Some unexpected good news from the FDA: bemotrizinol, a sunscreen ingredient that has been used in Europe and Asia for decades, is finally being added to the allowable ingredients list for products sold in the U.S. Bemotrizinol is the active ingredient in sunscreens like Bioré Watery Essence, which has a cult following for being unlike anything we can get in the U.S.
I’ve tried Bioré UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence (that’s the full name of the product) in its original Japanese formulation. This sunscreen is a cult favorite on skincare and Asian beauty forums because of its non-greasy feel, and because it protects against both UVA and UVB rays without leaving a white cast. I got mine from a friend who had either picked it up while traveling or possibly ordered from overseas; you can’t buy it in U.S.-based stores.
I’ll explain why this is below, but first: it truly is nothing like anything we have locally. Even our most “non-greasy” sunscreens tend to feel a little goopy or sticky. This one really feels like nothing after you rub it in. I instantly understood why it’s so sought-after. Remembering that experience, I’m looking forward to what we might see in American sunscreens once manufacturers are allowed to include this ingredient.
What’s so special about bemotrizinol?
Bemotrizinol has a lot of things going for it. One is that it “plays well with other sunscreen ingredients,” as one dermatologist told Women’s Health. You can make lighter, nicer-feeling sunscreens with it, hence the popularity of the Bioré formulation I tried. To see what I mean, check out this video where a dermatologist shows off the differences between Bioré's Japanese formulation and the version it sells in the U.S. The ingredients are different, and the texture just isn't the same.
It’s also more effective at broad-spectrum protection. With our current sunscreen formulations, all active ingredients protect against UVB rays (the rays that cause sunburn) but only a few can also provide protection against UVA rays (which contribute to wrinkling and aging of skin). UVB is considered to be the bigger risk for skin cancer, but both probably contribute to cancer risk. Right now, most broad-spectrum U.S. sunscreens use mineral components like zinc oxide. Mineral sunscreens work pretty well, but can leave a white cast on your skin when applied as thickly as you’re supposed to.
Bemotrizinol is a chemical UV filter, so it doesn’t leave that white cast. But it protects well against UVA rays in addition to UVB, and it’s more photostable than a lot of our existing chemical sunscreen ingredients so it can last longer on the skin. In other words, it’s a chemical sunscreen, but combines some of the best features of both chemical and mineral sunscreens.
It’s also considered to be one of the safest sunscreens. All sunscreens on the market are much safer than going without sunscreen, but all of our chemical sunscreen ingredients are currently undergoing a safety evaluation because regulators determined they are probably fine but need more research to know for sure. Currently only our two mineral sunscreen ingredients (zinc oxide and titanium dioxide) are considered GRASE, or generally recognized as safe and effective. Bemotrizinol will be the third.
If you're looking at ingredient lists on Asian or European sunscreens, be aware that it goes by several names. Tinosorb S is bemotrizinol; so is bis-ethylhexyloxyphenol methoxyphenyl triazine.
Why it’s taken so long
Ask anyone in the skincare world what they think about U.S. sunscreens, and for decades now you’d get complaints that we’re missing out on the best sunscreens that the rest of the world uses. (Our last new sunscreen ingredient was approved in 1996.) In most countries, sunscreens are regulated as cosmetics, but in the U.S. they are regulated as drugs. That means the U.S. requires more rigorous testing and approval.
The CARES act, passed in 2020 for pandemic relief, provided a way for over-the-counter drugs to be sold without going through the complete approval process, so long as the FDA was satisfied they were safe and effective. Bemotrizinol met the criteria, thanks in large part to the fact that it’s been used safely since 2000 in Europe, Asia, and Australia. The FDA’s rule on bemotrizinol still needs to be finalized, but it seems likely we’ll see new sunscreens on shelves before the end of 2026.
When I reviewed the Whoop 5.0 and MG (and, earlier, the Whoop 4.0), I kept it to the basics—how the strap looks, works, and charges, and what activities it can track. But that's only part of it, and today, I’m going to dive in to all the metrics Whoop reports and offer a reality check on what I've found most useful and what isn’t worth paying attention to.
(I'll leave out the activity tracking features here, since I covered them in more depth in the review, but the bottom line is this: I love the way it tracks how hard your workouts are—strength workouts included—but it's not going to replace a true fitness watch for most people.)
I haven't worn the Whoop band as regularly as I do the Oura ring, for which I was able to give a four-year retrospective. But to research both this article and my reviews, I’ve worn the Whoop for a couple of stints of at least a few weeks each, tracking my workouts and sleep regularly. With that said, here's a deeper dive into what it’s actually like to wear the Whoop strap long-term, using it to judge and guide your habits and performance.
A typical day wearing a Whoop band
Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Whoop
Let me take you through a typical day. I’m wearing the Whoop band on either my wrist or upper arm, and it’s probably been a few days since I last charged it. (I get about five days on a charge.) I made sure I had it on when I went to bed. If I look at my Whoop app first thing in the morning, it will sometimes tell me that it’s still “processing” my sleep, and there’s a button I can press to “end sleep” and get my recovery results.
The Whoop app will show you a survey called your “journal” the first time you open the app each day. I’ll talk more about the journal in a section below. Let’s say you’ve already filled out your journal, and you’re looking at the main app. From the home screen, on a typical day I might see:
My recovery at the top, color coded. Green is good, and you get that if your recovery is 66% or better. Yellow is OK (34% and up), and red is poor. Today, I have a yellow recovery, at 48%. (For the month of April, I got 19 green recoveries, 9 yellow, 0 red, and on two nights I forgot to wear the strap to bed.)
Some notes about things I should pay attention to. Perhaps my HRV is lower than usual, which might be because of my hard workout yesterday.
The health monitor, which tells me whether my respiratory rate, blood oxygen, resting heart rate, HRV, and skin temperature are within my normal ranges.
The stress monitor, which I guess tells me how stressed I am. To be honest, I don’t find this useful.
A "daily outlook" button I can press. This starts a conversation with Whoop Coach—more about that in a minute.
Today’s timeline, showing when I slept. As I do other activities, like workouts, they’ll show up here.
Recommendations for tonight’s sleep, including a recommended bedtime.
After this, there is a scorecard for my current “plan” (more about that below), and a dashboard with the individual metrics I might care about, like heart rate variability (HRV) and a count of my steps so far today, a feature that’s still in beta.
Along the top of the screen, I can tap on my scores for Sleep, Recovery, or Strain. The Strain screen is interesting, since it gives a recommended Strain level for the day. It may suggest that I take on a “moderate” level of Strain, and set my target as 8.9 to 12.9. You get most of your Strain from exercise, and a little from everyday activity like walking around. On a morning I haven’t done any workouts or left the house yet, I may be around 2.7 Strain just from sitting around.
The Whoop Coach can help you plan your day—but don’t ask it to get too specific.
Let’s return to that Daily Outlook button. Tap that, and you’ll be launched into a conversation with Whoop Coach, an AI chatbot. This is probably the only AI bot I converse with on the regular, because it does a decent job of explaining the app’s metrics and recommends workouts for the day.
To use one real example: on a certain day it complimented me on completing a running workout yesterday, and told me my workout schedule had been consistent, with 162 minutes in active heart rate zones so far that week. It then described a few trends in my metrics, including that my resting heart rate had improved over the past few weeks, but that my recovery that day was lower than my usual.
Then comes the fun part. It makes recommendations for workouts to do today, and habits to focus on. It told me to aim for three liters of water that day (that’s a little bit more than my usual) with plenty of fruits and vegetables. And for a workout, I could meet my recommended Strain score with something that is low impact to “support recovery,” since my heart rate and HRV suggested I may need a bit of a rest.
Credit: Beth Skwarecki
The Whoop Coach went on to suggest three workouts to choose from, based on the kinds of activities it knows I like to do. They included a 30-minute run, mostly in zones 1 and 2, or an 80-minute weightlifting workout at a low-medium intensity. I can tap a button at the bottom of each workout that says “Commit,” and doing this will add it to my timeline for the day. I can do the workout later by just tapping that button, and it will start the activity timer for me.
I love that it can recommend these workouts for me, since otherwise “get 8.9 Strain” is an inscrutable instruction. Unfortunately, the little graphic showing time in heart rate zones is all you get. I’ve asked the Whoop Coach if it could time me through those intervals, perhaps beeping when it’s time to switch from one zone to another, but it doesn’t have that functionality.
It does offer a specific workout plan that I could punch into a workout timer app of my choice. In the past, the Whoop Coach has struggled to put together interval workouts that add up to the number of minutes that are supposed to be in the workout; that seems to be improving. But the workout ideas are still pretty generic. I found that the best way to use the coach is to see what it recommends, then use that as a sort of vague guidance if I have flexibility in my training program or my real-life plans for the day. For example, if I have a hard 45-minute running workout planned today, but Whoop thinks I should do something lighter, I might see if I can swap today's run with an easy run that is scheduled for later in the week.
How to use Whoop’s sleep metrics and features
Credit: Beth Skwarecki
Whoop gives you so many sleep metrics, it can be hard to know where to start. I see two major, useful features here: the report of how long you slept compared to how much sleep you needed, and the smart alarms that you can set in any of a variety of ways.
On your Sleep tab, you’ll get a score for your sleep “performance,” comparing the amount of sleep you got to the amount it calculates you needed. Today I slept more than I needed, which doesn’t match with how I felt groggily dragging myself out of bed. The timing seems right, though—I was extra tired yesterday so I both got to bed early and slept a little late.
I think it’s a fool’s errand to worry about how “accurate” sleep tracking is, since no wearable is truly accurate, but most of them are good enough. But for a comparison, the total sleep time is usually similar to what Oura reports, and the sleep phases are often more-or-less in the same ballpark. Here’s one example from a day I wore both Oura and Whoop:
Light sleep: 5:02 (Oura: 5:22)
Deep sleep: 2:36 (Oura: 1:41)
REM sleep: 1:46 (Oura: 1:37)
Total: 9:18 (Oura 9:22)
Total sleep matters more than the other numbers, in my book. Increase your total sleep and you’re likely to sleep better. (I have data backing this up from my long-term Oura trends—total sleep correlates closely with other metrics and scores of sleep quality.)
Whoop also tracks your “sleep debt,” or how much sleep you needed but didn’t get. In one example month I had a six nights with a “high” sleep debt of 45 minutes or more. Nine times it was moderate (30 to 45 minutes), and 14 times it was 30 minutes or less.
Sleep coach and smart alarms
One of Whoop’s most intriguing features is the sleep coach, which can advise you when to go to bed, and even help you decide when your alarm should go off. (It’s also one of the most hidden features. Tap on the “tonight’s sleep” card on your overview screen.)
From this screen, called the Sleep Planner, you can choose whether you want to “reach my sleep need” (making up any sleep debt, as needed); “improve my sleep,” which will recommend times that help you to be more consistent in your sleep schedule; or “reach my weekly plan goal,” which I’ll say more about below.
And then, there’s a second set of preferences. When you try to set an alarm, the app will ask if you’d like to wake up at an exact time, or when you’ve met your sleep goal for the night, or as soon as you’re “in the green.” That last one refers to a 66% or better recovery, which may not be ideal, but should ensure you’re not going to be dead on your feet.
Realistically, I don’t use these features too often. I do have a sleep goal set in my weekly plan, but I’m not fiddling with an app every night to decide when to wake up. On the other hand, if I had a chaotic schedule, like that of a student or a pro sports player, I could definitely see making more use of this feature.
Tracking your habits with the Journal
Left: the journal screen you'll see each day. Right: the screen where you can choose your journal questions.Credit: Beth Skwarecki
The activity and sleep tracking happen more or less automatically, and pretty much any fitness tracker or smartwatch can do those things. Where Whoop really shines, from a wellness perspective, is in helping you track all the little habits and factors that may be affecting your sleep or your athletic performance.
This is where the Journal comes in. You can fill it out at any time during the day, but it will also pop up first thing in the morning and ask you what happened yesterday. Did you eat a late meal? Did you have any alcohol? Did you hydrate well? If you don’t like these questions, you can set it up to ask you different ones. It can also pull in data from other parts of the app or from connected apps—for example, if you log your menstrual cycle in Apple Health, that can show up here as well.
Each habit or factor only becomes useful if you log at least five yeses and five nos. Anything that you almost always do, or that you almost never do, isn’t going to be very helpful to track. So I’ve narrowed down my Journal questions to only include things I’ll answer differently from night to night, or things I’m trying to improve on.
One important caveat: leaving the question blank doesn’t count as a yes or a no. At first I only answered a question if I could say “yes,” and otherwise I’d leave it blank—for example, answering “yes” if I’d had alcohol that day. But when I looked at my results later, I found that with a total of seven yeses and zero nos for alcohol, Whoop couldn’t give me any reports that used that information. When I noticed this I was able to backfill the last few days’ worth of journal entries, but you can’t go back more than about a week.
Correlation, not causation—but interesting to see.Credit: Beth Skwarecki
That extra week’s worth of data was enough to get an answer on alcohol, though: it hurts my recovery, taking it down an average of 9% on nights I had a beer or two. Or at least that’s how Whoop represents it—these are correlations, and Whoop doesn’t actually know what’s causing what. For example, taking melatonin supposedly hurts my recovery by 4%. But is melatonin really the culprit, or do I tend to take melatonin when I’m already having trouble sleeping? You need to take these results with a big grain of salt. To Whoop’s credit, it includes a note that “this impact is significantly different than the Whoop average. Note that impacts can sometimes be affected by other correlated factors that you don’t track.”
The two things that do help my recovery, according to Whoop’s insights (which you can access from the top of the Journal screen), are sticking to a consistent bedtime—8% improvement—and being well-hydrated, a 4% improvement. The consistent bedtime was automatically filled out from Whoop data, while the hydration came from me answering a yes/no question each day.
By the way, you can speed up the process of clicking all the little yes and no boxes by tapping the box that says “use previous answers.” It will set the answers to whatever you marked yesterday, and then you can manually change the ones that are different.
Making a weekly plan
Weekly plans are a nice way to work on a small set of habits for a short time. Rather than trying to monitor everything for every outcome, you pick, say, three things you want to work on. Here are some examples that the app provides, and the habits or factors that each one tracks:
Boost fitness: increase time in high intensity heart rate zones, meet a protein goal four days per week, do any strength training activity one day per week
Feel better: increase daily steps, meet hydration goal four days per week, do “any recovery activity” three days per week
After experimenting with some of these, I ended up creating a custom plan for myself. I chose:
Get 7:30 hours of sleep on average
Avoid using my phone in bed four days per week
Meet my hydration goal five days per week
Throughout the week I can check in on how I’m doing, and at the end of the week Whoop gives me a little report and asks if I’d like to do the same plan next week, or change it up. I find this a useful way to work on a mini goal, and it’s a lot less overwhelming than poring over huge dashboards full of all the data Whoop can collect.
Viewing weekly and monthly reports
Credit: Beth Skwarecki
For when you do want to pore over all your data, there are detailed weekly and monthly “performance assessments” that Whoop can share with you. Each of these is a PDF with graphs showing what you did over the course of the week or month, and how it compares with previous data.
For example, my monthly report for last April shows how my Strain and recovery compare with previous weeks throughout the year. I don’t wear my Whoop often enough to get any big insights from this—as I said, I only really wear it when I’m testing features or writing a review—but man, I would love this if it were available on one of the devices I do wear month in and month out. (As much as I admire the Whoop, I can only wear so many devices in addition to the ones I test for work.)
My weekly report is more narrowly focused. The most recent one starts with a statement: “Strain was optimal. Sleep could use improvement.” My Strain is also down slightly this week compared with the previous week, and my sleep consistency was poor. I like the graph that shows how my bedtimes and wake-up times line up (or don’t) with the times the app recommended for me.
What isn’t worth paying attention to
The Whoop app gives you a wealth of data, and honestly I would say most of it isn’t worth paying attention to. The app has so many data points and fractal little rabbit holes you can get lost in. You could spend hours perusing reports and tweaking settings. You could spend an unlimited amount of time chatting with the Whoop Coach AI. And you don’t need to do that.
What is useful is choosing a few things to pay attention to and letting go of the rest. Fortunately, the app gives you plenty of ways to do this. You can select a few things that matter to you in the Weekly Plan, and you can hide things from your Dashboard that you don’t need to check on every day.
As for the things I (almost) never pay attention to:
Don’t overthink your sleep stages. Getting enough sleep, and consistent sleep, will cover your bases.
Don’t read too much into the recovery scores; you are resilient enough to be able to handle your scheduled workout even if your sleep wasn’t perfect. The exception would be if you’re feeling truly awful—you’re sick or something—in which case, you would know because of how you feel, not because of a number on an app.
Remember that the insights tell you about correlation, not causation—as in my melatonin example, where melatonin is correlated with worse sleep, possibly because I'm taking it when I expect to have worse sleep. These are not really "insights" at all, just data that you'll need to use your own brain (and further experimentation) to make sense of.
I have found that paying too much attention to a recovery app can drive me a little crazy. Instead of waking up and not really thinking about how I feel—I’m fine, probably—I find myself wondering if the app agrees that I feel tired and sore. Or I’ll think I’m OK, but the app says my HRV is down, and now I have to think about what may have caused that. I wouldn’t recommend intensive tracking like this for a person who finds they can easily get sucked in to obsessing over numbers. But if numbers bring you joy, the Whoop app can certainly give you plenty of them.
The strength training mode in Garmin watches like the Forerunner 570 is a little confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's incredibly useful in the gym. Garmin handles rest timers better than any other wearable I've tried, and when combined with a third-party app called LiftTrack, you can even track your volume and PRs. I'll lead you through how I use this workout mode, and how it's helped me do more work in less time in the gym.
How to find strength workouts in Garmin Connect
Credit: Garmin
I’ll get into how to create workouts in a minute, but first I just want to let you know that there are some strength workouts already available for download, if you’d like to just select one and start doing it right now. Go to either your Garmin Connect app or to Garmin Connect on the web, tap Training & Planning, then Workouts, then Find a Workout.
You’ll be able to choose workouts from a library, and you can search by type (including weights, yoga, and bodyweight cardio). Most of the workouts are short, simple, and don’t use much equipment. If you’re experienced at strength training, you’ll probably want to create your own workouts or use the coach feature, but these will get you started in the meantime.
Credit: Garmin
As for that coach feature, it works much like the adaptive running coach plans. You can read more here from Garmin, but basically you set it up by selecting Garmin Coach and telling it your goals and schedule. Workouts will then appear for you each day. The image above shows a Push/Pull/Legs workout programmed by Garmin Coach. It let me choose which workout happens on which day, had me set my max lifts as benchmarks (this program uses percentages), and even let me edit the workouts to swap exercises before finally putting them on my calendar.
How to create strength workouts in Garmin Connect
Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Garmin
I’m going to walk you through this step-by-step, because I was so confused the first time I tried to build a workout. Again, you can do this either on your phone or on the web. I usually end up creating my workouts on the phone, and it’s not hard once you get the hang of it. One tip, though: you can skip this whole process if you're willing to install a third-party app. LiftTrack takes care of workout planning and syncs to your Garmin account, and you can read more about how to use that app here.
Go to the “More” menu on your phone (or the sidebar on web) and select Training & Planning, then Workouts, and then Create a Workout. From here, select Strength, and you’ll be given a skeleton of a workout with a warmup, cooldown, and one slot for an exercise.
To start adding exercises, tap Add Round, which will give you a workout card and a recovery card, both in a little box that says “2 Rounds” at the top. Here’s what you do to turn this into a traditional sets-and-reps format (in this example, we want to do four sets of five deadlifts at 200 pounds):
Tap the card that says workout.
Select an exercise (deadlift), a weight (200 pounds), and a target type. In this case, the target type will be Reps (five). Hit the arrow on the top left of the screen to return to the main workout editing page.
For the recovery card, you’ll want to change that to Rest rather than Recovery. For that one, the target type should be Time. Let’s set it to three minutes. Return to the main workout screen again.
Now, tap the dropdown at the top of the round and set it to the number of sets you want to do (four). If your watch supports it, you can select Skip Last Recovery to avoid the final rest period.
Before you add another set, go to the bottom of the screen and tap Add Step. Change this new step to Rest (it will be outside of the repeat) and set the target to Lap Button Press.
Now you have a repeat that will give you four sets of five deadlifts with a three-minute rest timer in between. After you finish that, there will be a rest period that lasts until you press the lap button. This is to give you as much time as you need to find your equipment and set up for the next exercise. Continue adding repeats and steps as desired, and make sure to save the workout when you’re done.
How to send Garmin workouts to your watch
After creating a workout, it doesn’t automatically show up on your watch. You need to tap the “send to watch” icon that you’ll see on the top right of your screen when you’re looking at the workout.
You can also schedule a workout (which will automatically send it to your watch for the scheduled day) by using the three dots menu to add it to your calendar.
How to use a Garmin strength workout from your watch
There are a few ways to access the strength workouts, but here’s the easiest: When it’s gym time, hit the button that starts an activity, and rather than selecting Strength, scroll down until you find Workouts. Tap the one you want to do.
Pay attention here: You’ll need to select the workout, tell it you want to do the workout, and start the workout. (Just keep pressing the select button until the workout actually begins.)
The exact details of which buttons do what will vary from watch to watch, but on a Forerunner, your top right button starts and stops the workout, and your bottom right button is a lap button. (During a timed rest, you can press the lap button to skip to the end of that rest and start the next set.) From the top right button, you can also skip a group of sets (say, if the squat rack was busy, you can skip squats) and then use the same menu later to View Skipped and add it back in.
I love using the strength workout feature for one main reason: the customizable timed rests. Rest is important in the gym because you'll be able to lift more if you dial in the perfect rest time for each exercise. It’s easy to sit around scrolling on your phone between sets and realize too late that it’s been 10 minutes since you did your last deadlift. But when I program the workout as above, all I have to do is hit the lap button after my set. Three minutes later, my watch will buzz to let me know it’s time to do the next set.
Pro tip: Set your rest timer for the longest time you might want to rest between sets. If you’re aiming for three to five minutes, set it for five minutes. If you’re ready to go after three, just hit the lap button to skip the remainder of that rest.
You can also program exercises in other ways besides the traditional sets and reps. For example, set the Target Type to Time to do a five-minute density set. Or do EMOMs (every-minute-on-the-minute intervals) by putting just one card inside a repeat, and setting that card to a one-minute target time. You’ll get a beep at the top of each minute.
The Garmin strength features I don’t use
I don’t worry too much about the weights or reps in the app, to be honest. By default, the watch will ask you after each set how many reps you did and how heavy the weight was. I’ve turned that feature off, and I don’t even bother to set rep or weight targets in the app. I use the workouts for timing, not to log the details of my workout. (I have a notebook for that.)
I also haven’t found the automatic set detection or rep counting to be very useful. The watch is impressively good sometimes—how did it know I was doing pullups?!—but it’s just not good enough to be generally useful. It also doesn’t recognize a lot of the Olympic weightlifting exercises I do. And the rep counting? Sometimes OK, but more often useless. Again, I’d rather jot down my reps in that notebook than fiddle with selecting a number on my watch screen after each set.
When I hear that a smartwatch company is launching a ring, I assume it’s going to be a smart ring. But Pebble went a different direction, instead creating what’s basically a remote microphone that can work with your phone and other devices. It's available for pre-order for $75, and will sell for $99 after launch.
Pebble’s new ring is called the Index 01. It’s got a button you can click and hold, and a microphone that will listen to what you’re saying as you hold the button. The recording is then sent to your phone, where it’s processed on-device. That's it—no heart rate sensor, and no charging dock.
The Index 01's specs and functionality
Eric Migicovsky, Pebble’s founder, describes using the Index to capture short messages and send instructions to his Pebble watch via his phone. The idea is that you wear the Index on your index finger (get it?) and press the button with your thumb. The ring comes in three colors: matte black with a black button, polished gold with a blue button, and silver with a white button.
There is no battery to charge, just a built-in battery that lasts a total of 12 to 15 hours. Migicovsky writes: “On average, I use it 10-20 times per day to record 3-6 second thoughts. That’s up to 2 years of usage.”
The ring doesn’t have a speaker and can’t vibrate for notifications; it’s just for input. Communication between the ring and your phone is encrypted, and the voice recordings are processed into text on your phone, without requiring an internet connection. The ring doesn’t talk directly to a Pebble watch, but it can talk to your phone and your phone can then display any output to the watch—for example, displaying the text of a reminder that you set.
Who should buy an Index 01 ring?
So far, Pebble users don’t seem to be nearly as excited about this product as Migicovsky is. A Reddit thread discussing the announcement has comments like “Cool idea, weird product,” and “Why would I want this if I already have a Pebble that has all the capability to take voice notes?”
Migicovsky explains in the company’s blog post that his goal was for the button to be operated with one hand, and gestures on the Pebble weren’t reliable enough. He also emphasizes the fact you don’t need to charge it, while some of the users seem to be more concerned that a device that can't be charged is basically disposable—"manufactured e-waste."
After about two years of use (or less, if you make longer recordings), the app will ask if you’d like to order another ring. The ring will cost $75 to pre-order, and $99 at its regular price. There hasn’t been any mention of a discounted rate for a replacement; it sounds like you’re supposed to buy a new $99 ring every two years.
The ring’s functionality could be extended in the future. A double click-and-hold could signal the Pebble app to process the data in a different way (perhaps sending it to ChatGPT, Migicovsky suggests) and developers could connect the voice processing in the app to other services like calendar and weather apps.
Garmin has released an end-of-year summary of users’ stats, Spotify Wrapped-style. But it’s only available to people who pay for Garmin Connect+, the new paid subscription that Garmin has offered since March of this year. I’ll show you what’s inside the Year in Review, and give you my thoughts on how the subscription service has weathered its first almost-year. Spoiler: The more things Garmin adds, the less they seem to know what they're doing.
What’s in the Year in Review?
Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Garmin
Garmin’s Year in Review feature shows you a bunch of cute visuals of your activity throughout the year. For each metric, there is usually a summary or a total, followed by a graph showing that metric for each calendar month (January through December) with the “best” month for that metric highlighted. Sometimes a particular workout was called out for that metric, such as your longest run. The metrics included:
Total steps
Sleep score average
Body Battery average daily high
Number of activities, and your most common types
Total activity time
Total activity distance
Total activity ascent
Total activity calories (put in terms of “slices of chocolate cake” for some reason)
Badges earned
Personal records earned
There are shareable cards for each, so it’s certainly fulfilling the function of a yearly recap, but it’s a bit boring to page through. I’m not sure why I’m supposed to care about my average Body Battery, and it’s not exactly a revelation that I did more gym workouts than bike rides. Perhaps this will get more polished in future years.
Your Year in Review says more about Garmin than about you
More companies than ever are offering an annual summary this year, and it seems like each of them is having a little identity crisis. Is the summary meant to provide free marketing when you share the screenshots with your friends? Engage you more deeply with the algorithm, to encourage you to consume more content? Or is it just a reward for being a loyal customer?
Garmin, by making theirs a premium feature, doesn’t seem to be prioritizing any of the above. I see two things going on here: They're competing with Strava, and grappling with what it means to exist as a hardware company in a subscription-based world.
The Strava part is easiest to understand. Strava offers a premium subscription, and the main draw is that it comes with mapping tools and training analytics. People may gripe about having to pay to see their spot on a leaderboard or build a running route, but this model fundamentally works because people like and want those features. Strava’s “Year in Sport” is a premium feature as well, but people don’t subscribe just to get Year in Sport. It’s a little perk, not the whole point.
Comparing Garmin’s recap to Strava’s, Strava’s feels more cohesive. There are fewer cards in the carousel, and they’re more relevant to things I care about. I get my activities and distance in the same card, find out how long I’ve kept my weekly streak (over a year!), see the days I was active, get reminded of one highlight run (definitely a memorable one), see my PRs for all the major distances, and get a shout-out on the one QOM and couple of Local Legend titles I earned. It’s easier for Strava to do this well because their platform is tailored to people with specific goals: to run or bike more and faster. Garmin tries harder to be everything to everybody.
And then there’s the question of what Garmin is doing here. It’s always been a hardware company, starting out with GPS devices (back when “GPS device” was a standalone product category) and eventually becoming a maker of sports watches as well as gadgets like bike computers and boat navigation systems. The company seems to be having trouble finding its place in today's subscription-based world. I appreciate that it isn't removing features from existing products, but that makes me wonder what the point of Connect+ is supposed to be.
Garmin’s Connect+ subscription doesn’t seem to be the paywall people are afraid of (or the cash cow Garmin is probably hoping for)
Garmin has always been a hardware company at heart, but that model has been harder and harder to fit with the modern wearables market. Now that we all have smartphones, many of the features we expect from a Garmin watch are really features of a phone app. So to keep selling watches in different pricing tiers, Garmin ties specific features to the hardware you’ve bought. You’ll only get a “training status” in the app if you’ve paired a training status-capable watch, for example. (The Forerunner 265 counts, but not the 165.)
I have to imagine Garmin execs wish they could start over, make just a few physical devices, and sell software features as subscription tiers. Everything in 2025 seems to be sold on a subscription basis or with some features paywalled behind a premium tier. So of course Garmin tried to move into that space.
Garmin has long sold subscriptions for some devices, but those were always specific things like satellite messaging or high-definition marine charts, where the purpose and the cost made sense. Garmin Connect+, which launched this year, is basically a subscription for software features of the phone app, not a device.
That’s good for Garmin users—no actual features of the watches get paywalled this way. Whatever features your Forerunner 265 had when you bought it, you get to keep those. New watches don’t seem to be missing any features (yet)—if anything, new releases like the Forerunner 570 and the Venu 4 seem to be adding features to justify their higher prices.
But that leaves the Connect+ subscription without anything vital to offer. I’ve gone through and listed all the features you get, and I think the only one that’s really worthwhile is mirroring data to your phone, which both Apple and Coros will give you for free. The rest are all “huh?” features, like unlocking special badges or gaining access to an AI feature that is surely the least useful of all fitness apps’ AI features (and that’s really saying something).
Garmin seems to be hoping that people will upgrade to the subscription because of its cool amazing attractive features, while carefully avoiding putting anything useful or essential in the subscription. That doesn’t seem to be a tightrope they can actually walk, unless they come up with new app features that don’t fit into their hardware models, but are actually useful and interesting. Features worth paying for are expensive to build, which explains why Garmin Trails is a dud so far—it’s just an empty shell of a service that users are supposed to fill with data, eventually, I guess.
Year in Review must have been easy to build, but it doesn’t give us anything worth paying for. Garmin has been advertising the Year in Review to non-subscribers, suggesting that we pay for a subscription to access it. I just don’t think it’s working, Garmin.
I like Coros running because they do nearly everything Garmins do, at a lower cost. But there have always been a few areas where they fall short, which I’ve noted in my reviews. Now, that seems to be changing—the most recent beta firmware update adds a critical new feature while fixing some of my pet peeves.
I tried out the new features through a public beta from Coros. You can sign up for beta access with these instructions Coros posted on Reddit. (On iOS, you'll install a Testflight version of the Coros app, which can then give you access to the firmware update. On Android, you'll need to download the beta app, then go here to access the new beta firmware.) I tested these features out on a Pace 4, and I'm mostly happy with them.
Coros watches can now control music playing on your phone
I have not loaded any media onto this watch, but here it's playing a podcast from my phone.Credit: Beth Skwarecki
In my reviews of Coros watches, I’ve always docked a few points for how they handle music. Until recently, the watch could only play music files that you downloaded directly to it. That’s fine if you want to run without your phone, but for me (and many others) it’s an unnecessary annoyance—a smartwatch really should be able to display and control what’s playing on your phone. Garmin and Suunto have long had this capability, and Coros was the only major brand missing it.
But now it’s here. When you long-press the lap button to view your toolbox, you'll see two different apps. The familiar “music” plays downloaded music, and the new “media control” option does exactly what you’d expect: It shows the track information for whatever is playing on your phone, and it gives you buttons to play, pause, skip, or adjust volume. Was that so hard?
Workouts no longer end themselves while you’re cooling down
When I swapped my Garmin for a Coros this summer, one of my biggest complaints was that Coros watches pause your workout once you’ve completed all the steps. So if you have a 4.5-mile run programmed, but want to total five miles for the day, you have to remember to hit "resume workout" after the 4.5-mile run ends. I tend jog through that beep, thinking nothing of it, and then swear at my watch when I realize at the end that the last half-mile never got recorded.
I prefer the way Garmin does it: After you complete a Garmin workout, the activity continues until you decide to manually stop it. Coros has apparently adopted that philosophy, as workouts now roll over into an open segment automatically.
You can now undo a lap button press
Hit the button in the lower right to undo this lap segment.Credit: Beth Skwarecki
During an activity, pressing the lap button starts a new segment of the workout (or advances you to the next segment if you’re following a pre-written workout). I know I’m not the only one who sometimes presses this button by accident, so an “undo” option is nice. Garmin watches added this feature about a year ago. Coros adds it with this update.
Unfortunately the undo isn’t available for every lap button press. I do see it if I’m doing an unstructured workout and mark a lap—hitting the lap button again takes me back to the original lap in progress. But I don’t see an undo function if I’m following a workout that already has lap segments built in, or if I’m doing a strength workout (where the lap button switches between work and rest).
You can time your rests in strength workouts without choosing exercises ahead of time
My most common way of using the strength feature is to start an unstructured workout, then use the lap button to mark the end of each set and the start of my rest time. This way, I can keep track of rests during the workout and I know how many sets I’m doing. I might follow a pre-planned workout, but I never enter exercises from the watch during a workout.
This is simple enough on Garmin, but on Coros, the watch used to ask me to enter at least a body part for each exercise. So if I’m doing five sets of bench press, I have to select “chest” each time I begin a set. This drove me up the wall, and I stopped using the rest timer at all—which makes the strength feature nearly useless.
After the update, I can select a body part at the beginning of the workout, and that remains the active body part while I stop and start my sets. (“Full body” is an option, so I usually choose that one.) During the workout, hitting the start/stop button brings up a menu where I can switch body parts should I care to do so. Suddenly,. using the watch during my strength workouts seems like a viable option, instead of annoying.
Garmin watches have never required a subscription to access any of their core features, and that hasn't changed. But as of 2025, Garmin now offers a $6.99/month subscription called Connect+ that provides “premium features,” including AI, on top of what you already get for free with the Garmin Connect app.
So far, no preexisting features have gone behind the paywall, despite some Garmin users' fears. But what does Connect+ give you, and is it worth it? I signed up for a subscription to find out.
How a Connect+ subscription works
A Connect+ subscription costs $6.99/month or $69.99/year. Again, it only adds features on top of what you already get with the Garmin Connect app; after nearly a year, no preexisting features free have been paywalled.
Garmin did previously tease that “premium enhancements may be made to existing features,” leading users to speculate that any new features that come down the pike may be limited to paid members. Garmin is in the habit of adding new features frequently, and often enables them even on older watches. In the past year alone, we’ve gotten strength coaching, a new type of run coaching, and the ability to detect your lactate threshold heart rate without a chest strap—all things that just appeared on my watch or in my app one day. I wouldn’t expect watch firmware updates to be affected—this is a premium subscription for the phone app—but I have to wonder if there will be fewer of those new app feature rollouts for free users as Connect+ grows its subscriber numbers.
Connect+ is not Garmin’s first subscription service. They have long offered a slate of services for various special purposes, including hiking and hunting maps, marine charts, search and rescue insurance, dog tracking, kids’ smartwatch tracking, and more. But this is definitely Garmin’s first foray into a premium subscription for health and fitness features, in the same vein as, say, Fitbit.
What Connect+ includes
Here's what you get for that $6.99/month:
Active Intelligence (an AI analysis of your activities; this requires opt-in). It seems pretty lackluster.
Enhanced LiveTrack (also available with an Outdoor Maps+ subscription), allowing you to text contacts when you start an activity, or set up a public tracking page
Live Activity, which lets you follow a workout from your phone and not just your watch
A Performance Dashboard on the web with new charts and comparison features
Social features, including double points on badges and the ability to earn badges from anywhere in the world (some badges are only available in certain locations). Immediately upon signing up for Connect+, I noticed a little yellow star on the corner of my profile pic on the app.
Extra training guidance if you’re following a Garmin Coach program (mainly in the form of extra videos)
The end-of-year Garmin Connect Rundown that collects all your stats for shareable viewing
Of all these features, Live Activity and the Performance Dashboard seem the most useful, so I'll go a bit deeper on those.
What you get with Live Activity
Screenshots of a live activity on the home screen, editing sets and reps, and what you see when you do a treadmill workout.Credit: Beth Skwarecki
Until now, a workout you do on your Garmin watch stays on your Garmin watch, at least until you finish the activity. At that point, it syncs to your phone, where you can view and edit the details.
But with Live Activity, you can now use the Garmin Connect app while you’re doing an activity on your watch. That’s especially useful for strength workouts, which previously required you to edit weights and reps through an awkward interface on the watch after each set.
To test this out, I did a few quick workouts on my Garmin Forerunner 265S. One was a mini workout of kettlebell swings and sit-ups that I created on the app, and sent to the watch.
I started the workout on my watch. Nothing happened on the phone—I might have expected a notification—but when I opened the Garmin Connect app on my phone, there was a tile on the home screen for a Live Activity. I tapped it, and there was the same workout I was doing on the watch. I could see my heart rate, the time elapsed, and which exercise I was supposed to be doing.
I didn’t see the promised exercise videos right away, but it turns out you need to swipe left on the heart rate graph. There you can see an exercise video (or a rest timer, if appropriate). Swipe again, and you’ll see your heart rate zone. The bottom half of the screen shows your stats in progress, including your reps, sets, heart rate, and a timer.
Importantly, if you’ve turned off rep counting or weight editing on your phone (because they’re so annoying in normal use), you’ll want to turn them back on for this. The watch counted my kettlebell swings, and at the end of each set prompted me to edit my reps and weight. This editing screen came up on both the watch and my phone, and of course it was easier to edit that information from the phone.
With Live Activity, you can do the following from the watch or phone:
Pause or unpause the workout
Edit reps or weight in a strength workout
Advance to the next set (strength), or start a new lap (in activities like running)
View stats like your heart rate, time elapsed, reps, pace, and so on
But only the watch can do the following:
Start the workout
Finish and save the workout
Create custom data screens
Live Activity definitely improves the usability of the watch for strength workouts. I don’t entirely see the point for running workouts, but maybe there’s a use case I haven’t thought of yet.
What’s in the Performance Dashboard
Four of the charts I can view in my Performance DashboardCredit: Beth Skwarecki/Garmin
One of Garmin’s better-kept secrets is its web dashboard. You can log in here and view all your activities and data—essentially a web view of everything that’s in the app.
The Performance Dashboard is a new item in the sidebar of the web dashboard. To set it up:
Mouse over the black sidebar at the left side of the screen.
Select Performance Dashboard, which I see as the last blue item, just under Reports.
Click Add dashboard, and choose whether you want a running, cycling, multisport, or custom dashboard. (You can have more than one.)
Some of the charts on the performance dashboard are also available from the free Reports tool, although Reports will only show you one chart at a time. The Performance Dashboard is definitely a better tool if you’re looking to really nerd out about your data.
For example, I can get a simple report from the Reports tool that shows my running mileage over the past six months. It gives me a bar chart with one bar per month. The Performance Dashboard, on the other hand, can give me a bar for each week, and I can select a custom timeframe instead of just selecting one of a few options. There are also more options for types of data you can view. Do you know how your watch will ask you at the end of each run how hard it felt? You can now see that on a graph called “perceived effort over time.”
What you get with Active Intelligence
There’s good news here for people who want AI in everything, and for those of us whose reaction is “oh god, not here too” (this meme sums up my personal stance). The AI (“active intelligence”) is the one feature of Connect+ that requires you to opt in, even after you have subscribed to the whole package.
But I did it, dear readers. I opted in for you, so I could let you know what the AI can actually tell you about your training—and whether it’s any better than Strava’s notoriously clueless AI.
Unfortunately, there’s not much to say at the moment. When I first tried it, my home screen “insight” (which you can turn off, by the way, even with AI enabled) at first just told me to check back later. My recent runs didn't have any AI commentary attached. Garmin says that “As customers use Garmin Connect+ more, the insights will become more tailored to them and their goals.”
I wrote a bit more about the AI feature here. As you might expect, it summarizes, sometimes hallucinates, and tends to repeat information that's available in more readable form elsewhere in the app. I'm not impressed.
The AI feature is labeled as a “beta,” with a thumbs up/thumbs down icon that lets me rate the insight I just read. I can say that it’s interesting, not interesting, or “report a concern” if it’s inaccurate, discouraging, or poorly written. (You can also give a custom response.) I’ll keep an eye on these notes and report back as the AI gets to know me better.
At least Garmin asks your permission to train its AI on your data
To turn on the AI features, you need to click through an agreement where you allow the AI to access your training and health data (so that it can run its analyses). This also allows your data to be used as training data for the AI.
I asked Garmin if this means that the AI is only trained on people who opt-in. A spokesperson confirmed: “We only train with data from users who have consented.” The existing model was trained on users who previously granted permission for their data to be used for product improvements. Garmin has a brief AI transparency policy here.
You can revoke permission at any time in your Connect+ settings, which will also turn off your access to AI features.
Resistance bands are portable, convenient, and definitely have their uses. It’s no wonder they’re popular—but why are "booty bands" the focus of so many butt-centered workouts? Let me explain what's going on here, and where these bands can actually help your workout routine.
What exactly are booty bands?
A "booty band" is a nickname for a type of resistance band that is a short loop, usually a few inches wide, and either made of rubber or a thick elasticized fabric. (The fabric ones are more comfortable to use.) The length makes them perfect for exercises that call for a band around your legs. This includes a lot of hip exercises that, yes, can build up your butt muscles.
I have a fabric set similar to this one. I don't really do "booty" workouts, but I find this type of band useful for the hip warmups that I sometimes do before squats or Olympic lifts. When I was rehabbing a knee injury I remember a lot of this type of exercise at my physical therapy appointments. So they're definitely useful for more than just booty-building.
By the way, there is a company called Booty Bands, but the term “booty bands” has also been applied to the general category of resistance bands that can go around your knees or thighs. There is no shortage of workouts that incorporate the use of these bands into squats and kickbacks and glute bridges, all while promising you major booty gains. As with many popular workouts, though, the promises are overblown.
Resistance bands come with general pros and cons
Before we delve into booty-focused bands in particular, it’s worth taking a look at the pros and cons of all resistance bands. I compared them with dumbbells here, and as you may recall, the takeaways included:
Resistance bands can provide more total “weight” than small dumbbells.
Resistance bands wear out over time.
Resistance bands change in how challenging they are depending on how much you stretch them.
If your home gym items need to be small and cheap, you can get a lot further with resistance bands than with dumbbells. That's because it's easy to find upper-body exercises you can do with smaller dumbbells, but you have to go a good bit heavier to find challenging lower-body workouts. Your main options are resistance band exercises, and single-leg bodyweight exercises (without a resistance band) like lunges and split squats.
Easy exercises don’t do you any favors
If you are trying to build a butt, you’re trying to build muscle. And the most efficient way to build muscle is to lift heavy—not a million reps of light work (although that can work, if you are very patient).
So how do you know if you’re working hard or “heavy” enough? As I’ve mentioned before, you want to be doing smallish numbers of reps (12 or less, most of the time) that are hard enough that the last few reps feel truly challenging. If you’ve been using the same band or weight for a while, try a more challenging one from time to time to find out if you’re stronger than you think. If you are, it’s time to move up.
I mention this here because the banded portion of a “booty” workout is usually fairly easy and light. If you’re doing banded exercises and they fit my definition of heavy and they feel genuinely challenging to you, then they may well be doing what they promise. Stick with the bands for now.
But bands may not be enough for your whole workout. For many of us, actual heavy weights will be necessary to give your butt (or any body part) an appropriate workout. Champion deadlifters need a lot of strength in their butt, but you won’t see powerlifters eschewing the barbell to focus on banded YouTube workouts, you know? They will often use bands in addition to the barbell, though.
Bands are great for warmups and accessories
Put all of this together, and it’s clear that bands make the most sense as a side dish to your workout—or an appetizer, or a dessert. To build muscle, the main course should still probably be a heavier workout with weights, if you can swing that. If not, you need to make sure your banded exercises are heavy enough.
If you bring your bands to the gym, you can do banded kickbacks as part of your warmup, or as a high-rep finisher after leg day. You can use them for “activation” exercises, which is more or less a newfangled word for warmup. And then you can move on to your squats, deadlifts, weighted lunges, or hip thrusts. Which brings me to another point about using booty bands at the gym: if you’re doing squats with a band around your knees, the squats are doing the real work, with the band offering—to continue our food metaphor—perhaps a small garnish.
If you know a runner, I have the perfect gift recommendation for you. If you are a runner, I know what you should tell your mom you want for Christmas. And even if there isn’t a gifting holiday in your immediate future, you should still know the Good News about water-resistant running shoes. They’re out there, they might be on sale right now, and they will change your life if you run in snowy conditions—or if you would if you had the right shoes.
As a lifelong on-and-off runner, I will say that running in the spring is a lot more fun if you don't have a long off-season every winter. So rather than from starting from scratch every year, it pays to keep putting in the miles through the cold and the rain and the snow. Maybe you don't run quite as often, and maybe you spend a little more time on the treadmill, but don't completely give up.
I've written before about what to wear to run in the cold, focusing on things like jackets, gloves, and layering pieces. But I used to always forget about shoes. Whether it's snowy in your area or just rainy, keeping your feet warm and dry is a game-changer.
Around this time last year, my birthday was coming up and I had no idea what to tell my mom I wanted. (She kept asking.) I was giving the matter some thought while I was jogging at the local track, in a drizzling near-freezing rain, and my toes were going squish with every step. I suddenly remembered that Gore-Tex shoes exist. I had owned a pair years ago and loved them, but never replaced them when they wore out. They felt like too much of a luxury somehow. Most runners get through wet weather in regular shoes and wool socks, so why not make do?
I’ll tell you why not: Wool socks can keep your feet warm, but they don’t keep them dry. If you’ve traveled to a park to get your run in, you’re driving home with soaking wet feet. You’ll come home, wring out your socks, and have to air out your shoes and hope they’re mostly dry by the time you go for your next run. Putting on wet shoes is about as much fun as putting on a wet bathing suit. Returning home from a drizzly run with dry feet is, by contrast, one of this cruel world’s great creature comforts.
What weather are water-resistant shoes good for?
Water-resistant shoes are great in drizzling rain, or in snowy conditions. In regular shoes, your body heat tends to melt any snow that contacts your shoes, making your feet wet even on a below-freezing day. Water-resistant shoes are great for when it’s snowing, when there’s a small amount of snow on the ground, or when it’s raining. This covers pretty much all of the weather I’m likely to consider running-friendly in a Pennsylvania winter.
What don’t water-resistant shoes do?
Water-resistant is not waterproof, though. In Gore-Tex and similar materials, you cannot step into an ankle-deep puddle and expect to stay dry. A heavy enough downpour will probably eventually work its way through or around the material.
Note that water-resistant shoe material doesn’t stop snow or rain from getting into the top of the shoe. For trudging through deep snow, you probably want to attach a gaiter (or buy a shoe that comes with built-in gaiters).
And if you run in a variety of wintry conditions, you may want more traction on the bottom of the shoe as well. You can buy shoes with spikes built in, or add your own.
What are the best water-resistant running shoes?
I know you’re dying to see mine, so here they are: the Nike InfinityRN Gore-Tex. (Mine are white.) I've only put about 200 miles on them since last year, since I wear other shoes in dry weather. That means that they're still in good condition to last another year.
Based on reviews, forum posts, and other things I’ve heard runners say about their favorite weatherproof shoes, I’ve collected some other excellent models to consider. For each, I’m linking one model, but click around to see its other colors, sizes, and men’s/women’s versions.
Note that Gore-Tex is a name brand of breathable, water-resistant fabric, but other brands exist (for example, Saucony has their own, which they call Runshield). Gore-Tex is often abbreviated “GTX” in shoe model names, so consider looking for that when searching for shoes. And a bonus on many of these shoes is that they include high-traction outsoles to reduce the chances of slipping on wet surfaces.
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
Some Cyber Monday deals are still live, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before the sales are over.
Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find.
Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.
Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change.
Garmin's Forerunner 570 and Forerunner 970 are brand-new watches, just released this year, and they're having their first ever sale. Both are $100 off. The sale began a few days ago for Black Friday, and is still available today on Cyber Monday.
I've used and reviewed the Forerunner 570, and found it a step up from the earlier Forerunner 265 (which I also loved). The 570 adds a microphone and two different types of voice assistants, plus some new software features like heat acclimation and the ability to trim your activity if you didn't press "stop" when you crossed the race finish line. My only complaint is (or was) that the price seemed a bit steep in comparison to the previous model. But with the current deal, it's a lot closer to the original price of the 265: The 570 is now going for $449.99.
The Forerunner 970 is also $100 off, which brings its current price to $649.99. The biggest thing the 970 has going for it over the 570 is that it can show you maps while you run. Both watches can do breadcrumb tracking (drawing a line showing where you've been), but with a fully map-enabled watch, you can see important details like where your hiking route crosses roads or turns along them. The 970 also has an LED flashlight, which is incredibly handy for getting around in the dark—whether that means snuggling into your sleeping bag at a campsite or just sneaking out of your kid's room at bedtime.
Nowadays, both large retailers and small businesses compete for Cyber Monday shoppers, so you can expect practically every store to run sales through Monday, December 1, 2025. The “best” sales depend on your needs, but in general, the biggest discounts tend to come from larger retailers that can afford lower prices: think places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. You can find all the best sales from major retailers on our live blog.
Are Cyber Monday deals worth it?
In short, yes, Cyber Monday still offers discounts that can be rare throughout the rest of the year. If there’s something you want to buy, or you’re shopping for gifts, it’s a good time to look for discounts on what you need, especially tech sales, home improvement supplies, and fitness tech. Of course, if you need to save money, the best way to save is to not buy anything.
Are Cyber Monday deals better than Black Friday?
Black Friday used to be bigger for major retailers and more expensive tech and appliances, while Cyber Monday was for cheaper tech and gave smaller businesses a chance to compete online. Nowadays, though, the distinction is almost meaningless. Every major retailer will offer sales on both days, and the smart move is to know what you want, use price trackers or refer to guides like our live blog that use price trackers for you, and don’t stress over finding the perfect timing.
Our Best Editor-Vetted Cyber Monday Deals Right Now
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
Some Cyber Monday deals are still live, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before the sales are over.
Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find.
Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.
Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change.
Cyber Monday may be over, but plenty of deals are still live. This year we didn't see a lot of movement on deals once they were announced—the Black Friday deals tended to be the same as the early deals, and most stayed at the same price through Cyber Monday. Today, many of those sale items are back to their original price. But there are still some deals out there! Here's what I'm seeing, including deals from Peloton, NordicTrack, Oura, Whoop, Garmin, and more.
To keep an eye on prices yourself, consider using these deal-tracking tools that can alert you as soon as a price drops. They can also show you the history of price changes when you think you've found a deal. (Our deals writer Daniel Oropeza, who compiled that list, considers CamelCamelCamel one of the best. My personal favorite is the Keepa browser plugin.)
Cyber Monday deals on Peloton equipment
Peloton launched new "cross-training" versions of their Bike, Tread, and Row equipment earlier this year. We have a breakdown here of what's special about the new models—mostly swiveling touchscreens and updated electronics. The original (non-Cross-Training) models aren't being sold new, but you can get them as rentals and on Peloton's used marketplace. Peloton has marked their new models down for Black Friday/Cyber Monday, but as of today the deals are no longer available from retailers like Amazon. You can still get them from Peloton's site, though:
Powerbeats Pro 2 and Beats Studio Pro headphones on sale for Cyber Monday
I loved the Powerbeats Pro 2 for their secure fit, their noise cancelling in noisy gyms, and their transparency mode for road runs. (I did not love their heart rate tracking feature, which is unreliable.) Normally $249.99, the Powerbeats Pro 2 are still on sale $199.95. If you prefer an over-ear headphone, the Beats Studio Pro are $199.95, not as good as the $149.95 Black Friday deal, but still a serious discount from the original price of $349.95.
Theragun messagers are on sale for Cyber Monday
Theragun massagers are on sale, including this Theragun Mini for $169.99, down from $219.99. This Therabody Relief is $109.99, down from $159.99. And the premium Theragun Pro Plus is $549.99, down from $649.99.
Hydrow rowers are on sale for Cyber Monday
Our own Meredith Dietz loves Hydrow's rowers, and two models are on sale at the moment. The Hydrow Origin is $1,645 right now, normally $2,195. The Hydrow Wave is $1,795, normally $1,995.
Cyber Monday deals on PowerBlock adjustable dumbbells
Adjustable dumbbells are a great way to start a home gym, but they can be pricey since they are basically a full set of dumbbells connected with delicate moving parts. PowerBlock is one of the companies that does this well, and several of their models were on sale for Black Friday. Right now, though, the only deal still going is the PowerBlock Elite EXP adjustable dumbbell pair, 5 to 50 pounds per hand, for $399.99 down from an original price of $449.99.
WalkingPad makes folding mini treadmills that tend to be a bit nicer quality than the cheaper ones out there. There's still a deal going on this WalkingPad C2 that can go up to 3.7 miles per hour, at $399, down from $499.00.
Running in the dark gets a lot safer when you can see and be seen, especially if you're running along roads. The Noxgear Tracer is one of the most visible vests out there, with lights over your shoulders rather than just reflective material. Once again these sales aren't quite as good as they were for Black Friday, but they're still cheaper than regular price. The basic vest is $67.95 (down from $79.95), or get one with a chest light to illuminate the road in front of you for $89.95 (down from $114.95).
Oura's standard titanium-finish rings were $100 to $150 off for Black Friday. Those deals are still available but seem to be selling out in some sizes, so check your size to see what's still available. These are the best prices I'm still seeing for each color:
Oura's colored ceramic rings are not (and were not) on sale; they're $499 as usual. The Oura ring 3 is going for less than its original sticker price, but without any special Cyber Monday deals that I can see; here's a black Heritage at $209.99.
Whoop is the iconic screenless wristband that tracks your workouts and recovery without looking like a watch. All three (secretly four) Whoop subscription tiers are on sale right now:
Whoop One with a 5.0 device: $179 (normally $199). This option is not available from Whoop.com but can be bought from retailers like Amazon and Best Buy.
Whoop Peak with a 5.0 device: $199 (normally $239). If you're confused by all the options, this is the one that makes the most sense for most people.
The newest version of Google’s Pixel Watch is the 4, which I reviewed here, and it normally sells for prices from $349.99 to $499.99 depending on whether you opt for the larger or smaller size, with cellular connectivity or without. Right now, the wifi-only models are both $50 off, and the LTE models are $100 off. This means you can get an LTE model at the same price you'd normally pay for a wifi model. I'm also currently seeing the 45 mm LTE model at the same price as the 41 mm, but I don't know if that will last. Here's what I've found:
The Series 11 is the newest model of Apple Watch (see our associate tech editor Michelle Ehrhardt’s take on it here). These watches have been on sale since before Black Friday, and the price has dropped slightly over the past week. We're now at record low prices for these watches, equivalent to the lowest prices the Series 10 hit last year. Here's what I'm seeing now, after Cyber Monday:
Coros doesn’t usually participate in big sale events, but the company launched a Pace 4 watch earlier this month, which costs $249 and which performed excellently in my review. That means the Pace 3 gets a price drop. The Pace 3 is now $199 instead of $229.
I like the Pace 3 a lot as a simple but powerful running watch. Another watch to pay attention to is the Pace Pro, a big sister to the 3 and 4 with a larger screen and built-in maps. No other big-name watch gives you maps on a watch at this price point, and the Pace Pro is also dropping in price, to $299, instead of the previous price of $349. Note that Coros seems to be dropping these prices permanently, so this isn't just a Cyber Monday deal.
Cyber Monday deals on the Garmin Forerunner 55
Garmin’s Forerunner 55 is its most basic running watch, which I have mixed feelings about. It’s missing a lot of features that other entry-level Garmin Forerunners, like the 165, have as a matter of course. But it does great at the basic job of tracking your runs, and I’ve always felt that if Garmin could get it closer to $99, I’d sing its praises from the rooftops. It’s never dropped quite that low, though.
The original sticker price was $199.99, and it’s often sitting somewhere around $169.99. As of today, it's equaling the lowest price I've seen in the past, $149.99. This watch isn’t getting any younger, and I think if Garmin’s smart, it'll consider a steeper price drop this Cyber Monday.
Because it comes in those two versions, you’ll want to pay attention to the differences. The music edition typically costs $50 more. Normally the version without music storage is $249, and the version with is $299. Earlier, I wrote that I'd keep an eye out for another drop to $199.99 like last year's Black Friday sale. Well, it's here! The Forerunner 165 is $199.99, and the Forerunner 165 Music is $249.99.
Cyber Monday deals on the Garmin Forerunner 265 and 965
If I’m confusing you with all these model numbers, I have an explainer here that will help you follow along. In any case, the 265 and 965 are still good watches, and I wrote earlier that this year we might be able to expect more than $100 off for those two. It looks like my wish has come true—the 265 is now going for $299.99 ($150 off) and the 965 is $449.99 (also $150 off).
Cyber Monday deals on the Fitbit Charge 6
The Fitbit Charge 6 is $99.95 right now This device has a sticker price of $159.95, but often sells for a good bit less, and during big sale events it occasionally drops down near $100. That's where we are right now—I've never seen it below this price. The Charge 6 isn’t the best one out there, but it fits the bill of an “I don’t want to think about it” basic tracker. If you just want to track your steps without overthinking which model to get, this is a fine pick.
Cyber Monday deals on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8
The Galaxy Watch 8 line is on sale, and like Apple and Pixel watches, it's available in a few sizes and connectivity models. There's also an upgraded "Classic" model with a rotating bezel. Some of the models are still on sale:
Nowadays, both large retailers and small businesses compete for Cyber Monday shoppers, so you can expect practically every store to run sales through Monday, December 1, 2025. The “best” sales depend on your needs, but in general, the biggest discounts tend to come from larger retailers that can afford lower prices: think places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. You can find all the best sales from major retailers on our live blog.
Are Cyber Monday deals worth it?
In short, yes, Cyber Monday still offers discounts that can be rare throughout the rest of the year. If there’s something you want to buy, or you’re shopping for gifts, it’s a good time to look for discounts on what you need, especially tech sales, home improvement supplies, and fitness tech. Of course, if you need to save money, the best way to save is to not buy anything.
Are Cyber Monday deals better than Black Friday?
Black Friday used to be bigger for major retailers and more expensive tech and appliances, while Cyber Monday was for cheaper tech and gave smaller businesses a chance to compete online. Nowadays, though, the distinction is almost meaningless. Every major retailer will offer sales on both days, and the smart move is to know what you want, use price trackers or refer to guides like our live blog that use price trackers for you, and don’t stress over finding the perfect timing.
Our Best Editor-Vetted Cyber Monday Deals Right Now
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