that are running the latest software and continue to receive security updates, so they can continue to have a great Apple Watch experience.”

Can anyone look cool wearing Snap’s $2,000 glasses?

Short answer: Of course not.

Victoria Song
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
This isn’t funny.

Dkfkhfkwkdnc:

Oof the PR crisis must be bad

Get the day’s best comment and more in my free newsletter, The Verge Daily.

Victoria Song
Victoria Song
My mayor’s Muslim, my bagel’s Jewish, my heart rate’s fried, KNICKS IN FIVE!

Oura says New Yorkers’ hearts were palpitating on Wednesday night during Game 4. Turns out, baseline heart rates increased by 3.7 beats on average at the final buzzer. Heart rates were also elevated for the entirety of the game, and nobody seemed to get a peaceful night of sleep. Guessing we’re in for more of the same on Saturday.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Meta is donating its AI glasses to the more than 130,000 blind veterans in the US.

Smart glasses, like the Ray-Ban Meta, have become a resource for people with disabilities. Meta says the company and its partners will provide hands-on training for all the veterans who receive a free pair of AI glasses through the Blinded Veterans Association or TechSoup.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
This exposure-tracking pendant will help you stay safe in the sun.

It’s a similar idea as L’Oréal’s My Skin Track UV sensor, but the $299 (discounted to $199 at launch) Gem smart jewelry wearable from The90 is a more stylish alternative. Its sensors measure UVA and UVB exposure throughout the day and based on your skin profile it will tell you how much sun is safe to get and when to reapply sunscreen through an app.

A person holds The Gem smart exposure pendant between the fingers while it’s worn around their neck.
The Gem is available for preorder now and the earliest orders are expected to ship this month.
Image: The90
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
The Apple Watch Walkie-Talkie fun is over, over.

The Walkie-Talkie app for Apple Watch that lets users send push-to-talk voice messages to one another over FaceTime has been quietly removed in the first watchOS 27 developer beta, with no option to reinstall it. It was first introduced alongside watchOS 5 in 2018.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
The Pebble Round 2 starts shipping next month.

People who pre-ordered the Round 2 have been waiting months for their watches (or potentially over a year for those who switched a Pebble Time 2 pre-order to a Round 2 pre-order). Eric Migicovsky says he’s currently planning for all Round 2 pre-orders to ship by September.

WWDC 2026 bonus live blog: Tech Talk with Craig Federighi

An on-the-record chat about Apple Intelligence.

Victoria Song and Nilay Patel
WWDC 2026 live blog: On the ground at Apple’s keynote

AI Siri, take two? Definitely everything coming to iOS 27, macOS 27, and more.

Victoria Song, Nilay Patel and 1 more
Victoria Song
Victoria Song
James Senior will be the new Supernatural Health CEO.

So says Meta spokesperson Che’von Lewis. Senior was previously Meta’s Product Lead for its Studio and New Vertical portfolios. You can read more about Supernatural’s forthcoming era here, and catch up on the buff ladies who worked so hard to save it here.

Victoria Song
Victoria Song
Dexcom doubles down on nondiabetic CGM use.

First off, it announced today that it plans to acquire Nutrisense — a CGM startup that targets nondiabetics. Stelo, its over-the-counter CGM, is also getting an FDA-cleared redesign that includes “pattern recognition, proactive AI coaching, and personalized weekly and daily summaries.” Hopefully, these moves help ease the data fatigue I experienced in my yearlong experiment with CGMs as a nondiabetic.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
People are paying to get rid of the recording light on their Meta Ray-Bans.

Former Verge editor Joanna Stern found listings in 30 states offering to remove the recording indicator LED on Meta smart glasses. She met one of the people offering this service, who drilled the light out of her glasses and filled it in, allowing her to stealthily record with the glasses.

David Pierce
David Pierce
Today’s Vergecast: The grift and glory of the Enhanced Games.

How far can we push the limits of the human body? At the Enhanced Games in Las Vegas, a few dozen athletes tried to find out, and The Verge’s Victoria Song was there to watch. She tells us the story of the swimmers, weightlifters, and other athletes who competed, the intense training and drug regimens they underwent, and the complicated mix of pseudo-science and actual science behind the event. Then, she tells us where this project goes from here — because the Enhanced Games experiment is just beginning.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Ultrahuman data breach exposed users’ wellness data.

The smart ring company says on March 27th hackers used an internal analytics tool to access users’ contact and account details, transaction history, and “some fitness related data.” According to TechCrunch, the breach impacted 0.1 percent of Ultrahuman users, or an estimated 700 people.

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