The smart wearable market has seen a lot of expansion in the past couple of years, at least in terms of popularity - more and more manufacturers have continued to join the wave of newer and more capable devices, and Vivo's latest entry seeks to do just that. Dubbed the "vivo Watch 3," Vivo's new smartwatch comes with its own set of tricks up its sleeve.

Perhaps one of the biggest features is the operating system that ships inside the watch - the Vivo Watch 3 comes with BlueOS, a custom wearable platform designed by Vivo. It features its own exclusive set of apps and software services, as well as its own app store. There's also "Jovi" assistant on board, Vivo's own smart voice assistant.

In terms of design, the Vivo Watch 3 comes with a round look that's reminiscent of most smart wearables on the market, and it comes with two physical buttons on the side consisting of an action button and a crown-style button for navigation. The watch packs a 500 mAh battery that Vivo says can last up to 16 days, although you'd have to use the watch as a standalone device without Bluetooth connectivity enabled. Otherwise, this endurance goes down to around a week's worth of use.

The device also comes with the usual set of hardware and software features designed to keep an eye on users' health, including SPO2 and heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, as well as a variety of different exercise modes. The watch is priced at around $150 for the base model which comes with Bluetooth-only connectivity, although there's an e-Sim variant which costs around $200.

Xiaomi's Amazfit sub-brand recently announced the launch of two new smart wearables, the Amazfit Active and Active Edge. Both devices share some similarities, although there are some considerable differences in terms of price and features included.

First up is the Amazfit Active, which features a 1.75-inch AMOLED touch display. Compared to the Active Edge, the "regular" Active comes with a squared-off design which is rated for 5ATM water resistance. The watch runs on Zepp OS with support for third-party software, as well as Amazon Alexa. The watch is powered by a 300 mAh battery that supposedly can last up to 14 days of use.

Meanwhile, the Amazfit Active Edge comes with a circular design that features a more "rugged" appearance. This houses a 1.32-inch TFT display and a 10ATM rating for better water protection. It also comes with a larger 370 mAh battery, which can last up to 20 days depending on usage. As with the regular model, it runs on Zepp OS.

Both devices come with support for Bluetooth connectivity, as well as support for a variety of sports modes and health tracking features including heart rate monitoring, sleep and stress tracking, and personal exercise plans. The Amazfit Active and Active Edge are priced at $149.99.

Last year, Apple announced the Apple Watch Ultra, a more expensive but more feature-rich variant of the regular Apple Watch lineup. Now it looks like Samsung could be next to try and take a stab at the "Ultra" smartwatch as the company is rumored to be working on a Galaxy Watch "Ultra" model.

According to a report from GizmoChina, they claim that the Ultra model will be utilizing micro LED display technology. For context, the current Galaxy Watch 6 models rely on OLED, which is pretty much the same display tech used in many smartphones today.

While both OLED and micro LED have "LED" in their names, they are quite different from each other. One of the primary advantages micro LEDs have over OLED is their lifespan, where OLED displays are prone to burn-ins over time, whereas micro LEDs aren't, making them preferable for devices like TVs.

Apart from the potential use of micro LEDs, it is unclear what other differences this Ultra Galaxy Watch will have over its non-Ultra counterparts. Samsung did attempt to launch a Galaxy Watch model back in 2022 with the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. It featured a larger display, long-lasting battery, more outdoorsy tracking features, and it also utilized titanium, but design wise it wasn't too different from the regular model.

In any case seeing as we're approaching the end of the year, we doubt that we'll be seeing this Ultra model launch in the coming months, so take it with a grain of salt for now.

If you happen to own a Pixel Watch that runs on Wear OS 3.5 or later, then you might be pleased to learn that Google has announced that the Wear OS 4 update has started to roll out to these devices.

Wear OS 4 was revealed earlier this year at Google I/O 2023 and with this update, Pixel Watch owners can look forward to all the changes that the company announced.

This includes the inclusion of the Google Calendar app that will be preinstalled on your watch following the update, giving users quick and easy access to their calendars and see what meetings or events they have coming up.

There will also be new safety features including Safety Check, Emergency Sharing, and Emergency Info. Google has also enhanced the notifications which now comes with a smart link when it detects things like phone numbers and addresses, allowing users the ability to quickly make a call or find directions just by tapping on them.

There are also a bunch of new accessibility features such as text-to-speech, TalkBack will also now be safer and more reliable, bold text, improved magnification, and more. The update is being rolled out as we speak so if you have a compatible Pixel Watch, then this is an update you'll want to keep an eye out for.

Pretty much all smartwatches and fitness trackers these days come with workout tracking. It's a way for users to log their workouts so they can keep an eye on their progress and get a visual way of seeing how often they work out, how many calories they've burnt, and so on.

Now according to a post on X by tipster Kamila Wojciechowska, it seems that the upcoming Pixel Watch 2 is expected to come with a new feature in the form of automatic workout tracking.

For those who are unfamiliar, automatic workout tracking is where the smartwatch detects that you are doing some kind of physical activity and will prompt users whether or not they want to track it. This is useful if you forgot to begin your tracking, so the watch will be able to detect your activity and remind you about it.

According to the leaked screenshot, it seems that it will be able to automatically start, pause, and stop your workouts accordingly, a feature that was not in the original Pixel Watch. If you think that this could be a useful feature to have, then the Pixel Watch 2 might be a smartwatch worth keeping an eye out for.

Google is expected to announce the smartwatch alongside its Pixel 8 smartphones on the 4th of October, so check back with us then for the updates!