Optimizer
This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they’re going to change your life.
Digital health screeners weren’t a thing until the Apple Watch. It’s shaped how we think about wearables ever since.
Who’s to say? Not Grüns’ clinical study.
Boy kibble, proteinmaxxing, protein washing. The wellness Wild West’s obsession with one macro is getting out of hand.
Casey Means says her “Good Energy habits” can prevent cancer.
Technically, it’s food. (It doesn’t taste like it.)
Skinfluencers swear topical salmon-sperm serums will make your skin glow. The reality is a bit less impressive.
Oura is lobbying for relaxed wearables regulation. It has a point, but is regulation even the problem here?
Athletic Greens is ‘clinically backed.’ What does that even mean?
Mirumi is adorable. But living with it reminded me of the limits to the companionship a social robot can provide.
The search for the contents of my mystery “GLP-3” vial leads further into the wellness wild west.
The wellness wild west strikes again. This time, it’s a direct attack on my shoes and feet.
It’s far too easy to buy so-called GLP-3s through gray-market websites.
An AI coach is a terrible accountability buddy. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to ignore everything it says.
There are known benefits to tracking your glucose levels, but it can also be a slippery slope into disordered eating.
Food logging is tedious enough without AI making stuff up.
Traveling with the Meta Ray-Ban Display was a better experience than using it in my day-to-day life.
When traveling, AI translators are still more cumbersome than the universal language of pointing fingers and Googling.
Plus a sore neck, a peeved spouse, and ethical quandaries.
I signed up for wearable maximalism, but with each passing day, I feel more cyborg than human.
AI companionship has its supporters, but getting negged by a glowing AirTag on a shoestring isn’t friendship.
It’s a very thin line between helpful monitoring and health paranoia.
It’s reasonable to feel wary about this tech, but we can’t ignore how it can be a game-changer for disabled communities
The company’s success in the space hinges on whether it can continue to push the category forward.
Satellite SOS would be fine, but maybe it’s time for a new wearable thesis rooted in what people really want.
