Welcome back to And Finally, our roundup of the week that's been. On the site this week, Sophie has been trying out Rebble, the fan-built Pebble replacement service; Husain has taken a look into Snap's AR masterplan; and Conor has had some Big Thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy Watch.
Speaking of, we also got our first look at Samsung's new smartwatch. Elsewhere, Snap Specs' chief left the company, Google Pay on Wear OS got an upgrade - and the Apple Watch still holds the crown. For more, head over to our dedicated news section.
But lo, what of the less headline-grabbing stories of the week? We've got you covered.
Nike Training Club comes to the Apple Watch
Nike has brought its Training Club app to the Apple Watch, letting you track over 180 workouts directly from the wrist. There's quite a variety of workouts here - endurance, strength and more - along with advice from Nike expert trainers. While it means you don't have to check your phone to see your progress, you still have to start the workout on the iOS device - so it's not completely severed. But it means you'll get your heart rate, progress, reps, haptic guidance and more on the Apple Watch.
“The resounding feedback from athletes worldwide was that they wanted us to put the best training app onto Apple Watch, and I think we’ve done it in a way that will make it an intuitive and invaluable training tool,” said Mike McCabe, Nike’s VP of Category Digital Product Innovation.
Tommy Hilfiger’s new clothes know how much you’re wearing them
We’ve seen the future, and it’s weird as hell. This week Tommy Hilfiger announced a new line of clothing with sensors inside which track how much you’re wearing them. The more you wear your Tommy threads, the more you’ll be rewarded.
Sorry for the lazy comparison, but this is some Black Mirror fodder.
The new range is called Xplore - made of t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, jeans, you name it - and there is, of course, a companion app that will keep tabs on your brand loyalty. You can compete in challenges against other Hilfigers and earn points by walking past certain Tommy locations. It sounds like Pokemon Go. But shit.
Once you’ve earned enough Tommy Points (or whatever they’re actually called) you can exchange them for rare merch or gift cards.
Of course there are plenty of lingering privacy questions here, and while Engadget managed to elicit a couple of answers, it wasn’t enough to assuage all our privacy concerns. Our bigger question is this: who’s going to be rushing out to buy any of this stuff?
Ava hits a significant milestone
Fertility wearable maker Ava has announced it’s hit a pretty big milestone: more than 1,000 babies have now been born to users of its fertility tracking bracelet.
The Ava bracelets helps women to conceive by measuring physiological parameters (skin temperature, resting pulse rate, perfusion and more) and using that data to predict when you’re most fertile. Earlier this year the bracelet became even smarter by telling users when they’d ovulated. According to Ava, 12% of women have cycles with no ovulation, so this allows women to better hone in on that fertile window.
Ava has ambitions to take things further: Its published research suggests the tracker might one day even be able to detect pregnancy.
How we test
By Hugh Langley
Now at Business Insider, Hugh originally joined Wareable from TechRadar where he’d been writing news, features, reviews and just about everything else you can think of for three years.
Hugh is now a correspondent at Business Insider.
Prior to Wareable, Hugh freelanced while studying, writing about bad indie bands and slightly better movies. He found his way into tech journalism at the beginning of the wearables boom, when everyone was talking about Google Glass and the Oculus Rift was merely a Kickstarter campaign - and has been fascinated ever since.
He’s particularly interested in VR and any fitness tech that will help him (eventually) get back into shape. Hugh has also written for T3, Wired, Total Film, Little White Lies and China Daily.