
Welcome one and all to And finally, the place to find out about the smaller stories from the world of wearables you may have missed.
Missed the big stories too? Don't worry, we've got you covered. It sounds like the Apple Watch Series 4 could feature new haptic buttons, while Microsoft is planning to talk HoloLens 2 in 2018 with a launch tipped for 2019. Garmin launched its second music-supporting watch with the Vivoactive 3 Music while Fitbit announced global availability of the Fitbit Ace.
There's also been plenty of other stories that didn't quite make the news cut, but we've saved them for you. We're nice like that.
Read on to catch up on the best of the rest of the other wearable tech stories of the week.
Gear S4 could be unveiled in August
Whether it's rocking Wear or Tizen, it seems pretty clear that the Samsung Gear S4 is landing before the end of the year. The question is, when will it be unveiled?
Based on previous unveilings, Samsung usually shows off its smartwatches in September during the IFA Berlin tech expo. The latest speculation courtesy of Korean site ETnews suggests a Gear S4 unveiling could happen in August and will accompany Samsung's Galaxy Note 9. That would be around a month earlier than we'd usually see a wearable from Samsung, so maybe this year it's going to switch things up.
Mi Band 3 English support incoming
Xiaomi unveiled its next-gen budget fitness tracker at the end of May and, as is tradition with its wearables, will launch in China first. So when will everyone else be able to enjoy the Mi Band 3's new waterproof design and NFC payment support? According to retail site Geekbuying, the English firmware update for the Mi Band 3 will land within three months time. NFC support is on board, but there are no details on when those payment features will be unlocked.
Google's Wear OS feature backtrack
Back at its I/O developer conference, Google talked a lot about improving the battery performance on its Wear watches, but after testing one of those software solutions in beta, it has had second thoughts. The feature cut back on what apps could do in the background, but blocking background alarms and jobs clearly didn't sit well with the developer community, and Google has now decided to restore things to how they were before.
LG's next Wear smartwatch incoming
It looks like a new LG smartwatch is on the way after details emerged from an FCC listing, which is usually a strong indication that a company is prepping a device launch. Documents detailed a LM-W319, describing a Wear smartwatch that will include Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. It even showed off the settings menu.
Back in May, a new LG smartwatch running Wear OS hit the FCC with the model number LM-W315. So it sounds like LG could have not one, but two Wear watches to show us in the near future. One of these watches could well be the rumored LG Timepiece, which is tipped to be a Wear watch with physical hands that sit on top of the full touchscreen display.
More
Check out the meatier stories of the week on our dedicated news page.
How we test