Circular debuted two new smart rings at IFA, the Ring 3 Pro and Ring 3 Slim, both featuring built-in NFC for contactless payments via supported Visa or Mastercard cards—a capability absent from Oura and Samsung's Galaxy Ring. The Pro adds FDA-cleared ECG, blood-pressure monitoring, and a bigger battery lasting up to 12 days, while the Slim is lighter and thinner but caps battery life at 10 days. Pricing and availability have not been disclosed.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-09-03
Circular has launched its Ring 3 series, succeeding last year's Ring 2, in two versions: a titanium Pro model retaining ECG-based AFib detection, and a lighter Slim model using biocompatible epoxy but lacking ECG tracking. Both rings add vibrating alerts for alarms and reminders and an NFC chip enabling contactless payments directly from the ring.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-03
A threat actor dubbed Spring Ring is running voice-phishing campaigns against Microsoft Teams users, tricking victims into granting remote access to their sessions. Once inside, attackers use that foothold to deploy malware and attempt to seize control of broader organizational infrastructure.
darkreading.com
· 2026-09-02
At IFA in Berlin, Paris-based Circular unveiled the Ring 3 Pro and Ring 3 Slim, adding contactless payment support and the return of haptic vibration alerts to its smart ring lineup. The rings retain Circular's FDA-cleared ECG and AFib detection while adding new wellness features like blood pressure trends, glucose trend estimates and expanded sleep metrics.
cnet.com
· 2026-09-02
Oura is extending its Menopause Impact Scale, a self-reported questionnaire it launched in May that measures how menopause symptoms affect quality of life, beyond its own app. Ten partners—including Alloy Health, Gennev, Wisp, Pomelo, Maven, Tia, Xella, Oova, Mira and Hertility—will now integrate the scoring tool into their care and tracking services. The scale evaluates 22 symptoms across seven categories such as sleep, cognition, body image and hot flashes, and results can be exported as a PDF to share with providers.
cnet.com
· 2026-09-02
Ultrahuman has introduced Pulsomics, an opt-in research program inside its app that lets Ring AIR and Ring PRO owners aged 18 and up contribute their sleep, glucose, and VO2 Max data to improve the company's wellness algorithms. The program currently covers three studies, with more planned around cardiovascular load and long-term sleep tracking, and requires only that users wear their rings as usual.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-09-01
Whoop has removed the membership requirement for its Advanced Labs blood-testing screenings, letting non-subscribers access them for roughly $70 per test. However, the Whoop band itself remains functionally locked without an active subscription, requiring at least $149 a year for basic features like recovery insights, sleep tracking, and VO2 max data.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-01
Bandai revealed a functional Tamagotchi shrunk down into a finger ring, complete with a color display and over 30 raisable characters, controlled via two side buttons rather than its decorative front buttons. Priced at roughly $48, it launched pre-orders in Japan on August 27 that quickly sold out through international resellers, with a release slated for February 2027 and no confirmed plans outside Japan.
engadget.com
· 2026-08-29
A class action lawsuit filed against Oura alleges the company misled consumers about how accurately its smart ring detects sleep stages, arguing it lacks sensors for brain waves, eye movement and other neurological signals needed to truly measure sleep. Plaintiff Madison Surber says she paid roughly $503 for the ring believing its tracking claims, and cites a Nature study suggesting the device's sleep-stage detection performs little better than random guessing.
zdnet.com
· 2026-08-27
A class action lawsuit filed against Oura claims the company misled consumers about the accuracy of its smart ring's sleep-stage tracking. The suit argues Oura lacks sensors for brain waves, eye movement, and muscle activity needed to properly detect sleep stages, and instead relies on AI guesswork from heart rate, temperature, and breathing data. The named plaintiff, who paid $503 for the ring, says she was overcharged for a device that doesn't deliver the accuracy Oura advertises.
zdnet.com
· 2026-08-27
Ring is rolling out a new default encryption system called TAKE (Throw Away the Key Encryption) across its video doorbell and camera lineup worldwide. Footage is encrypted with keys that rotate every five minutes, and Ring can only temporarily access those keys via an isolated AWS Nitro Enclave to power features like Smart Alerts before permanently deleting its copies within 24 hours. Users can still opt for full end-to-end encryption instead, though that disables cloud-based processing features.
techspot.com
· 2026-08-27
Ring has introduced a new encryption system that deletes the company's copy of users' video decryption keys after 24 hours. This means that once that window closes, Ring itself no longer holds the keys needed to decrypt footage, restricting what it can hand over in response to law enforcement requests.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-08-26
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