There’s a New Way to Play Switch 1 Games at Their Full Resolution on the Switch 2

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Nearly one decade after its release, the Switch’s core design is still pretty ingenious: You can play games of all kinds, including graphically-demanding AAA titles, both on your TV as well as on the go. Of course, the console wouldn’t work well if it ran out of battery 30 minutes after playing Skyrim or Tears of the Kingdom, so Nintendo reduces the performance of many games to preserve battery life. The original Switch has a 720p display anyway, so you don’t really notice the downgrade in resolution, and any hit frame rates is justified by, well, the fact you’re playing Skyrim out of the house.

The Switch 2 carries over this design “tradition,” if you will, only more so: The upgraded hardware now supports games with higher resolution and higher frame rates, but you can only run games in 4K when connected to your TV. (The dock even has a fan built into it to keep the console cool.) When playing in handheld, the resolution drops to a maximum of 1080p—not a big deal, when the display is also 1080p.

The issue, however, comes when you run Switch 1 games in handheld mode on Switch 2. While those games will run at their full 1080p resolution in docked mode, they’ll drop down to their more limited performance modes when in handheld—even on Nintendo’s more powerful console. While the overall effect won’t be any different when playing on a Switch 1 versus a Switch 2, it’s a shame, since the latter could theoretically handle those older games at their “docked” settings.

“Handheld Mode Boost” runs Switch 1 games at full resolution

Nintendo, it seems, finally has a solution. In the company’s latest system update for Switch 2 (version 22.0.0), Nintendo added a new setting called “Handheld Mode Boost.” According to the update’s release notes, Handheld Mode Boost will run “compatible Switch software as if in TV Mode.” In other words, Switch 1 games will run in their full resolution when playing in handheld mode on Switch 2.

Take, for example, Tears of the Kingdom. That game can run at 900p when docked (even 1080p Zelda is too much for the Switch 1 to handle in docked mode), but drops down to 720p in handheld mode. But now, you’ll be able to play it as it runs on your TV, but on your Switch 2’s screen instead. That’ll be the case for many games—at least, the ones that are “compatible.” Nintendo didn’t specify which titles those might in its release notes, so this could be a case-by-case basis.

Now, this isn’t going to make every Switch 1 game suddenly Switch 2-level. Remember: The Switch 1 is running old hardware, even by 2017 standards. Even in docked mode, the best you can hope for is 1080p at 60 fps, and that’s for less-demanding titles. The more intense the game, the lower the frame rate, and, potentially, the lower the resolution. Again, both open-world Zeldas on Switch run at a maximum of 900p at 30 fps. If you want to experience those games in a higher resolution (1080p at 60 fps), you’ll need to fork up the $10 each for Nintendo’s Switch 2 upgrades.

But for games that don’t have official Switch 2 upgrades, or for gamers who don’t want to spend extra money to upgrade games they already own, this new setting is quite useful. Just be prepared for some glitches or oddities: Nintendo says that the effect of this mode will vary based on the game itself. Since this is emulating TV mode, the touch screen may not work, and your Joy-Con 2 controllers will be interpreted as a Switch 2 Pro controller. You can still use other controllers, but you’ll need to detach them from the Switch 2 first.

How to enable “Handheld Mode Boost”

To play your compatible Switch 1 games in their full resolution, you’ll need to manually activate this feature. First, make sure your Switch 2 is running version 22.0.0 or newer. You can check from Settings > System > System Update. Next, under Settings > System, choose “Nintendo Switch Software Handling.” Now, tap the toggle next to “Handheld Mode Boost.”

GPT-5.4 mini brings some of the smarts of OpenAI’s latest model to ChatGPT Free and Go users

When OpenAI released GPT-5.4 at the start of March, the company said the new model was designed primarily for professional work like programming and data analysis. Now OpenAI is launching GPT-5.4 mini and nano, and while it is once again highlighting the usefulness of these new systems for tasks like coding, one of the new models is available to Free and Go users. What’s more, that model, GPT-5.4 mini, even offers performance that approaches GPT-5.4 in a handful of areas.

As a Free or Go user, you can access 5.4 mini by selecting “Thinking” from ChatGPT’s plus menu. For paid users, the model is the new fallback for when you’ve hit your rate limit with 5.4 proper. OpenAI says 5.4 mini offers better performance than GPT-5.0 mini in a few different key areas, including reasoning, multimodal understanding and tool use. That means 5.4 mini is better at parsing non-text inputs such as images and audio, and has a more nuanced understanding of how to do things like search the web. It does all of this while running more than twice as fast as its predecessor. 

As for GPT-5.4 nano, OpenAI says it’s ideal for tasks such as data classification and extraction where speed and cost-efficiency are top of mind. If you’re a ChatGPT user, you won’t find the new model in the chatbot. Instead, OpenAI is making it only available through its API service. The company envisions developers using more advanced models to delegate tasks to AI agents running GPT-5.4 nano, and that’s reflected in the cost of the new model, which OpenAI has priced starting at $0.20 per million input tokens.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/gpt-54-mini-brings-some-of-the-smarts-of-openais-latest-model-to-chatgpt-free-and-go-users-170000585.html?src=rss

Are Split Spacebars the Next Big Gaming Keyboard Trend?

“There are countless upgrades you could make to your gaming setup,” writes PC Gamer’s Jacob Ridley. “A wireless this, a bigger that, a faster thing. But how do you know what’s going to be a genuine upgrade worth investing in? Personally, I think it might be split spacebars.” His argument centers on the fact that spacebars take up a “greedy” amount of keyboard space — space that could instead be divided into multiple keys for different actions, such as voice chat or melee attacks. From the report: While it’s often very easy to reprogram your spacebar to do a different action via your keyboard’s software, it’s a lot harder to reprogram your brain to hit any other key when you try to jump in game. Spacebar makes you jump. Everyone knows that; it’s practically etched onto your brain if you’re a long-time mouse and keyboard player. So, why does a split spacebar help with that? It comes down to this: once you know which side of a spacebar you tend to thwack with your thumb, you can program the other side to do whatever you want. I hit the right-side of my spacebar every time when I’m typing. Therefore, when I started using a Wooting 60HE v2 with a split spacebar, I set the left-side to be the delete key; the keyboard lacking a dedicated delete key for its 60% size.

Though for gaming, the split spacebar offers much more varied purpose. People do strange things with the WASD keys that I won’t litigate here, but I’m pretty sure most gamers use their left thumb to strike the spacebar for gaming. Right? Right. If you fall into this category, you have the option of using the right-side spacebar for things like a chunky melee key, or, my personal favorite, an in-game voice chat key.


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Switch 2 software update adds ‘Handheld Mode Boost’ for your old games

We might not have had a proper Nintendo Direct in 2026 yet, but there have been plenty of Switch and Switch 2-related announcements in the last few weeks, including a release date for the Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, a surprise port of Kena: Bridge of Spirits and the final trailer for the imminent The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. But if you’re a Switch 2 owner who prefers to play your library of games in handheld mode, Nintendo’s latest announcement might be the one that interests you most.

The company has released the 22.0.0 system update for its latest console, which brings with it a host of tweaks and improvements, the most notable of which being the introduction of “Handheld Mode Boost.” If you’ve played any original Switch games that haven’t received next-gen patches in handheld mode on Switch 2, you might have noticed that they look a bit blurry and unappealing. That’s because they’re still rendering at 720p on the Switch 2’s larger 1080p display, so the image is being stretched to fit a screen it wasn’t designed for.

Handheld Mode Boost doesn’t mean that all unpatched Switch games are now natively running at 1080p on Switch 2, but rather that the console is telling them to run in the original Switch’s docked TV mode — which was able to output at 1080p — on the handheld. Since launch this has seemed like the obvious workaround for Switch games, but it has taken nearly a year for Nintendo to implement it. You should see higher resolution visuals and, in some cases, better performance, as a result.

When running original Switch games in Handheld Boost Mode (enabled via a toggle in the system menu) your Switch 2 will treat the attached Joy-Con 2 controllers as if they were a Pro Controller. This disables features like motion controls and touchscreen functionality, meaning some games won’t work on the newer hardware with Handheld Boost Mode turned on. Eurogamer names Super Mario Maker 2 and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD as two examples of games that aren’t compatible at the moment. 

There are a number of other updates in version 22.0.0, including a new animation for loading a virtual game card, new GameChat features and more customization options in flight mode. The full list of patch notes can be found here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/switch-2-software-update-adds-handheld-mode-boost-for-your-old-games-165451808.html?src=rss

VR Games Showcase Returns March 24th With ‘The Boys: Trigger Warning’, ‘Wrath: Aeon of Ruin VR’, and More

The VR Games Showcase is returning for its first show of 2026! Our Direct-style celebration of new games, trailers, and updates goes live on YouTube and right here on Road to VR on March 24th, 9am PT (convert to your timezone), with our indie pre-show kicking off shortly beforehand at 8:40am PT (convert to your timezone).

We’re lining up one of our best shows yet, featuring over 20 games. That includes fresh looks at some of the biggest upcoming releases, including The Boys: Trigger Warning from ARVORE and Wrath: Aeon of Ruin VR from Flat2VR Studios, as well as updates on hits like Triangle Factory’s Forefront, Bootstrap Island from Maru VR, and Dimensional Double Shift from Owlchemy Labs.

We’ll also have one of our biggest game announcements to date, as well as previews from the team at Creature and top VR studios including Innerspace, Spectral Games and more. And there’s over 10 titles in our pre-show, highlighting some of the best independent games.

In other words, it’s a packed show. Plus, our continuing partnership with the team at Road to VR will bring you expanded coverage of the show, including a wrap up of everything announced, and potentially some in-depth guest articles focusing on specific games after launch too.

So, once again, that’s March 24th, 9am PT (convert to your timezone) for the core VRGS show, with the pre-show returning at 8:40am PT (convert to your timezone). We’re looking forward to showing you what’s in store for VR in the coming weeks and months!


Road to VR is proud to be the official media partner of VR Games Showcase

The post VR Games Showcase Returns March 24th With ‘The Boys: Trigger Warning’, ‘Wrath: Aeon of Ruin VR’, and More appeared first on Road to VR.

WhatsApp is now officially available on Garmin smartwatches

There’s an official WhatsApp app for select Garmin smartwatches. It’s available for free right now in the Garmin Connect IQ Store. WhatsApp is primarily a chat platform, so this new app allows users to read and reply to messages, send emojis and peruse the chat history.

The app also lets users accept or decline incoming calls arriving from the platform, all without having to break out the smartphone. This is WhatsApp, so messages are end-to-end encrypted.

As previously mentioned, it’s not available for every Garmin watch. It’s compatible with select Forerunner, Venu, Vivoactive and Fenix watches. The Connect IQ Store should be able to say if your particular model can handle the app.

This is just the latest smartwatch platform to get WhatsApp. Meta released an Apple Watch version at the tail-end of last year. Before that, Apple Watch users had to mirror iPhone notifications to reply to WhatsApp messages directly from the device.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/whatsapp-is-now-officially-available-on-garmin-smartwatches-164156538.html?src=rss

The Sashiko patch-review system

Roman Gushchin has announced the
existence of an LLM-driven patch-review system named Sashiko. It automatically creates reviews
for all patches sent to the linux-kernel mailing list (and some others).

In my measurement, Sashiko was able to find 53% of bugs based on a
completely unfiltered set of 1,000 recent upstream issues using
“Fixes:” tags (using Gemini 3.1 Pro). Some might say that 53% is
not that impressive, but 100% of these issues were missed by human
reviewers.

Sashiko is built on Chris Mason’s review prompts (covered here in October 2025), but the
implementation has evolved considerably.

The Best Earbuds You Can Buy Just Dropped Under $300 for the First Time

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

Sony doesn’t know how to name earbuds, but it sure knows how to build them. The WF-100XM5 buds were my favorite wireless earbuds last year, and they’ve since been supplanted by the Sony WF-1000XM6 buds.

Generally, whenever Sony releases a new version of its flagship earbuds, you can generally trust they will be the best your money can buy until the next iteration rolls around—and right now, you can get the WF-1000XM6 buds at a discount for the first time. They’re $298 (originally $329.99), the lowest price since the recent release, according to price tracking tools.

The Sony WF-1000XM6 earbuds are a direct competitor with the Bose QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen), both outstanding options we have reviewed here in Lifehacker. The Bose are better suited for those looking for simplicity, user-friendliness, and comfort, while the Sonys are best for audiophiles looking to tweak and customize their experience exactly how they like it, with more options and features.

The Sony WF-1000XM6 earbuds are my favorite for pure listening enjoyment. Yes, they are comfortable and have amazing ANC, but the audio quality, especially when you tweak the EQ and are able to listen to audio in LC3 and Sony’s own LDAC codecs, is the best in the market for Bluetooth earbuds.

As you can read in Lifehacker’s review, Sony has improved the microphone count and quality, making calls, ANC, and transparency mode sound clear and more responsive to noise in your environment. As far as battery life, you can get eight hours when listening with just the buds, and 24 hours from the charging case.

If you’re an Apple user, I think the AirPods Pro 3 are a better option since they’re cheaper and better suited for iPhones. If you’re not, these Sony buds are my top recommendation—provided you want the best audio quality from Bluetooth earbuds you can find—and the current price is the lowest I’ve seen yet (and I don’t expect them to go much lower in 2026).

Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now

Deals are selected by our commerce team

This Garmin bike computer offers flawless mapping and a brilliant touchscreen – now it’s 20% cheaper

If you’re looking to improve your training this spring, one of the best investments you can make is a good-quality GPS cycling computer.

High-end devices from Garmin and Wahoo can cost over £500, but you don’t need the latest and greatest to spur on your training.

That’s why this Garmin Edge 840 Solar – now with a 20% saving – has caught our eye in LeisureLakes’ sale.

Whether you’re looking to broaden your horizons with new routes or dissect new data sets, the Edge 840 Solar should make a great companion for road and gravel riding or mountain biking.

Supreme touchscreen

Garmin Edge 840 Solar, Garmin Edge 1040 Solar and Garmin Edge 540 Solar lined up on step.
The 800-series features a smaller form factor than the 1000-series. Stan Portus / Our Media

The device is in Garmin’s 800-series, which sits between the 500- and 1000-series in size, but features a colour touchscreen for navigation.

It’s not the latest model, with the 840 being replaced by the 850 at the end of last year.

Despite this, the bike computer still has many of the same features as the latest model.

Garmin 840 Solar main screen on a computer mount
You can see the solar panel surrounding the screen. Jack Luke / Our Media

This model features a solar panel, giving it a battery life of up to 32 hours and up to 60 hours in battery saver mode.

USB-C port on Garmin Edge 840 Solar
Garmin has given the Edge 840 a USB-C port. Jack Luke / Our Media

We gave the Edge 840 Solar 4 stars when we tested it, and praised its flawless mapping and precise touchscreen.

The device bundles plenty of functionality into its 57.8×85.1×19.6mm body, with multi-band GNSS, ClimbPro and Garmin Coach training plans helping to track accurate results and push you harder.

This deal sees the Edge 840 Solar reduced from £449.99 to £359.99 – a 20% saving.

If you’re looking to open up your riding or focus harder on your training, the Edge 840 Solar is a serious GPS to consider.

Gamers react with overwhelming disgust to DLSS 5’s generative AI glow-ups

Since deep-learning super-sampling (DLSS) launch on 2018’s RTX 2080 cards, gamers have been generally bullish on the technology as a way to effectively use machine learning upscaling techniques to increase resolutions or juice frame rates in games. With yesterday’s tease of the upcoming DLSS 5, though, Nvidia has crossed a line from mere upscaling into complete lighting and texture overhauls influenced by “generative AI.” The result is a bland, uncanny gloss that has received an instant and overwhelmingly negative reaction from large swaths of gamers and the industry at large.

While previous DLSS releases rendered upscaled frames or created entirely new ones to smooth out gaps, Nvidia calls DLSS 5—which it plans to launch in Autumn—”a real-time neural rendering model” that can “deliver a new level of photoreal computer graphics previously only achieved in Hollywood visual effects.” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said explicitly that the technology melds “generative AI” with “handcrafted rendering” for “a dramatic leap in visual realism while preserving the control artists need for creative expression.”

Unlike existing generative video models, which Nvidia notes are “difficult to precisely control and often lack predictability,” DLSS 5 uses a game’s internal color and motion vectors “to infuse the scene with photoreal lighting and materials that are anchored to source 3D content and consistent from frame to frame.” That underlying game data helps the system “understand complex scene semantics such as characters, hair, fabric and translucent skin, along with environmental lighting conditions like front-lit, back-lit or overcast,” the company says.

Read full article

Comments

Starfield is coming to PS5 on April 7

Starfield is officially coming to PS5, with a launch date set for April 7. Preorders are open right now for both the digital and physical versions. It’s long been rumored that Bethesda’s sci-fi RPG would be going multiplatform and, well, here we are.

The PS5 version will tap into the DualSense controller’s capabilities with adaptive triggers that work differently depending on the weapon you’re using. The light bar will offer an indication of your character and ship health (if you ever look at it while you’re playing, that is). You’ll also be able to use the touchpad to switch between points of view and access your map and hand scanner.

There will be a standard edition and a premium edition, matching the versions that originally showed up on Xbox consoles. The premium edition includes the base game, the Shattered Space and Terran Armada story expansions, a skin pack, some virtual currency and a digital artbook/soundtrack. The standard edition is $50, and the premium version will run you $70. If you buy the base game and decide later that you want to upgrade to the premium version to access the DLC, there’ll be a $25 upgrade available.

Other notable former Xbox exclusives have gone multiplatform, including Avowed, Forza Horizon 5, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II and Sea of Thieves. The PS5 will even be home to a Halo game in the near future.

It’s been rumored that the Switch 2 would be getting its own Starfield port at some point. If Nintendo’s new console can handle Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, another Bethesda release, it can likely run Starfield.

As for the Terran Armada DLC, that will be available on April 7 alongside a free update. The latter (which is dubbed Free Lanes) includes an overhaul of the space travel system. You’ll be able to fly freely between planets in a star system and enable cruise mode, which enables you to chat with shipmates or decorate your ship while traveling. Points of interest will pop up while you’re in cruise mode as well — you can switch your destination to one of those instead if there’s something that catches your interest. 

There are more space encounters too. If you run into one of these, your ship will exit cruise mode and you’ll have to deal with the situation before continuing. These encounters may or may not feature combat. In some cases, you’ll have to explore ship wreckages.

The free update also introduces deeper customization for weapons, gear and ships through a collectible item called X-Tech. You’ll be able to spend this (and regular credits) on re-rolls for legendary effects for your weapons. 

Elsewhere, there’s a new database system; more side quests; two higher-level quality tiers (superior and exceptional) for your gear; an optimization terminal you can add to your ship to help customize and upgrade your ride; containers from which you’ll be access stored gear at any of your outposts; an outpost pet; and much more. In addition, there’ll be a way for you to start a New Game+ run with all of the gear you’ve previously acquired.

If you don’t have the premium edition of Starfield, you can buy the Terran Armada DLC for $10. This includes a new story questline. You’ll face the Terrans, “an advanced militant force with their own vision for the Settled Systems.” One Terran robot will be available as a new companion.

The DLC introduces an Incursion system. This includes battles that form a key part of the DLC storyline. These range from “small skirmishes to large-scale infiltrations of Terran vessels where the objectives can vary,” Bethesda wrote in a blog post. You’ll be able to replay incursions to score extra loot. Via the gameplay options, you can limit how often non-story-required incursions pop up.

Terran Armada also adds new gear and ship parts; elite crew members; an outpost pre-build and decorations; and more.

Starfield is a huge sci-fi RPG with elements of Mass Effect and Fallout. We were blown away by its graphical beauty, but were initially underwhelmed by the generic story and gameplay. The game has, however, received a fair number of improvements since launch. It’s pretty good now, and hopefully the Free Lanes update and DLC will improve things even further.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/starfield-is-coming-to-ps5-on-april-7-162341201.html?src=rss

More Game Pass additions for March include Disco Elysium and Resident Evil 7

Microsoft has revealed the second wave of Game Pass additions for March. Disco Elysium and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard headline the 12-title batch, and several games previously exclusive to the Ultimate tier are also expanding to Premium.

DreamWorks Gabby’s Dollhouse: Ready to Party kicks off the wave on March 17. South of Midnight, the action-adventure from Xbox studio Compulsion Games, and The Alters both arrive on March 18 on the Premium tier after being Ultimate-only. The Alters, from Frostpunk studio 11 Bit Studios, strands you on a hostile planet where your survival plan involves creating alternate versions of yourself based on different life choices and putting them to work.

Disco Elysium arrives on March 19 across all tiers. ZA/UM‘s detective RPG casts you as an amnesiac cop tasked with solving a murder, though the game is just as happy to let you become “an absolute disaster of a human being.” Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, from the series formerly known as Yakuza, hits on March 24. Action packed roguelite Absolum, which we loved, follows on March 25, marking its Xbox debut.

Roman city-builder Nova Roma arrives March 26 as a day-one Game Pass release, and survival game The Long Dark joins on March 30. First-person survival epic Resident Evil 7: Biohazard arrives on March 31.

Barbie Horse Trails and 2025 Game of the Year Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 both land on April 2, with Clair Obscur coming to the Premium tier after launching as a day-one Game Pass Ultimate title. Final Fantasy IV rounds out the wave on April 7. Peppa Pig World Adventures and Mad Streets leave Game Pass on March 31.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/more-game-pass-additions-for-march-include-disco-elysium-and-resident-evil-7-161050028.html?src=rss

After three months, Samsung is ending sales of the $2,899 Galaxy Z TriFold

Samsung has been selling foldable phones for years, but they all fold in half. Recently, the company released the Galaxy Z TriFold, which has two hinges that allow it to expand from something approaching phone-sized to a 10-inch tablet. It’s a neat engineering demo, and that’s how it’s going to stay—Samsung has confirmed it’s ending sales of the Galaxy Z TriFold just three months after it launched.

According to Bloomberg, Samsung will begin winding down sales of the massive foldable in its home market of South Korea, where the TriFold debuted in December 2025. The device will disappear from other markets like the US as inventory is sold. Samsung released the Galaxy Z TriFold for the US in January, making its run even shorter stateside.

Samsung didn’t offer a rationale for this decision, but poor sales probably isn’t it. While the phone retailed for a whopping $2,899, Samsung was selling every unit it could produce. The company’s website actually teased restocks until recently, and desperate buyers were paying above MSRP on the second-hand market.

Read full article

Comments

How Many Fitness Wearables Do You Really Need?

Scroll through r/Garmin, r/ouraring, or r/whoop and you’ll find threads from users debating the merits of pairing devices. Common combinations include a GPS smartwatch like a Garmin or Apple Watch alongside a recovery-focused tracker like Whoop or Oura, with users assigning each device a distinct purpose: notifications and workout tracking from the watch, sleep and recovery data from the ring or band, and so on.

As wearable technology becomes increasingly sophisticated—not to mention increasingly embedded in how we think about our health—at what point does all this monitoring stop helping you and start just generating noise?

Do you need multiple fitness wearables? 

Before dismissing a multi-device setup as pure excess, though, it’s worth understanding why many people arrive there in the first place. After all, different devices have genuinely different strengths. Smart rings, for instance, are widely praised for sleep tracking, but struggle with workout detection (they don’t have GPS and have limited ability to capture exercise). A Garmin, meanwhile, excels at activity and training metrics, but it might be too bulky to sleep in night after night. Maybe your Apple Watch has the best notifications and cardiac monitoring, but you like to charge it overnight.

Many multi-device users are simply patching up all these gaps, always trying to use the best tool for each job. So if you’re into tracking your health, a multi-device setup sounds reasonable enough. Surely more inputs mean better data?

Not necessarily, says Dr. James Mitchell, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Colorado Anschutz. “Apple Watch, Oura, and Whoop are largely measuring the same physiological signals and repackaging them through different algorithms,” Mitchell says. “You’re not tripling your information—you’re tripling your noise.”

Zooming out, it’s worth noting that most consumer wearables are not medical-grade devices. And this is not to say that your smartwatches, rings, and bands aren’t legit. Far from it: The FDA has cleared several Apple Watch features as Class II medical devices. What’s important to understand is that designation applies to specific, well-validated features, and not to the broad range of metrics you might get on a daily basis. 

Instead, your smartwatch is best used for detecting trends over time—not to give you clinically accurate measurements at any given moment. This difference matters when people start making health decisions based on their at-home tracking.

What’s actually worth tracking with fitness wearables

Not all metrics are created equal, but the wearable industry has a financial incentive to make everything seem equally important. According to Mitchell, the essentials include resting heart rate trends, heart rate variability (HRV) (when used as a general recovery indicator observed over time), sleep duration, and step count. “These are relatively well-validated and tend to track with meaningful health outcomes in the research literature,” he says.

Then there’s everything else. Stress scores are a prime example of a metric that sounds sophisticated but is built on shaky interpretive ground. They’re typically derived from HRV and heart rate—real physiological signals—but the “stress” label layered on top is not directly measuring your mental state at that moment. The same skepticism applies to things like “readiness scores” and “body battery” metrics. “They can be directionally useful,” Mitchell says, “but they’re likely not telling you anything your body isn’t already telling you if you pay attention to it.”

Keep these risks in mind with fitness wearables

The conversation around wearables tends to focus on their benefits, but there are risks beyond notification fatigue. Privacy is perhaps the most under-appreciated concern. We regularly sign various “terms of service” that are long, vague, and subject to change. “Your health data is among the most sensitive data you generate, and most people have no idea what wearable companies are doing with it,” Mitchell says. His recommendation: Research what each company actually does with your data and how seriously they take privacy before you commit.

Mental health is another risk. For instance, there’s a documented phenomenon called “orthosomnia“—a term for when people become so focused on optimizing their sleep scores that the monitoring itself begins to disrupt their sleep. More broadly, constant tracking can erode a person’s connection to their own body. “Constant tracking can shift you from listening to your body to only trusting what the device says,” Mitchell says. People can become fixated on day-to-day metrics that, on any given day, may not be fully accurate. “Focusing on trends over time is a much better way of using the data, and listening to your body is always better.”

And then cost is of course a factor, one that compounds. Devices like Whoop and Oura rely on subscription models that add up quickly. If the data isn’t changing your behavior in a concrete way, your money is better spent elsewhere. 

Who fitness wearables are actually good for

Again, none of this means wearables are without value. Training for an endurance event and wanting to track recovery is a strong use case. Managing a chronic condition with physician guidance is another. Identifying patterns around sleep disruption or cardiac irregularities is genuinely, clinically meaningful. And for people who simply enjoy engaging with their data, without it causing anxiety, that’s a legitimate use case too.

The sweet spot for wearables comes down to specificity. “Pick one or two metrics that actually connect to your goals and focus on those over weeks and months, not days” Mitchell says. Day-to-day fluctuations are mostly noise, and chasing them is a good way to make yourself anxious without getting healthier.

For people without a specific medical concern or athletic goal, these questions are worth sitting with:

  • Has any data from this device changed a decision you made in the last three months?

  • If you skip checking your stats for a week, does anything bad actually happen?

  • Are you buying a second or third wearable because the first one gave you actionable information, or because you’re hoping the next one will finally tell you something useful?

“For healthy people with no specific goals, the return on investment for most wearables is pretty modest,” he says. “If you’re sleeping fine, exercising regularly, and your doctor isn’t flagging concerns, you’re probably getting more anxiety than insight from layering on more devices.”

The consumer market, driven by competition and the constant pressure to justify subscription fees and annual hardware upgrades, has raced ahead of science in many areas. Wearables are still an exciting and promising arena, but it feels like we’re being sold comprehensiveness when what we actually need is clarity.

If you’re wearing two or three devices simultaneously and struggling to articulate what each one is telling you that the others aren’t … that’s probably your answer. Consider taking a week off from using your wearables. If you feel lost without your devices, that’s worth reflecting on. At the end of the day, collecting data and acting on data are very different things.

Google makes Gemini personalization available to free users

At the start of the year, Google introduced Personal Intelligence, a Gemini feature that allows the chatbot to pull information from the user’s other Google apps and services to generate personalized responses. After making the feature first available to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, the company is expanding availability to more users in the US. 

Google is kicking off the expansion with AI Mode. Starting today, anyone in the US can enable Personal Intelligence inside of the company’s dedicated search chatbot. To enable the feature, tap on your profile, select Search personalization, followed by Connected Content Apps. From there, select Connect Workspace and Google Photos.

In the coming weeks, Google will start rolling out Personal Intelligence to free users of the Gemini app in the US, with international availability to follow thereafter. The company plans to do the same with Gemini in Chrome, where personalization will first roll out to users in the US before becoming available in other countries. 

Google suggests a few different use cases for Gemini personalization inside of AI Mode, the Gemini app and Chrome. For instance, say you turn to AI mode for help with planning an upcoming trip. Instead of generating a generic itinerary, the chatbot will pull information from your apps to suggest something more tailored to your interests. It can also help you with troubleshooting in cases where you can’t remember the exact make or model of a device you’re trying to fix, as long as there are some hints to its origin contained inside of your Gmail account.

In each case, Personal Intelligence is disabled by default. Gemini will not personalize its responses unless you enable the new feature. Additionally, personalization is only available to personal accounts and not for Workspace business, enterprise and education users.  

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-makes-gemini-personalization-available-to-free-users-160000581.html?src=rss