Wearable Makers Eye Healthcare, New Innovations

Whoop, Oura, Apple and a new wave of challengers are pushing wearables beyond recovery scores and toward always-on health companions powered by AI 

In the last last year, Whoop raised $575 million at a $10.1 billion valuation, and Oura raised $900 million at $11 billion. Together, they’ve pulled in more capital than most consumer health categories see in a decade, and the money reflects a genuine shift in the wearable’s role in a consumer’s life. 

The category, which started as fitness and sleep tracking, is now being built toward a continuous, AI-interpreted health record.

The Established Players: Defined by Deeper Insights

Whoop and Oura have each spent the past two years adding features focused on deep insight into health. Whoop’s recent launches include Blood Pressure Insights, FDA-cleared ECG, Healthspan and Advanced Labs, which enables targeted blood panels across cardiovascular, metabolic, performance and women’s health categories. The company reports more than 24 billion hours of collected health data and says members open the app more than eight times daily, a retention signal that matters as much as any hardware spec in a subscription business.

“Long term, the companies that win the wearables race will be the ones that go beyond simply tracking data and instead deliver meaningful, predictive health insights people rely on every day,” a Whoop spokesperson told Athletech News.

That framing comes with complications. In 2025, the FDA sent Whoop a warning letter stating that Blood Pressure Insights constitutes a medical device requiring marketing authorization. Whoop has disputed the interpretation and declined to disable the feature. As wearables layer blood pressure monitoring, metabolic insights and AI-generated health guidance on top of their hardware, the gap between a wellness feature and a clinical claim will keep narrowing, and regulators will keep watching.

Oura’s expansion has followed a parallel path. The company built its category position on sleep and recovery tracking, but its current roadmap is organized around broader health intelligence. 

In late May, Oura launched Oura Ring 5, which it calls the world’s smallest smart ring. The device is 40% smaller than Oura Ring 4, with re-engineered sensing, week-long battery life and new software features that push Oura further into preventive health, metabolic health and connected care. The launch includes Health Radar, which surfaces blood pressure signals and nighttime breathing patterns; Health Records, which can import clinical data; GLP-1 Insights; lab uploads; a Brain Health Study; and a partnership with Counsel Health that brings AI-enabled access to licensed providers into the Oura app. 

Apple’s benefit is scale. The Apple Watch is the most widely deployed health-sensing device in the world, and the company has spent years turning that scale into a research asset. Through its ResearchKit platform and Investigator Support Program, Apple has facilitated clinical studies on AFib detection, marathon training physiology and cardiovascular risk across major academic medical centers.

The Fitness-First Segment

While Apple has been moving its health features toward more longitudinal and clinically framed insight, it also sees the immense potential in the running wearable market. Apple’s partnership with the 2026 TCS London Marathon as official performance technology partner signals the brand’s desire to be the default device for serious athletes. 

“(Apple) does have the most accurate GPS in any sports watch and we’ve tested that against all of the competition,” Eric Jue, director of Apple Watch product marketing, told ATN. “The GPS part of it is so important because that feeds into pace and distance calculations.”

Garmin, whose fitness segment grew 42% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, has built its credibility with endurance athletes through high-spec GPS watches and remains the dominant wearable among serious runners and cyclists. 

The brand now has entered the screenless recovery band market with a product called Cirqa, retailing for $199. A screenless recovery band is a different category for Garmin, one where it would compete on physiological interpretation rather than navigation. If it can bring its athlete credibility there, it adds a competitive option to a segment Whoop has largely owned.

Google made a similar move with the Fitbit Air, a screenless tracker priced at $99.99 that covers heart rate, HRV, SpO2, sleep stages, Afib alerts and up to a week of battery life, bundled with three months of Google Health Premium. The device is Google’s attempt to make passive, always-on health tracking accessible well below the price points of Whoop or Oura, while using the Fitbit brand to reenter a consumer market it has largely ceded over the past several years.

credit: Google

The Health-Focused Challengers

Ultrahuman has positioned itself at the technical end of the smart ring market, targeting users who want to go further than sleep scores and readiness percentages. Its Ring Air competes directly with Oura on form factor, and the company has layered on Blood Vision, which connects traditional lab results with continuous wearable data, alongside an InsideTracker partnership focused on cardiovascular health management. Ultrahuman also acquired viO HealthTech and launched Cycle and Ovulation Pro, an add-on that adapts OvuSense fertility tracking to confirm ovulation with over 90% accuracy.

Samsung’s Galaxy Ring has brought large-scale consumer distribution to the smart ring category. Without a subscription requirement, it appeals to a different buyer than Oura, particularly those already embedded in the Samsung ecosystem.

Beyond the Wrist & Finger

Some of the more interesting developments in wearables are happening outside the core form factors entirely. Fort is targeting strength training, a category where most wearables have historically underperformed relative to their cardio and recovery capabilities. Petal is approaching women’s health through a bra insert designed to collect physiological signals in a form factor suited to the use case. Muse S Athena uses a brain-sensing headband for sleep and recovery. Pulsetto FIT and Nuropod reflect growing consumer interest in vagus nerve stimulation as a stress management tool.

Jonathan Berent, CEO of NextSense, a brain health company developing in-ear EEG technology for continuous sleep and cognitive monitoring, frames the broader directional shift well. 

“The future isn’t just telling people how they slept,” he told ATN. “It’s using real-time biosignals to help improve sleep quality, recovery, focus and overall brain health at the moment.”

Nuropod is a wearable device that delivers targeted electrical signals to the brain through the vagus nerve. The company claims such signals can help lower inflammation, improve sleep, reduce pain, lower blood pressure and increase heart rate variability. 

“As the category grows, it will become increasingly important to distinguish evidence-led neuromodulation from wellness marketing that overextends the science,” Dr. Elisabetta Burchi, a practicing doctor of psychiatry and currently Head of Research at Parasym, told ATN. “Nuropod, for example, is supported by more than 60 published clinical research studies implemented using Parasym technology, and we believe claims should remain closely aligned with available evidence.”

Companies like Soaak, a sound frequency wellness app with API integrations across Oura, Garmin and Whoop, are approaching the same opportunity from a different angle, building an application layer on top of existing wearables rather than competing with them directly. 

“Wearables are exceptional at measuring the body,” CEO Henry Penix told ATN. “Soaak can use that information to help users take action based on those measurements.”

Looking Ahead

Morgan Stanley Research estimates that 63% of surveyed consumers either use a wearable or are interested in purchasing one, and projects that broader adoption of preventive diagnostics could reduce U.S. spending on preventable diseases by $800 billion by 2050. U.S. retail sales of fitness trackers were up 88% year over year in 2025, with smart rings now accounting for 75% of tracker revenue.

The numbers are moving in one direction, but consumer adoption and clinical integration remain vastly different. Physicians are not reading Readiness scores, insurers are not reimbursing recovery bands, and the health record systems that govern American medicine were not built for continuous biometric streams. The category has spent a decade proving it can track sleep and strain exceptionally well; the next decade will determine whether that data can truly change consumer outcomes. 

This article originally appeared in ATN’s 2026 Technology & Innovation Outlook report, which explores the technologies redefining the fitness and wellness industry in 2026 and beyond. Download the free report.

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