Hey,
It’s Pete Matheson with a new issue of Experiments in Progress.
I've bought a lot of fitness tech over the years. Some of it changed how I train, sleep, and eat. Most of it ended up in a drawer.
So here's the honest version.
My Practical Fitness Shortlist
This is the gear I actually reach for, what each one's genuinely good at, and where it's not worth your money:
⌚ Apple Watch: the safe pick that's still the right pick
If you want one watch that does everything reasonably well, this is it.
The Apple Watch is generally regarded as one of the most accurate all-round wearables you can strap on — heart rate, workouts, sleep, the lot.
I know it's the recommendation everyone makes. But in my experience it earns it.
If you're not a hardcore endurance athlete, you probably don't need to look much further.
Fitbit Air: the one that surprised me
This is the one I keep recommending to people who don't want to spend a fortune.
Google's Fitbit Air is a screenless, Whoop-style tracker for a one-off £85 / $100 — no mandatory subscription, roughly a week of battery.
Here's what actually won me over: the AI coach.
You chat with it like a person. Tell it "I stay up too late playing Xbox" — and next time you do, it'll flag that the late session hit your recovery.
One-off price — undercuts Whoop massively (no forced membership)
Gemini-powered coach — personalises to your actual habits
Genuinely conversational — "I'm about to travel, how do I plan my sleep?" gets a real answer
The AI stuff sits behind Google Health Premium ($9.99/mo after a free trial), so factor that in if you want the full coaching experience. But for the price of the hardware alone, it does a shocking amount.
🔋 Ultrahuman Ring Air: stylish, if you remember to charge it
I've got the Ultrahuman Ring Air in the Diesel collab, and it's the one bit of health tech I actually like wearing. Looks like jewellery, tracks sleep and recovery quietly in the background.
Which is exactly why the new Ring Pro is worth waiting for:
Ring Air battery: ~4–6 days
Ring Pro battery: up to 15 days (≈45 with the case)
No subscription, a proper dual-core processor, and roughly a fortnight between charges.
🏔️ Garmin Fenix 8: charging anxiety, solved
If you're into serious sports and the outdoors, get a Garmin.
For most people I'd point at the Fenix 8 — up to 16 days of battery, offline maps, ECG, the works.
Two things to skip: the MARQ (gorgeous, wildly expensive) and the Fenix 8 Pro — for the vast majority of people, the standard Fenix 8 is more than enough watch.
🛏️ Eight Sleep: too expensive… and I bought it anyway
The Eight Sleep is one of those products I spent years telling people was overpriced… and then became the exact person recommending it.
It's a temperature-controlled mattress cover — and crucially, both sides adjust independently, so you and your partner aren't fighting over one thermostat all night.
Dual-zone temperature control — your side, their side, separately
Contactless sleep tracking — no watch or ring needed
Autopilot — adjusts through the night on its own
The catch is the subscription (~$19/mo), and I hate a subscription fee. But hand on heart? For sleep, this one's worth it.
🎧 Powerbeats Pro 2: the buds that stay in
For working out, these are my pick. The Powerbeats Pro 2 have a little ear hook so they physically don't fall out mid-session.
Ear-hook fit — no readjusting during a run or HIIT
Small and compact — chuck them in the gym bag and forget them
Great battery — ~10 hours a bud, 45 with the case
🩸 Ultrahuman CGM: the most useful thing on this list
Ultrahuman's M1 CGM is a blood-glucose monitor — a small sensor on your arm that shows how your glucose responds to what you eat.
It integrates with the Ultrahuman app and MyFitnessPal — so if you're already logging food, it tells you what each meal does to your blood sugar.
That's the magic bit. You have a roast dinner… and watch your glucose spike. You hit the gym… and see what happens. You start to genuinely understand your body rather than just collecting more graphs.
🎯 My honest fitness tech buying guide
If you care about… | Get this |
|---|---|
One watch that just works | |
Cheap tracking + AI coaching | |
Recovery data without a screen | Ultrahuman Ring (Pro when it lands) |
Serious sport / outdoors | |
Actually sleeping better | |
Earbuds that won't fall out | |
Understanding how food affects you | Ultrahuman CGM |
📱 Enjoying this newsletter? Share it with a friend who’s as obsessed with tech as you are:
Every so often you get a piece of hardware that's brilliant, finished, works perfectly… and you still can't buy it. This is one of those stories.
In this video I break down the dBrand Companion Cube — a custom enclosure built specifically for the Steam Machine that never made it to shelves.
What the Companion Cube actually is and why the design turned heads
Why a finished, working product never went on sale
What this means for third-party accessories going forward
The legal reality behind Valve pulling the plug
Whether Valve should've just partnered with dBrand instead
and more…
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