is a senior reporter and author of the Optimizer newsletter.She has more than 13 years of experience reporting on wearables, health tech, and more. Before coming to The Verge, she worked for Gizmodo and PC Magazine.
This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest phones, smartwatches, apps, and other gizmos that swear they’re going to change your life. Optimizer arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 10AM ET. Opt in for Optimizer here.
I had a major problem during the unboxing of my Meta Ray-Ban Display review unit. To control the glasses’ Display, you need to wear a separate neural band on your dominant wrist. That isn’t a problem for most people, but I test wearables for a living. I’m always double-wristing smartwatches. That particular day, my dominant wrist was otherwise occupied by the Google Pixel Watch 4. If the neural band and Pixel Watch 4 couldn’t play nicely together, I was in a real pickle.
Thankfully, they did play nicely together. The Oura Ring 4 on my right index finger, however, did not. It interfered with the scrolling gestures, so I had to switch it to my other hand.
Cue a facepalm that would’ve made Captain Picard proud.
Later that day, I tended to the dumpster fire that is my inbox. Various wearable companies had laid siege. Had I finished testing their device? Would I be interested in testing yet another? It’s anecdotal, but in 2025, I’ve been pitched more wearable devices than in any other year in my entire career. I wanted to scream. I only have two wrists, 10 fingers (only six of which are appropriate for smart rings), two ears, a chest, neck, and face upon which to test an ever-increasing number of gadgets meant to be worn 24/7, 365 days a year.
For most of my career, I’d wholeheartedly agree that this is a rarefied problem I volunteered for and get paid to deal with. Except in the last two years, I’ve had a sinking feeling that Big Tech increasingly wants more people — perhaps everyone — to live like I do.
These are all the wearables I’ve had to juggle this week alone.
This dread first snuck up on me when I tested the Samsung Galaxy Ring last year. As I wrote in my review, this was not a device designed to stand on its own. While you could use it as a smartwatch alternative, it’s meant as an accessory for a Galaxy Watch. It’s a means of sucking you into Samsung’s orbit. As smart rings gained steam, an increasing number of friends, family, coworkers, peers, and readers have asked for my read on the Oura Ring. The majority were seeking something comfier and with longer battery life than a smartwatch, but blanched at the idea of giving up glanceable notifications or haptic alarms. Many gave me the stink eye when I said the Oura Ring works best in tandem with a smartwatch, not in lieu of it, for most people.
Now sprinkle the recent influx of AI hardware on top of this.
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