Real World Test Back when Captain Scarlet was still fresh, in the 1970s, I wanted a watch that made phone calls. I think I might have drawn one on my arm with a Biro. This has been a sci-fi staple since Dick Tracy in the 1950s. Now I’ve got one, I wonder why I ever wanted it. After using Huawei’s Watch 2 every day for over three weeks, I …

Something for the Weekend, Sir? Stop squeezing my knob. No seriously, I've had enough. "Then you give it a squeeze." OK but not until I'm ready. "You won't get any benefit until you squeeze it," he announces to the dark, crowded room before turning back to me. "Do it now. Go on, give it a quarter-turn to the right." Reluctantly, while everyone else …

Something for the Weekend, Sir? I have taken it all off. Would you like to join me? Loosen those straps and let it all slip onto the floor. You might feel naked and not a little bit exposed but no one is watching, I assure you. No really, now that you have removed your wearable tech, this will be the first time for ages that your every move is not being …

Sales of wearables did okay in the Christmas quarter, but sales of apps for wearables are in the doldrums. That's the opinion of abacus-twirlers at IDC in the latest Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker. “Early on, the market was bifurcated between smart wearables – those capable of running third party apps – and Basic …

When a technology hype flops, do you think the industry can use it as a learning experience? A time of self-examination? An opportunity to pause and reflect on making the next consumer or business tech hype a bit less stupid? Don't be silly. What it does is pile the next hype on to the last hype, and call it "Hype 2.0". " …

Fitbit has confirmed the long-held belief that it scooped up rival wearables maker Pebble for a bargain basement price before murdering the watchmaker. Exercise-band maker Fitbit said in its latest quarterly earnings on Wednesday that it paid a mere $23m (£19m) when it agreed to purchase and then kill off Pebble's line of …

Exosuits have featured prominently in comic books and films for decades, but as they move from research labs to the work environment, they're looking more like couture from Robin Hood: Men in Tights than artifacts from Iron Man. Exosuits, or exoskeletons, that assist human activity date back to the late 19th century, but weren …

Fitbit has sued a company it accuses of deliberately selling shoddy units. In a complaint [PDF] filed to the Northern California District Court, the San Francisco-based wearables giant claims Laguna 2 (L2), a reseller in New Jersey, repackaged and sold Fitbit equipment it knew was defective. According to Fitbit's complaint, …

Smartwatch maker Fitbit has confirmed it has bought competitor Pebble – for an undisclosed sum – but only its software. Pebble products are on the scrapheap. The announcement comes a week after news of the purchase leaked, but many had assumed Fitbit would continue to support existing Pebble watches and slowly merge the two …

Apple's Watch range sold 1.1m units in 2016's third quarter, a stunning 2.9m fewer than the same quarter in 2015. The dip means Apple's share of the wearables market dipped from 17.5 per cent to 4.9 per cent in a year, representing -71 per cent growth according to abacus-twirler IDC's new Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device …

Basic wearables are what the people want, according to box-counter IDC. The firm's latest Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker suggests the world treated itself to 22.5 million wearables in the second quarter of 2016, and found that “Basic wearables (devices that do not support third party applications) grew 48.8 per …

Burger baron McDonald's' short foray into the fitness-tracking wearables caper has ended badly, with a device called “Step-It” pulled after burning at least one child's arm. The Step-It was a simple movement tracker bundled into Happy Meals, the slightly-less-salt-and-fat-laden burger boxen the Golden Arches suggests are fine …

Something for the Weekend, Sir? I owe everything to a quick one off the wrist. This was not always the case. Previously, my attempts at achieving a rhythm would frequently slip, causing it to get out of hand. But now with a firm grip on the matter and lots of practice, I’ve really begun to shake things up, good and proper. I feel sure plenty of readers are …

Intel has recalled every single one of its Basis Peak smartwatches – as well as urging people to stop using them – because they can become dangerously hot. Chipzilla has told everyone who bought a Peak to send back the watch along with any and all accessories for a full refund. Keeping it is not an option: by the end of the …

Many analysts were expecting big improvements to Apple’s watchOS platform last week. Just like they were expecting big announcements around Android Wear last month. But nothing much happened. “It's not the ground-breaking revamp many were hoping for,” CCS Insight’s George Jijiashvili wrote of Wear 2.0, describing the tweaks as …

UPDATE Scientists have tested a pair of wearable fitness gadgets from Fitbit and found they get heart rates wrong by as much as 25 beats per minute. The study (PDF) was commissioned by law firm Lieff Cabraser, which is running a class action against Fitbit over inaccurate heart rate readings. The study didn't use a colossal sample …

Steve Wozniak has decreed that today's crop of wearables just aren't that useful – even Apple's own Watch. Speaking at the Future Transport Summit in Sydney today, during which Wozniak declared he is not an expert on transport and therefore a mere lay person when it comes to predicting its future, the Apple co-founder said …

CES 2016 The need to control not just the processor itself, but the whole surrounding software and connectivity platform, was very clear in Intel’s launches and keynotes a last week's Consumer Electronics Show. While the PC and smartphone processors or SoCs have been premium products, in semiconductor terms, in the IoT the hardware …