AirPods are good for your (hearing) health

The Verge's Victoria Song joins the show to talk about her year of testing smart rings, and which of the many new options is the one you should buy. Then Chris Welch takes us through his testing of the new hearing health features for Apple's AirPods, including the surprisingly intense hearing test you can take right on your phone. Finally, Andrew Webster helps us answer a question on the Vergecast Hotline: why doesn't Apple buy Nintendo, and what would happen if it did? Further reading: We tested six smart rings, and there’s a clear winner Oura Ring 4 review: still on top — for now Apple’s AirPods Pro hearing health features are as good as they sound Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 could forever change how people access hearing aids Super Mario Run hands-on: like Mario, just simpler Microsoft’s Phil Spencer says acquiring Nintendo would be ‘a career moment’ Email us at [email protected] or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03David Pierce?

  Welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of decades of listening to music too loud in your headphones. I'm your friend David Pierce and I am sitting here at my computer doing what I call a feeds reboot. I think I've talked about this on the show before, but basically, once a year, I try to go through and just take all the stuff out of every single feed or thing that I subscribe to on the internet. And I define that super loosely. So I try to go through all the people I follow on every social platform. I go through all the email newsletters I subscribe to. I go through all the email newsletters I never subscribe to, but am somehow on the list for. All the channels I follow on YouTube, all the podcasts I subscribe to, anything that just puts an ongoing list of stuff in

• 0:45David Pierce?

  front of me at any given time. Once a year, I try to go through it all, look at every single source that stuff is coming from, and get rid of all the stuff I don't want anymore. Over the course of a year, you just become like a different person with different interests and a lot of the sources you care about get better or worse, or more relevant or less relevant. And once a year, to just go through the whole list is really helpful. It's super boring, frankly, and kind of tedious, because most of these platforms don't make it easy to go through and sort of systematically unfollow things, but it's so helpful. I cannot recommend it enough. I try to like, put on a movie I've seen before, or just a bunch of episodes of The Office in a row, or when the weather's nice, I'll go like, sit at

• 1:26David Pierce?

  a coffee shop, and just over the course of an afternoon, burn through all of the feeds that I have. I find this actually most useful in an RSS reader, where there's tons of things that like, change a bunch, or publish too much, or publish not enough, or go out of business, or whatever. And going through and doing a full reset of all the stuff that is being pushed at me is so helpful. Highly recommend it. Again, not a lot of fun, but totally worth it. Anyway, one thing you should not unsubscribe to, by the way, is the Vergecast. This is a very good podcast. I hope. We're doing our best. And we have a super fun show coming up today. Actually, we're going to talk about two things. First, we're going to talk about smart rings because I think smart rings are really interesting. And this has been, in a certain way, kind of the year of the smart ring.

• 2:10David Pierce?

  We've gotten a bunch of new entrants. We've gotten new models from some of the companies that have been doing this a while. V-Song has tested everything there is to test and has some thoughts. So we're going to talk about it. We're also going to talk about the hearing health features on the new AirPods Pro 2, which I think are actually pretty cool and exciting, but are also big promises from a company like Apple, promising that your AirPods can act as a hearing aid and really make a difference in how you hear and operate in the world. If that stuff works, it's awesome. And there should be more like it, but we're going to see if it works. Chris Welch has been testing it. He knows the answer. We also have a really fun question on the Vergecast hotline. So much stuff to do. But first, I have to finish this feed to reboot. I normally do it in the summer, but

• 2:53David Pierce?

  this year just couldn't make myself sit down and do it. And now I'm doing it. I'm in it. I'm getting it done. It's going to be awesome. This is the Vergecast. We'll be right back.

• 3:03Speaker 01

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• 3:31Speaker 02

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• 4:01David Pierce?

  Welcome back. All right, my podcasts have been pruned. The RSS reader is just humming. Everything is great. Let's get into it. So the first thing we're going to talk about today is smart rings. I don't wear a smart ring, but I'm fascinated by them because for years now, they have been this really interesting device, kind of trying to figure out what it's for. You wear it on your finger, which gives it access to some really interesting biometric data. You also typically wear it all the time because it's a ring and it's unobtrusive and you just can wear it all the time. So in theory, it has access to all this interesting information about you and the ability to do all kinds of interesting stuff.

• 4:42David Pierce?

  But it's a tiny gadget with a tiny battery and not that much literal physical room to do stuff. So how do you make a smart ring that's good? And what does it even mean to make one that's good? Like I said, I don't wear a smart ring, but V Song does. She actually wore six, like for months, to do a test to see what the best one is. And I wanted to have her on both to see what she learned and whether she figured out what a smart ring is really for. So let's just get into it. V, hello.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me.

• 5:12David Pierce?

  Gadgets.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  So many gadgets.

• 5:14David Pierce?

  We just, we talk about watches, we talk about rings, we talk about things on your face. This is just what we do. You wear things and look ridiculous in public and then I ask you about it. This is, this is our lives.

• 5:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is, you know, it's a burden I'm willing to take so no one else has to look stupid.

• 5:29David Pierce?

  It's beautiful. We appreciate it. So the, the thing I mostly want to talk about, I confess, is the new Aura Ring, a device I have been fascinated by for a very long time and both think is very interesting and not nearly as interesting as it should be. But we're going to get to that. First, I think I want to talk about this, this battle royale of smart rings that you did and put yourself through some true, like a summer's worth of pain in order to pull up. So first, just like lay the stakes of this experiment for me because I think to some extent, like most people, even most people listening to this have never given one second of thought to a smart ring in their whole lives. So I'm very curious like how you go through the process of picking the best one and wearing six of them at a time.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I decided that I was gonna wear six smart rings all at the same time for about, I wanna say two, about two and a half, three months, uh, earlier this summer.

• 6:26David Pierce?

  Which six fingers, by the way?

• 6:28Speaker 03

  No, no pinky, no thumb, because those are, you know, two extremes, uh, so just the middle three.

• 6:35David Pierce?

  So you did like, you did a brass knuckles, basically?

• 6:37Speaker 03

  I did, I did. I was a smart ring mafia wife.

• 6:40David Pierce?

  I love this for you.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  For, for a solid three months, ended up with six ring tans over the summer, despite all my best efforts at sunscreen. It just happened.

• 6:51David Pierce?

  You must look like you had some, like, unknowable disease, just to have six ring tans.

• 6:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, they've, they've somewhat faded now because, uh, the experiment is over. I declared a winner. But yeah, so, you know, it, this idea actually popped into my head a few months before the summer, because I knew that the Samsung Galaxy Ring was coming and that in order to review that, I needed to know about the entire landscape, but, you know, I didn't wanna subject all of our readers to a bunch of little smart ring reviews as I was testing stuff. So what I ended up doing was taking a look at the market, what was currently available was coming out. And I decided, let's do this gauntlet where I test all of them at the same time and tell you which is the best at being a smart ring.

• 7:43David Pierce?

  Can I tell you what's interesting about that to me, by the way? And this is, we're, we're just, I'm just diving into the results before I even let you finish your question. But the thing that was so striking to me was that, A, there were six of these, which I would not have guessed, that there were like six actual viable competitors here. And, uh, how much the same, all six of these are in sort of what they are and what they are trying to be, like. God help you having to review this six times in a row. It's like, it's like, I feel for the people who have to like, review the, the $500 Android phones, because they're just all the same. And, and at some point, it's really helpful to be like, okay, these are basically all the same. Let's run through the like, narrow ways in which they are different.

• 8:25David Pierce?

  But even just reading through the thing, I was surprised at how few sort of differences in ideas these six things had.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, so when smart rings first were a thing, like 10 years ago or so, there were a lot of ideas as to what a smart ring could be. You had something like Ringly and Motive. Ringly was just a big fashion thing that didn't do too much, very unobtrusive, but just really there for people who wanted something fashionable that could also track stuff. And then you had Motive, which had some really big ideas about two-factor authentication in a smart ring.

• 9:00David Pierce?

  Oh, that's great.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  And fitness tracking on top of that, you know, at some point before they shuttered, they were like, we're going to be able to authenticate you based on your gate. So there was a lot of weird, interesting ideas. But the one ring that survived that first iteration of smart rings was the Aura ring. And so this second-class batch of that came after it. In many ways, they're just trying to do what the Aura ring got successful at with a twist, right? So that's what I came up against with a lot of these competitors. I too was surprised at CES this year. When I went, I went, oh my God, why are there like a half a dozen smart rings out there?

• 9:43Speaker 03

  I guess this popped up and has been a thing. Okay, cool, I guess. And then, you know, the really big impetus was Samsung coming out in February going like, hey, we're getting in on smart rings. And so I found myself in a situation where it was, okay, we, we gotta do a deep dive into this and see. Because Samsung's big. Samsung, Samsung, if they were successful in smart rings. You know, that had an opportunity to get other big tech to maybe copy them. So that was the whole thought process behind it. And it was, it was real fun to just go through all of them and go like, oh, you have ideas, but they are not even a quarter baked. Forget half baked.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  You are, you know, if you watch Great British Bake Off and Paul Hollywood goes and he goes, oh, this is underdone. There were some, there were some rings that were, oh, this is, this is extremely underdone. It was the circular ring Slim. That was my least favorite of the bunch. It just did not do what was supposed to do. It felt really cheap on the finger. They have since reached out to me since I wrote this and they're like, we addressed some of the issues and.

• 10:56David Pierce?

  Which is a story we hear all the time.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  All the time.

• 10:58David Pierce?

  And is often not the case.

• 11:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, often not the case. But like, one of the things they said they addressed was the fact that this, this was the only smart ring that had a haptic motor in it. So I had high hopes because it's a smart ring that has ideas about what the smart part of a smart ring should be. That haptic alarm was just the nightmare because you had to tap above a very imperceptible, hard to see logo. And I just ended up smacking my hand most mornings, being very frustrated why this thing wouldn't stop buzzing. They said, you can just tap the ring anywhere now and it's fine. And we'll see, we'll see.

• 11:34David Pierce?

  Yeah. I confess that is one use case I think could be very cool. I honestly, like, the whole reason I wear the Apple Watch to bed is to use it as an alarm. I just think it's a nicer thing to wake up to, especially when you sleep next to someone than having like a big loud alarm. So the idea of being able to do that on a ring and not have to wear the watch, super interesting and exciting to me. Also, neither of the options you just described sound like good, useful, reliable ones. So remains to be seen. Also, we've already talked too much about the circular Slim, but notably neither circular nor Slim. That's all I'm gonna say.

• 12:09Speaker 03

  Notably, no. And it's, it was the least comfortable of all of them. It felt 3D printed and that just was kind of, huh.

• 12:19Speaker 03

  Not cool. I was on Reddit and some of the circular forums and there were a lot of angry people on there just because there's just a bunch of really cool ideas, but very underdone in terms of execution. So that was very easy to eliminate as like straight off from the get go. It was like, no, sorry, you are not the best.

• 12:40David Pierce?

  Yeah. The next one, I think you probably had a harder time getting rid of. If knowing the little that I knew about this research process, I'm guessing this was a harder one.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I really have enjoyed the EV Ring. I've been talking to the company behind it, Movano, for years because they just were really gung ho about the FDA clearance process. So that kind of sets them apart in terms of accuracy. They had a very interesting idea in terms of design. It has an open gap at the top, which I will say, one of the most frustrating things about smart rings is sizing. Smartwatches have bands. You can adjust them. It's very easy to adjust them. Smart rings, less so because it's on your finger. They're not adjustable. There's a lot of tech inside, so you can't get them resized. You just have

• 13:28Speaker 03

  to get the right size that fits you. And what most people don't realize is that you bloat. You have a lot of pasta one night, or the temperature rises, your fingers swell. So, you know, it can be very hard to get these rings off, especially, you know, you're supposed to wear smart rings on your index finger. That's going to be the most accurate. But, you know, maybe that's just not in the cards for you. Maybe you want them to be worn on the middle finger or the ring finger. So, you know, just, it can change the size that you need. And you could gain weight, you could lose weight. That will also change how a ring fits on you. Not so much of an issue with the EV Ring because of that open

• 14:12Speaker 03

  gap design is always very easy to take off. It's very comfortable to wear. I thought that was really clever. It looked so nice. It was so pretty. But it's a first gen product, and it had some very first gen quirks. And again, this is going to be a theme with some of the rings on this list. They have gone and they said, we have addressed some of the Since the first run. So yeah, we will see how that how that goes going on. But you know, I really loved the hardware design, but it's not just the hardware that matters if you're using it as a fitness tracker. The software, how that data is presented to you also matters. And

• 14:54Speaker 03

  there was just some quirks here that I'm hoping will get smoothed over in a second iteration.

• 15:01David Pierce?

  Yeah, agreed. You, I think my only gripe with this part of your piece was that I think you, if anything, undersold how much better looking this thing is than every other one of the competition. Like, it really is. You could put the six of them next to each other, and it would be the other five in one bucket, and then this one on its own, right? Like, it is it is a full, like, order of magnitude more stylish and attractive than the others. So like, kudos. That doesn't get you anywhere. Like, you know, that that and a nickel will buy you a Coke. But it's that's a cool, interesting start, right? And you ran into one of my favorite things about

• 15:43David Pierce?

  first gen products, which is my pet theory forever has been that if you make a product, and it's hard to update the firmware, your product probably sucks. It's just it's a real, like, the the tiny details that matter, right? Like, if you haven't fixed that, there are probably other things that you haven't paid attention to. And this is one of those things. But it gives me great hope that there are a lot of things that EV can go get right that are easier than making nice looking hardware. And if it does those things, that could be very compelling.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  I have a have a bit of faith in the company because I've talked to their CEO a bunch of times. And this is a dude who is very well versed in the medical space and what it takes to make a FDA cleared product. So I I generally give that a lot of credit because it takes a certain level of dedication and resources to go that route to begin with.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  So, you know, I wanted to give them a little more, yeah, cut them some slack, but you know, this is a battle royale. We can't be too nice. So they unfortunately were kicked out second.

• 16:47David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 16:48Speaker 03

  And yeah.

• 16:49David Pierce?

  All right, we're gonna skip over the next one, which is the Ring Con, because you barely even talked about it.

• 16:53Speaker 03

  It's fine.

• 16:54David Pierce?

  You're like, this thing is thoroughly fine, who cares, moving on. So this thing is fine, who cares, moving on. The next one was the Galaxy Ring. I will say, I would have guessed probably those first three would have been the first three you would have gotten rid of. This was the first one that surprised me that it went here. Tell me why.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, the hardware's great. I think it actually has the best hardware. It's the slimmest, it's the most comfortable to wear, besides the EV Ring, but you know what I'm saying. And at the time, it had the largest size range. It no longer does, but it just doesn't stand alone. The thing about the Galaxy Ring on its own is that it doesn't do a whole lot. It's a fitness tracker. It's an okay fitness tracker. The battery life will be better if you get it with a Galaxy Watch, because it does like some smart sensor trade-off as to like which one's gonna be more accurate. And that bore out in my testing.

• 17:50David Pierce?

  Which is super cool, by the way.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  It's very cool.

• 17:52David Pierce?

  As an ecosystem player, I actually think that's really clever, but it does, like, if you're narrowing it down to only people have Samsung phones, and narrowing it down again to only people who have Galaxy Watches, you've like, the number of people who get the best version of this product is just very small.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  It's very small. And then if you have the newest...

• 18:12David Pierce?

  And you've already spent a ton of money.

• 18:14Speaker 03

  If you have the newest

• 18:16David Pierce?

  Right.

• 18:16Speaker 03

  Smart Samsung Galaxy Flip 6 or the Fold 6, you know, you can also use it as a pinchy pinch gesture control for certain things on the phone, and that's something they're interested in expanding. Very cool idea. Awesome in terms of ecosystem play if you, you know, can...

• 18:34Speaker 03

  stomach ecosystems as a thing that we're being locked into. But, okay, so you're gonna buy the Fold 6, you're gonna buy a Galaxy Watch on top of that, and you're gonna buy a Smart Ring. There's no discount bundle for getting all three of those things together. You're spending over $2,000 at this point, close to $3,000. It doesn't matter if there's no subscription because you've just paid Samsung $3,000 to get the full benefit range of this Samsung Galaxy Ring. And then also, it is very much tied to the Android ecosystem only. So, you know, I'm sure I got so many angry Samsung

• 19:17Speaker 03

  people by eliminating it this early. And don't get me wrong, it's a great little ring. I love the little charging case. I think the hardware is really excellent. But you shouldn't have to pay $3,000 to get the full range of what it can do, to unlock its full potential. Like, in some ways, weighing that cost versus a subscription, yeah, they don't have to charge you a subscription if you're willing to pay $3,000 to get everything.

• 19:46David Pierce?

  Yeah, and I think, to me, it's just a totally different way of thinking about a Smart Ring. And it's not necessarily wrong, it's just really different, right? Like, this is a thing you buy after you have bought those other devices. The Ring is not the entry point into Samsung's ecosystem. You're not gonna go buy these other devices because you want the Galaxy Ring. And if you already have those other devices, kick ass. I think there's a decent chance this is the best choice. If you're like, I'm coming to this shootout, I already own these two devices. I think the Galaxy Ring probably wins, or at least comes close. But that's not most people. And you're not, and you shouldn't make those other choices just to get a Smart Ring.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's also not most people looking for a Smart Ring. Like, the people looking for a Smart Ring is very kind of... They're a defined set of people, I would say. A lot of them are people who just don't like smartwatches. So immediately, you're you're kind of losing that benefit of like using it with a smartwatch. And a lot of times, they, you know, it's an interesting tid that that Aura told me, but their user base is majority female now. So they started out as a company where, you know, it was a majority men, and now they're majority women. So I think a lot of women who just don't want to wear these bulky smartwatches, who don't, who want something a little more sleek,

• 21:08Speaker 03

  a little more understated, they're the ones who are really kind of pushing the smart ring as as a form factor forward. Like, if you look at smart ring ads on social media, because lord knows, I get served a zillion smart ring ads on my cursed algorithm, it's all women. It's all women really kind of pushing the Aura ring forward. So, you know, I think in terms of people looking for that, Samsung's great, but you know, the ecosystem play is kind of their greatest strength and their greatest weakness at the same time. It's very interesting to see how that'll play out.

• 21:41David Pierce?

  Yeah, I totally agree. So that leaves us with two. Speaking of the Aura ring, we have the the Ultra Human Ring Air, stupid name, and we have the Aura Ring 3. Which one came in second place?

• 21:53Speaker 03

  It was the Ultra Human Ring Air.

• 21:56David Pierce?

  Is it because of the stupid name?

• 21:57Speaker 03

  No, it's not because it's a stupid name. It's because it's like way too focused on training.

• 22:03David Pierce?

  It's like whoopee that way? Is it like super intense?

• 22:06Speaker 03

  It's very whoopee. It's like if Garmin made a smart ring, I feel like it would be very close to the Ultra Human Ring. And that's going to be a plus for some people. But for others, I think it's just kind of too cluttered. It's too much. It's, I thought it was really interesting because they, you know, they'll tell you, here's your caffeine window, and here are the drinks that you can drink during the day. Here's like a little, like, widget plugin that you can use if you want sun exposure. And just very hyper focused on optimizing. And I believe there are a ton of people who would love that. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I liked it a lot.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  But I also felt that it was just a little hyper focused on that aspect of it versus the Aura Ring, which is a little more holistic. So if you look at something that's really specialized versus something that is for everybody, I think something that's for everybody generally wins out, which at the end of the day, that's why I picked the Aura Ring over the Ultra Human Ring Air, even though that name is a mouthful. It was, it was quite a nice ring. I really like it. What pained me actually about those two being the winners is that those two are the ones that use docks for charging and I really like a charging case for a smart ring. So it pains

• 23:30Speaker 03

  me that we have to give dock supremacy, but it just boils down to the ring itself.

• 23:35David Pierce?

  Of the two, the only one of those two that I've had is the Aura Ring and the number of times that its little dock has just slid off my bedside table and fallen onto the ground because it's not heavy enough drives me nuts.

• 23:46Speaker 03

  It's, it's not great.

• 23:49David Pierce?

  But I agree, the charging is like, you know, do better, everybody. But that's not, it's not the be all and end all of this whole thing. And the batteries on all of them last long enough that like, it's, it's mostly fine. So that means the Aura Ring 3 was the winner.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:03David Pierce?

  Kind of a boring outcome. I'm not gonna lie to you. That's not,

• 24:06Speaker 03

  Very boring.

• 24:06David Pierce?

  It's like, it's, it was like Aura versus a bunch of Aura imitators and Aura won.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  I was rooting. I just like, if you can just imagine me as Tyra Banks with six ring tanks, I was rooting for all of you to dethrone Aura, to be quite frank. I did not want, I did not want it to be the winner. And there was, there was a point where I was like, should I give it to the Ultra Human? And just really, my instinct was that, you know, it's a little too training focused. If it had been a bit more holistic, then I would have. Happily given it to the UltraHuman Ring Air. I guess what a, also the name is just, it's really tripping me up.

• 24:43David Pierce?

  But I will say, one of the things that really struck me about this is I think this is where Aura, having been in this game this long, has been really useful. Because a lot of the things you just said about UltraHuman were true of Aura in previous generations, that it was really good at generating a lot of numbers and not that good at making any sense of it or helping you in any sort of meaningful way unless you like really wanted to be somebody who was super intense about your sleep. And over time, they've just gotten better at this. Like, they, they, they do more like wellness content. It's much more of like a thoughtful thing for how to live your life as opposed to just like a sleep score. And I think A, that's to Aura's credit, and B, that is just a thing that takes time. And so Aura has just been at this for so long now that I think it has

• 25:27David Pierce?

  figured out how to turn all of that data into something that makes sense to lots of people. Instead of just the like, the Hustle Bro Body Hackers, who are served by some of these other devices.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, so like one point I'm gonna make is that we are now on an Aura Ring Gen 4, or Aura Ring 4, they removed the gen from the name and that drives my OCD crazy, but so we're on the fourth generation of Aura Ring. Most of these other rings are on their first, maybe second. Or like, and when we talk maybe second, literally just announced maybe second version of, of the rings.

• 26:01David Pierce?

  They announced it after you said the first one was bad. They said, well, we have another one.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Honestly, yes. So, um, so, you know, it's very hard to kind of discount experience in all of this. Syncing was a big issue for some of these competitors. They, it took a while, like, again, with the circular, I, I rage quit several times because it just would not sync.

• 26:26David Pierce?

  Aura, good at firmware updates now.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Good at firmware updates now. It does not take a lot to sync an Aura Ring. When you open the app, you're like, ooh, it's shiny and polished. There's no like finickiness with it. All the other ones, there's, there's a bit of, there's a little bit of a lack of polish. It's very either basic and some people just won't care about that. And that's fine. I'm just saying, you can tell there's a difference when you open up the app and it's smooth and there's no jitteriness or there's no crashing. Or, you know, it doesn't take forever to find a connection with the ring, even though they're all just using Bluetooth. It's not that hard. So, you know, there's just a degree of polish there that I can very confidently say, after spending several mornings waiting for all of these things to sink,

• 27:14Speaker 03

  that I can say that the Aura was the best at it. Yeah.

• 27:17David Pierce?

  Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, the Aura wins, and then immediately, just to flex on them, they drop a new version, the Gen 4. The Aura 3 won this shootout, and then they dropped the 4. What's new in the 4?

• 27:32Speaker 03

  So, the 4 goes to an all titanium design, and for most people, what you're gonna notice is that the inside of the ring is flat. There's no, like, sensor bump. The old ring had three little bumps on the inside, and that was there for a reason. The inside was epoxy, and epoxy is a type of resin where it diffuses light in a specific way. It can get a little bit messy, so you really want the sensors to have good skin contact. In that case, to kind of mitigate that kind of factor. Also, rings will rotate during the day. Ideally, you want the sensors to be on the underside of your ring, because that's gonna get the best signal pathway to your blood and all that nonsense.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  So, what this new ring does is that it recesses the sensors, so that it's more comfortable. You know, when I'm bloated, this is a lot easier and less painful to take off than the Gen 3 was. I do appreciate that. And they have a new sensor algorithm, which, you know, that just basically more than doubles the number of signal pathways that can be used. So, if the ring is moving around on your finger, it's not gonna matter quite as much for accuracy and data collection. So, it's so minute. It's very cool in terms of like an engineering perspective. Oh, it also improves battery life. So, it's very cool. From like, ooh, that's really nerdy. That's awesome. I love this for the engineers.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  But in terms of actually wearing it... Not a huge difference.

• 29:05David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 29:05Speaker 03

  Not a huge difference.

• 29:06David Pierce?

  Yeah, that's fair. But I think that there was a bunch of software like between the beginning of the three and the beginning of the four also.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  Oh, God, so much.

• 29:15David Pierce?

  The three, and again, I think this is very much to Aura's credit. Like, the three is a much better device than it was when it shipped, which is not always true of these devices. And the four gets all of that and then a little more. Like, the one I was excited about was the, the sort of expanded activity tracking.

• 29:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 29:33David Pierce?

  Because for me, my problem with the Aura rings for a while, and granted, it's been, I think the last one I wore was like the very beginning of the three, was that it eventually got to a point where it was only sort of sporadically good at everything except sleep, which it was very good at, but I didn't care. Like, I just, I have gotten to a point where sleep tracking just does nothing for me. I know when I sleep well and I know when I don't. That's pretty much all I got. But there was a lot of the like standalone activity tracking that it wasn't very good at, even then. And I think now it seems like the, the three, and especially now the four, are pretty good at that, actually, that like, as activity trackers, they're pretty good.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  They've expanded the automatic activity detection, which was a big thing because, like, on a smartwatch, it is so easy to manually start a activity.

• 30:25David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 30:25Speaker 03

  On a smartring, you have to take out your phone, you have to open up the app, you have to do the thing.

• 30:29David Pierce?

  Which is like nonstarter, honestly.

• 30:31Speaker 03

  It's, it's a nonstarter for a lot of people, but now they've expanded it to 40 activities. And it's not just the Aura Ring 4 that's gonna get that. They've really not gate-kept any of these software updates. Like, it might-

• 30:42David Pierce?

  Well, that all goes back.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, it goes, it goes all back. So it might take a bit to roll out to the three, but, you know, I asked Aura and nothing is really gate-kept software-wise. It's just that this is like got the new sensing algorithm, so it's more accurate. That's the only thing that's really true of the four versus the three. So not a huge incentive to upgrade for people unless their batteries are shot. But the automatic activity detection is, you know-

• 31:11Speaker 03

  I don't track my walks on smartwatches for a number of reasons. But, you know, it was actually quite good at picking up when I had done the walks. It includes GPS maps. It includes the heart rate. So it's like, oh, my little activity was, it was still counted. And I didn't have to worry about duplicates because I do track all of my runs on a watch and all of my strength sessions on a watch. And those, it just imported from the health API. So it was very clean. It was a very clean experience. I have yet to get housework counted in the Oura ring. So apparently I'm not cleaning.

• 31:50David Pierce?

  You have to clean more aggressively.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  With vigor. Yeah. So we'll, we'll have to see. I would love to hear from people if it's catching their basketball sessions or whatever. But I'm boring. I mostly run, walk and do strength training. So I'd, I'd love to hear from other people how that's worked out for them.

• 32:08David Pierce?

  Well, I barely do that. So you've got me on that. Uh, but the reason Oura is very happy to bring all of these new features back to their old rings is because of the way Oura makes money, which I would say caused a great amount of consternation in our comments and in your email inbox after you published.

• 32:24Speaker 03

  This is three years.

• 32:25David Pierce?

  The Battle Royale in particular, which is the subscription fee.

• 32:31David Pierce?

  I should probably just lay my cards on the table here and say, I don't think this is a problem and a $6 a month subscription fee for something like this is fine. It's fine. If you don't want to have it, don't have it. Like this is not, I think if you're, if, if Apple started to suddenly magically charge you another $6 a month to have an iPhone, I would have an issue with it because that is like a thing everyone needs to live modern life. A smart ring is not that thing. $6 a month to make your $350 ring actually continue to be very good for as long as Oura has done it, I think is fine. I'm going to get a lot of angry people. That's just where I'm at.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  You are going to get a lot of angry people. I have some sympathy because what basically, you know, Oura did a Marquez where they had a, that's what they did. That's what they did with the Gen three, even though they did it before Marquez did it.

• 33:21David Pierce?

  Marquez just catching strays on the first cast, jeez.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  No, I mean, like, I think this is just like, kind of, a really easy recent example to explain why people are mad.

• 33:30David Pierce?

  Did Aura release a wallpapers app?

• 33:32Speaker 03

  No.

• 33:33David Pierce?

  Oh, okay, I see what you're trying to say.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  So, you know, the Gen 2 had no subscription. They introduced it with the Gen 3. So you had a thing that did not have a subscription that you've then added a subscription to, and that is why Aura has been catching strays and has made people super angry about this for so long.

• 33:52David Pierce?

  That is fair. Charging for something that didn't used to cost money sucks. I do agree with that. I'm sensitive to that argument.

• 33:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I fully understand where people are coming from as to like, why they were mad that Aura has a subscription to begin with. On the other hand, I have to say that one-time hardware sales does not keep the lights on for most companies, and it really doesn't when you have a company like Aura who is investing quite a lot into research and development and science. That stuff is expensive. To have peer-reviewed studies on your device, you know, just submitting to a journal, a peer-reviewed journal, that's like $25,000. That's a lot of money, and that's why you see a lot of dubious claims in the health

• 34:41Speaker 03

  tech space about algorithms, about all of this stuff. They are, they don't have to do this, really. They don't have to test their algorithm against polysomnography, which is the clinical gold standard. They don't have to do any of this research. None of it is required to just sell you a consumer-grade device. They're choosing to do it, and it is expensive to do this. So i- in that sense, you are paying for that. You're paying for the science. You're paying for that degree of research.

• 35:11David Pierce?

  Is that a good trade? I mean, Aura has won our contest, and you just gave it a nine. Like, is that, is that the right trade-off for Aura to be making over time?

• 35:19Speaker 03

  It is, it is a gambit that they are taking. I don't know if it's the right one. They are betting that people are willing to pay for the best, and so long as they are the best. Okay, sure, go for it. Uh, I do think it is worth noting that all of their competitors make a very big point about not having a subscription.

• 35:39David Pierce?

  Right.

• 35:39Speaker 03

  And Samsung can afford to do that. Samsung is big, they have other revenue streams, they don't need to, uh, charge a subscription for the Galaxy Ring, which is pricey.

• 35:50David Pierce?

  Yeah, because you have to spend $2,000 on a phone to get there.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, to get everything, you're gonna have to spend on all that hardware. For some people, they're not gonna think too hard about that because they already have it or whatnot, et cetera, et cetera. Sure, love that. Um, but for some of the other competitors like Ringcon, which we completely glossed over because it's fine, you know, it's, it's, it's, they can undercut Aura in terms of price and they can deliver a decent fitness tracking experience. And some people are just gonna be super happy with that and they're gonna be fine with that. And that's, that's great.

• 36:24David Pierce?

  I just think if you want a decent fitness tracking experience, download an app on your phone. Like, I, I, I mean, that's, I'm, I'm sort of serious, right? Like, you, you, you would be surprised, not you, V, but most people, I think, would be surprised at the sophistication that you can get by downloading an app on your phone and then holding your phone in your hand. It's not remotely within range of these dedicated devices. But like, if you just want a thing that does a relative job of counting your steps and telling you how you slept, those are apps on your phone, they exist. Download those things. Uh, I think the people who want this dedicated hardware mostly want the best things and should. And this is like, it's, it's why UltraHuman and Whoop and some of these companies are going so hard.

• 37:08David Pierce?

  It's why Garmin continues to go as hard as it does. Because these are, this is the customer. And I think, to some extent, the thing that Apple did with smartwatches was like, pull that down towards everyday people in a way nobody had before. And, and had like, taught Google and Samsung in a lot of ways how to make watches that appeal to regular people, but also do some of those other things. And rings, for me, are still very much in the like, unless you're serious about this, you don't even consider buying one phase.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're just very, I really feel like it appeals the most actually to wellness influencers and like that type of person who just does not want a bulky smartwatch. They don't want smart, they're, you know, it's definitely not the average Vergecast listener, but there, I have been to parties where this very well-dressed, well-heeled woman comes up to me and she's like, oh, I see you have an Oura ring. I love my Oura ring because I want to wear this designer watch that is not a smartwatch. I don't want an Apple Watch. I don't want this. And I've just been sitting there going like, oh, okay, yeah. How, how much is that Air One salad that you're eating?

• 38:16David Pierce?

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, I buy that entirely, right? Like that, and I think that is a really good case for smartrings. But I think for most people, if you don't want to wear a smartwatch and you don't care deeply about the fitness side of things. Like, my point is there's no use for a casual smartring user at this moment for most things.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  For most things, it's, it's truly just people who do not care about, like, it's gonna seem foreign to techies, I think, but they're just truly normal people who do not care about anything a smartwatch has to offer because if we compare a smartring and a smartwatch, which are generally similarly priced, value for value, the smartwatch is gonna give you more of everything and is, in my opinion, a kind of a better value proposition for a lot of people. But there are just people who do not care about that. And it's, it's why I get so many people just messaging me and DMing me and being like, I don't understand the whole point of a smartring. And I get it. I get what they're, where they're coming from, but I've also talked to these other people

• 39:18Speaker 03

  who just are like, I don't get the point of a smartwatch.

• 39:21David Pierce?

  Right.

• 39:21Speaker 03

  So it, you're just serving two very different audiences in, in that respect. And, you know, it's the Kim Kardashians who isn't Oura ring user. It is G. Guiness, Poltra is the Jennifer Aniston's, all of these people who are just, it's a more discreet thing. So you're really just paying for the discretion. You're paying for the form factor.

• 39:44Speaker 03

  And we'll have to see because the thing about other companies, and if Apple comes out with a smart ring, I think Aura is cooked. I think they are potentially cooked. Maybe not right away, but you know, because the first Apple Watch wasn't anything super amazing. It was just, oh, Apple's here. But like if Apple was like, oh, the Apple Ring 4, uh-oh.

• 40:08David Pierce?

  And I mean, if Apple could take the decade of stuff it has learned about health and fitness and just pull it out of the watch and into this different form factor. Like, I think there's reason to believe that thing could get much better, much faster.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  Much better, much faster. And you know, if they kind of take some of what Samsung's doing and pull it into the ecosystem, oh, all of a sudden we got the smart part of the smart ring. Because right now, we're just having a basic fitness tracker in a different form factor that is slightly more comfortable for people to wear, especially for this one specific use case, which is sleep tracking. And Aura does that really well, but Aura doesn't make phones. Aura doesn't, it's a very like one-trick pony kind of situation. And they have to partner with other companies in order to kind of expand beyond that. So, ah, is this, is this subscription plan gonna play out long-term? I say in my review, I'm not sure.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  As long as they're the best at this niche category, yeah, sure. I think it could, it could work for them. But other people are coming. I think it's very telling that Samsung came out and knocked it out of the park with the hardware in its first go. The software is what needs work with Samsung. And you know, not gatekeeping it to very expensive phones and watches to get the best out of it.

• 41:29David Pierce?

  Which, to be clear, is exactly what Apple would and will do if it ever launches this one.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you know, the Apple fans, they're really invested. I have already-

• 41:39David Pierce?

  Yeah, they got the money.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  I have already heard from readers who are like, if Apple came out with the smart ring, I would get it, but I can't be bothered with this Aura ring and its subscription. And I'm like, duly noted, duly noted.

• 41:51David Pierce?

  It's good to be Apple. It really, really, really is good to be Apple. Yeah. All right, V, we gotta go. Thank you so much. Here's hoping you don't have to do this again next year because Apple launches a ring. But also, if you do, we'll be back.

• 42:02Speaker 03

  I probably will. I already have a Stragler smart ring that I have to review, so we'll see.

• 42:09David Pierce?

  All right, well, we'll see you for the next one.

• 42:11Speaker 03

  All right, thanks.

• 42:13David Pierce?

  All right, we gotta take a break and then we're gonna come back and we're gonna talk about the new hearing health features on the AirPods Pro 2. We'll be right back.

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• 43:52David Pierce?

  All right, we're back. So when Apple announced all of its new stuff in September, one of the biggest announcements was about the AirPods Pro 2, but it wasn't new headphones. It was just a software update for the headphones that brought, among other things, some new hearing health features, and particularly a hearing aid mode that could actually be a really big deal for people with hearing loss. We didn't get to try it at first, but Chris Welch has gotten to try the new features now. They're coming out soon. I think there's something very exciting going on here if all of this actually works the way that Apple claims that it does. Chris luckily knows the answer. Let's get into it. Chris Welch, welcome back.

• 44:34Speaker 07

  Hello, it's a pleasure to be here as always.

• 44:36David Pierce?

  This is, we've gotten to do this so much recently. It's just, it's like headphone season in a, in a truly crazy way right now.

• 44:41Speaker 07

  Mm hmm. It is. Now we're here for a headphone reason, but something a bit different than usual.

• 44:47David Pierce?

  That's true. It's like headphones adjacent, I would say.

• 44:49Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 44:50David Pierce?

  So this is a strange way to ask an initial question, but what exactly have you been testing on the AirPods?

• 44:57Speaker 07

  So I've been testing a suite of new hearing health features for the AirPods Pro. Apple announced these at their event a few months ago, and now they're rolling out with iOS 18.1 and some new firmware for the earbuds the week of October 28th. And so everyone will be able to use their AirPods as hearing protection, as hearing aids, and there'll be, there's hearing tests. You can test your hearing because no one ever goes to the hearing doctor. I haven't been in years. Yeah, so there's a lot to cover. Yeah.

• 45:28David Pierce?

  I am going to ask you to reveal some personal information about yourself.

• 45:31Speaker 07

  Yeah, of course.

• 45:31David Pierce?

  So I hope you're ready for that.

• 45:32Speaker 07

  I'm ready.

• 45:32David Pierce?

  But the, the reason I ask that question that way is it seems like my initial impression of this was that there was going to be like a, a hearing aid mode on the AirPods, right? That you would like go into settings and turn it on and then it would do a bunch of different stuff or it would be sort of an accessibility feature.

• 45:48Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 45:48David Pierce?

  And what it actually seems like is Apple has baked this kind of hearing awareness, both of your own hearing and of the world into kind of how the whole thing works. Like it's much more holistic than I expected. Has that been, has that been your impression too?

• 46:04Speaker 07

  Mostly, I mean, there is a hearing aid mode, like that is a separate mode that you turn on or off, but the rest of like hearing protection is always on by default in all modes now. It's like it was there before, like they had, I think it was called loud noise reduction. This is much broader. It's like people like wore their AirPods to concerts before and Apple never really like said, sure, that's great. They didn't tell you not to, but they, you know, weren't like thrilled about it. But now you actually can use your AirPods at concerts and like they've tuned the EQ so you hear stuff better. And so that's there and that's going to be a huge deal for a lot of people who like don't wear earplugs at concerts. Please wear earplugs at concerts.

• 46:37Speaker 07

  And so that's there. Yes, like a lot of it is just on by default and it's just gonna be there from now on.

• 46:43David Pierce?

  Okay, so the very beginning of this process is you take the hearing test, right? That's the like, the first thing that happens.

• 46:47Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 46:48David Pierce?

  Tell me about this hearing test.

• 46:49Speaker 07

  Okay, uh, yeah, it was very like emotional, very nerve wracking, because I haven't seen the audiologist since probably 2018, uh, pre-COVID easily. So it's been a long, long time. And like, I don't listen to like metal. I like sad bastard singer songwriters, you know, that kind of genre. So like thankfully, I'm sure that saved me a bit over the years. Like, I grew up like a Sony Discman at my hip and like then so many iPods and iPhones. And so like, I was nervous taking it. And so it's like five minutes and you hear like a series of beeps, uh, these three tone beeps, just beep beep beep beep beep beep, like all sorts of frequencies. And it lasts about five minutes. Uh, first you do your left ear,

• 47:24Speaker 07

  then your right ear. And the test is different for each, like you hear tones like different times for both ears. So it's, so you can't game it or like that kind of thing. Um, but yeah, it's just very intense. Like I had several people here at the office take it and they're all like, yeah, just very, you know, it's a lot. Uh, also like hearing loss is super common, like 1.5 billion people in the world have some level of hearing loss. And so like, it's nothing to be ashamed of or like stigmatized. And so it's just, you know, part of life. But like taking that test for the first time is definitely like a thing.

• 47:56David Pierce?

  So the test is like, it plays these tones and it's, I'm sort of imagining the, the thing that you do, I've done this once that I can think of where you actually sit in the doctor's office with a giant pair of headphones and they're like, raise your hand when you hear the tone, uh, raise the, the hand on the side that it's on. It's kind of a, it sounds like it's sort of a smartphoneized version of that.

• 48:16Speaker 07

  Tap the screen whenever you hear a tone, essentially.

• 48:18David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 48:18Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 48:18David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 48:19Speaker 07

  Yes, you tap the screen and like some noises are like super faint. So you've got to like pay super close attention. It's like that thing where like you think you heard something, but you're not sure. They've like accounted for all that, like the testing. And so, yeah, it takes about five minutes. It's a long five minutes. And then you get your results charted out and like there are five tiers of hearing loss. There's little to no, which I fell in somehow, which is amazing to me.

• 48:39David Pierce?

  Congrats.

• 48:39Speaker 07

  Yeah, thank you. Uh, there's moderate, sorry, there's mild, moderate, severe and profound is the last one. And so those are the five levels. And so the hearing aid functionality is for anyone who has mild to moderate hearing loss. So if you have like more than that, then you're still gonna have to go see like a professional and get like that tier of hearing aid versus this. Uh, but it's still like a big deal for so many people who. Don't want to spend thousands of dollars. But yeah, the test itself is, it's kind of fun.

• 49:08David Pierce?

  I am sort of terrified just at the prospect thinking about this now because I'm sort of in the position that you are. And I think about this with vision too, like I have 2020 vision. I don't wear glasses, very proud of that fact. I am 100% sure that if I go to an eye doctor, they are going to make me wear glasses. And so I'm never going to do it. I don't even have problems with my vision. It's just one of those things that like, I bet it could be better and I don't even know. But the prospect of that scares me. And I think what's interesting about hearing is that we all sort of understand the massive scale of vision issues, right? That like you, we understand prescription levels and they go all the way up and down. And you can, you can go all the way from like barely needing glasses to being totally blind. Like that spectrum, we all understand, we don't talk about that with hearing at all.

• 49:53David Pierce?

  And I think there is like, I don't know, decades at this point of people warning you about wearing headphones and listening to music too loud. And I can still hear my parents being like, turn the music down, you're gonna, you're gonna go deaf.

• 50:07David Pierce?

  But I don't think I've ever had someone quantify my hearing for me. So I am curious, like, what was that? What does it feel like when you, you take the test, it processes, you get the audio, audiogram, uh, being like, you're mostly okay. Like what is that strangely like gratifying feeling?

• 50:25Speaker 07

  Very strange and like, for some reason, like my left ear is a bit worse off than my right. So that had me wondering like, where in life, like, was my left ear exposed to like much more sound than my right? And like, I couldn't pinpoint like any phase of life where that would have been the case, but.

• 50:35David Pierce?

  It's driving with the window. That's what it is. It's just the wind coming by, just crushing your ears.

• 50:40Speaker 07

  Yeah. Yeah. So that was my main takeaway. But I could see this going like viral on Tik Tok and like having like a moment, uh, which would be good for like awareness, I think. You know, it is like private, obviously it's health information, so not everyone's going to be comfortable sharing. But I think, you know, it could have a moment on like social media of just people like raising awareness and sharing their results and. You know, I'm sure like the iPod generation is going to have a reckoning of some sort. But yeah, it's gonna be something.

• 51:03David Pierce?

  Okay, so just to go back to one of the things you said a minute ago, the, the, there are the five different scales of, of hearing loss. And you said the AirPods are only designed for the first three, basically, right? Little to no, mild and moderate, like that's, and for the rest, that is, you, you require something different.

• 51:21Speaker 07

  Still have to see a doctor and have like a professional hearing aid equipped. Yeah, this is like more, this is like Apple's counters, like all the, all these new like over the counter hearing aids. This is their take on that. And so, yeah, it's gonna be like a super, super powerful thing. Like we talk about like ecosystem lock in and like this is like a whole new, whole new level of that. If you think about it, like your hearing aid is like an Apple device now. And so like, what are the odds you're ever gonna like leave the iPhone at that point?

• 51:45Speaker 07

  Like on the whole, I think it's a very good thing. I think there are some concerns about like smaller companies, like why would you bother making your own hearing aid? And trying to compete against Apple, like the biggest tech company in the world, like once they come into this space. But on the whole, people are gonna save a ton of money, which is, I think, a huge deal.

• 51:59David Pierce?

  Totally. So once it's set up and once it's tuned to you specifically, what does it do? Like it's, it's easy to say, you know, it just, it makes everything louder so that you can hear it. But I have to imagine it's more complicated than that. Like what are, what are the actual features inside of this hearing aid stuff?

• 52:16Speaker 07

  You can tune like how loud it is, you can tune like how sharp the sound is and how crisp. Like there are a lot of the customization options once you actually have your results. And so like, that's important if you want to make it sound right. And, uh, that's what Apple says, it takes like a few days to adjust to how it sounds. Like for me, it barely did anything because I have little to no hearing loss. So I didn't really notice much of anything. But they say like that can still help people who like need certain frequencies boosted. And so I just haven't noticed it myself, but, uh, but it's there if you want it. Battery life is about six hours with the hearing aid mode turned on, which is about the same as the AirPods itself. So, yeah, that's pretty nice. And yeah, I mean, I don't know. Not sure what else there is to say about like, I haven't tried it myself. I'm sure there are going to be like a deep dives about like how well it works versus like over the counter options.

• 52:58David Pierce?

  Was there a little part of you as a reviewer who was like, damn it, I wish I didn't have worse ears so I could actually do this to myself?

• 53:04Speaker 07

  Yeah, in some way, but for now, I'm just glad that I shoot concerts and still, still have mostly good hearing intact.

• 53:11David Pierce?

  Yeah, I think it nets out. It nets out, okay. The concerts one, I think, is interesting because there do seem to be sort of two sides of what a device like this does to your, your hearing, right? On the one hand, it's enhance things you want to hear. And I think, to me, the, the best sort of existing thing I've heard a bunch of people mention is like the, the voice isolation feature that you can get on calls and stuff, that it's just, that's a, that's a certain bit of processing just designed to make it easier to hear the thing that you want to hear. And it's like, take that idea and sort of expand it across all the audio on your phone, and that is one version of what it's trying to do. Does that, does that seem about right to you, having used it now?

• 53:49Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 53:49David Pierce?

  Okay. But then the flip side is all the, all the hearing protection stuff, which is like, these, these things are designed to protect your ears from getting worse. And that strikes me as something that, that may actually be just as interesting to just as many people, even people like you who aren't photographing concerts all the time.

• 54:06Speaker 07

  Right.

• 54:07David Pierce?

  I, I realized in just reading about this that I have no idea how that would work. Like, what, what is, what is it doing in the hearing protection mode?

• 54:15Speaker 07

  Uh, just avoids loud sounds beyond like a certain threshold. I think, I'm not sure what the number is offhand, but like, once things are like over that level, it'll just kind of like down, you know, just bring things back to a safer level. And so that works in like all modes, like noise cancellation mode, transparency mode, and also the adaptive audio mode. And so like, each of those, like you'll hear, like, certain amounts of like a concert, like, it's like noise cancellation mode, you're still not going to hear like much of anything. So they're still trying to like cancel out everything. It's like, that's not the most enjoyable concert experience, I would say. But you can use that transparency mode and hear pretty much everything. It's still going to be fairly loud in your ears, but it's going to be like a much safer level of loudness versus if you didn't have them in at all. And so that makes all the difference.

• 54:53David Pierce?

  Got it. So it's, it's basically there to just say, Uh, it is going to sort of brutally suppress the worst noises, no matter the cost.

• 55:02Speaker 07

  Right.

• 55:03David Pierce?

  Forget the smoothing it out, trying to make it sound natural thing like we are going to just, just demolish any of these really loud damaging sounds.

• 55:11Speaker 07

  I mean, it's tuned to make things sound like natural and crisp and like detailed. It's like you don't lose much by having it on. Like I was at this open mic night a few nights ago and didn't feel like I was like really missing out on much in terms of like frequency range or anything like that. So like, I was impressed. I haven't used it like a big arena show yet. Hopefully this weekend I'll get a chance to do that. But yeah, no, it's like a, it's just strange to have them in all the time now, like for these tests that I've been doing. I think that's like a whole different thing to talk about. Like people are going to be wearing AirPods all the time now, uh, which is kind of unusual versus where we've been before.

• 55:42David Pierce?

  I wonder about that though. I mean, I, and I'm, I'm, I'm still sort of struck by you just saying so casually, lots of people wear AirPods at concerts. And like, at first I was just like, oh yeah, sure. Of course. And I'm like, wait, why on earth would you wear AirPods at concerts?

• 55:57David Pierce?

  Uh, but to some extent, I think we have really normalized the idea of wearing AirPods all the time.

• 56:03Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 56:04David Pierce?

  Uh, I think we, you can argue about whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think by and large it's, it actually sucks because like the social cues are a problem like.

• 56:12Speaker 07

  Right. If people think it's rude, but now you really can't have that like assumption, like usually when I have my AirPods in, people probably assume like I have like half, they have like half my attention. Whereas now like someone could be using it as a hearing aid and like you could have their full attention. And so it's not, can't just assume like what someone is using them for. I think that's going to be the big like sea change here.

• 56:27David Pierce?

  Totally. So yeah, what, how, how do you see that playing out? Like, is this just going to push the, I'm wearing headphones from the minute I wake up till the minute I go to sleep? Thing to kind of the, the nth degree forever. Like for me, it's always, what do I do when I'm wearing headphones and I walk into Starbucks? Right. And I, I think about like, if I'm wearing over the ear headphones, this is a thing I've thought about too much. If I'm wearing over the ear headphones, I will take them off, put them around my neck. Because I'm like, you should assume I'm wearing noise cancelling headphones and legitimately cannot hear you. If I'm wearing AirPods, I'll usually just take one out.

• 57:00Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 57:00David Pierce?

  Uh, and sometimes even like take one out while the person is looking at me as a way of being like, hello, I have, I am now paying attention to you. But again, like you're saying, there are now going to be people who have an actual medical purpose to be wearing these things in order to be able to hear people better.

• 57:16Speaker 07

  Right.

• 57:17David Pierce?

  And if I'm the person behind the counter at Starbucks. That's just, it's gonna be tricky to figure out what to do about that. But it also just seems like maybe the only correct assumption is just gonna be just talk to the people and hope to God they're not playing really loud music. I don't know.

• 57:33Speaker 07

  Yeah, I think it's gonna take time, obviously. I think it's gonna like, just kind of like have that thought of like people are being rude or like trying to ignore you kind of fade away. I mean, that'll still be the case in certain, like I put my AirPods in to avoid people at times. So like, that's gonna keep going, I'm sure. But like, it's just like that assumption of like, why someone has their AirPods in or earbuds in is gonna have to change over time. It's gonna be a while, I think. And I think like this is gonna put a lot of pressure on Samsung and Google. Google's like roll out their own like versions of these features. And like, once that happens, then, you know, and then it's really on. And so, uh, but yeah, it's been like a surreal experience. Like the test is very intense. Hearing protection stuff is a lot of fun. It's good, I think, for everybody. Cause you don't realize like how loud daily life is. Like I'm down in the subway hearing like screeching trains go by sometimes.

• 58:15Speaker 07

  And I'm just like covering my ears when I have nothing else available to me. So stuff like that is, yeah.

• 58:21David Pierce?

  You, you never go back once you wear something that is, is really good at doing that kind of work. Like it, it ruins a lot of things for you. But to that point, actually, I'm curious how you're feeling as a, as a headphone guy about all of this. Because the, I think the, the stuff that Apple is doing for hearing health, I think is like unequivocally a good thing. Right? The, the question is how well it works and for how many people. And, and that's gonna be tricky because people are complicated and ears are different. And everybody's hearing is different, but whatever. I think that is mostly

• 58:52David Pierce?

  agreed upon a good thing to be working on. But we're also in this phase, and I think Apple is out in front of this, of trying to perfect every sound in every instance all the time. Right? And like, the, the AirPods Pro 2 are probably the best example of this, right? There's the, there's a gaming mode. There's a, there's stuff dedicated to just Siri working well. There's voice isolation.

• 59:15Speaker 07

  Spatial audio head tracking.

• 59:17David Pierce?

  Yeah, there's spatial audio head tracking. Like, God help us if the head nod thing ever starts to take off. Like, that, that sounds like a nightmare. But I just think we're, we're headed to this place where step one is like build a nice pair of headphones. And then step two is like, try and Process it perfectly for every imaginable situation. And I just wonder if that's the right road to be going down with all of this stuff. Like, we're headed towards such a weird, everything is AR audio universe. And what does that make you feel as a music guy?

• 59:51Speaker 07

  I think I feel much better about like these use cases versus like the other stuff we've seen previously. Like, we've made a lot of noise about like, you know, giving up the headphone jack. And like, the phone you buy like decides what earbuds you get, basically. And like, that's where we're at now. So to see like health benefits, like, that's where I'm like, okay, this is the payoff to like where we've been going for all these years. And that's great. But like, although like head nods and like those gimmicks are, you know, they aren't what they are. You know, people are gonna use them or they won't. But like, this is like the argument where it's like, okay, this is worth like giving up that phone jack, going wireless only. Because these are not like just earbuds anymore, obviously. And so that's good, I think, for the whole industry. But as far as like, you know, just music is still there, you know? I love my music. I can just settle in and, you know, and just vibe. And that's not gonna change anytime soon. But they do do so much more now.

• 1:00:34Speaker 07

  And so, yeah, it's just a lot to think about, to process. And so, this is like a huge moment, obviously, but we're gonna see the same from Samsung and those companies, I'm sure. Because like, how could they not, you know, try and copy this?

• 1:00:46David Pierce?

  It does seem like pretty clearly the next thing for all of these companies.

• 1:00:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:00:51David Pierce?

  And again, I think it's mostly a good thing. And I do think one thing it seems Apple has done well, and I want to hear more about your experience of this, is kind of after that initial setup, it doesn't seem like you have to do all that much. Like, you take the test and it learns about your ears. And I expected there to be tons of, you know, buttons and knobs and you're constantly having to going in. And like, the voice isolation is another one for me. It has always driven me crazy that that's not just on.

• 1:01:15Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:01:15David Pierce?

  It just makes your calls sound better. Just turn the thing on. I don't understand what the problem is.

• 1:01:20Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:01:21David Pierce?

  But Apple has always sort of hidden it underneath a setting. And my assumption would be that a lot of this would be hidden underneath a setting. But it sounds increasingly like... It's not, and that once you take the test and understand your ears, it just kind of happens.

• 1:01:33Speaker 07

  Yep. Yeah, that's pretty true. So like there's the hearing aid mode. There's also this media assist half of it to where it tunes like your music and your phone calls and videos based off like all your data from your hearing test. So all those things sound clear as well. So that's nice. So yeah, it's like a very comprehensive, all encompassing feature that's just kind of there, just always there in the background, just working. And so, yeah, there's not much to do. Like you can turn it all, some of it off. Hearing aid obviously can turn on or off. But hearing protection is just there, which should be the case, obviously. And so, yeah, there's not much to like do or tinker with or get wrong or mess up yourself, which I think is super important, especially because like, you know, there are going to be older people using these features who like, don't want to have to like dig through settings menus to, you know, tinker with stuff. And so that's a big deal. Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:02:17Speaker 07

  It's just there. It's simple. You know, it is very, Apple, we say that a lot. It just works. This mostly has just worked. So I'm very curious to see like how it compares to like other options on the market, like people's deep dives and like the hearing aid functionality and all that.

• 1:02:30David Pierce?

  Yeah. What do you, have you heard anything from the, the kind of hearing aid community so far?

• 1:02:35Speaker 07

  Not much. I've been trying to chat folks up, but I guess, you know, they're a busy bunch, these audiologists. So, so hopefully pretty soon I'll be able to sit down with somebody and get some context. But it seems like people are pretty optimistic and hopeful that this is going to be at least, you know, push the whole industry forward towards like making all this, you know, more affordable and that whole trend. So.

• 1:02:52David Pierce?

  Yeah. I mean, we've been waiting for a few years now since that bill passed for this kind of over the counter hearing aid revolution that we were expecting. And I think years ago, people were expecting ultimately this, right? Like, which I think is actually very cool. Apple sort of delivered the thing people have been asking for, which is give me something that looks like a pair of headphones that doesn't scream medical device, but gives me some of the help that I need. And I think I'm going to be fascinated to see how Apple communicates that line between here is who they're for and here is who they're not. That like even where you fall on the audiogram test, if it's going to like throw up a thing that's like, go see a doctor immediately about your hearing, or if it's just more

• 1:03:36David Pierce?

  gentle about it, like we can help, but only so much.

• 1:03:39Speaker 07

  It's pretty gentle. My experience, like the test is very like low stress. It's like, this is all normal. Hearing loss is normal. These are your results.

• 1:03:46David Pierce?

  Everything's fine, but we did call 911 on your behalf just now.

• 1:03:49Speaker 07

  Talk to a doctor if you have any questions.

• 1:03:51David Pierce?

  Yeah. But and it makes me wonder if this is going to be the beginning of that movement that we've been seeing. Because I think there is one version of the outcome here that says Apple is actually way ahead of some of these other companies in health stuff. And has been working on this a lot longer and has a lot more of the expertise and a lot more of the, you know, corporate lock in to make some of this stuff work. And I think there's truth to some of that. But also, Google and Samsung ought to be able to do this kind of thing pretty well, pretty quickly.

• 1:04:21Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:04:22David Pierce?

  Is there any reason you think Apple might have some insurmountable lead here? Or is this just going to become the next feature of of all of these headphones?

• 1:04:30Speaker 07

  I think it'll be the next feature in time. I think Apple got a head start just because they've like focused on this vertical integration of like all their hardware for so, so long that like they've had to jump on like these features. But I'm sure in time, like Samsung and Google, I'm not sure how like other companies would get involved, like Sennheiser and Sony. Like, what are they gonna do? Like, being just like third party. Sony has some like over the counter hearing aids, but like, that's not quite the same thing as like this thing that's tied to your phone and like knows what you're listening to and like how to make that sound better at all times. So it's curious, I'm curious if Apple's gonna like run ads about these features like on TV. Like, that'll be fascinating. But I think there's just gonna be like a big push of like awareness, hearing health, because let's, you know, very easy to take for granted until, you know, you start losing some of it over time. Thankfully, I'm still in good shape.

• 1:05:14Speaker 07

  I've got random bouts of tinnitus, tinnitus, however that's pronounced. Random bouts of that like once or twice a month where I hear just a little like ringing in my ears. But if that's the worst that I've had through 40 years so far, then I'll, I'll take that.

• 1:05:27David Pierce?

  Yeah, it's not so bad. You gotta, you could just print out and frame the audiogram results there. That's pretty good.

• 1:05:32Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:05:33David Pierce?

  Before I let you go, anything else in the the software update here? I mean, Apple basically announced these things like they were a brand new product. Despite it just being a software update to a set of existing headphones. You've been using the software update for a while now. Anything else to report?

• 1:05:50Speaker 07

  I mean, that's the reason that I would update to iOS 18.1. You know, if you don't care about all the AI stuff and Apple Intelligence, this is a great reason to like get all these new features. You can't do it on iOS 18.0 or like any previous version. So you have to update if you want all these AirPods features. So if you don't care about the AI stuff, which I do like the summarized notifications on iOS 18.1, they're, they're pretty handy. But as far as like other like AirPods stuff, you know, the head nods are there. They work fairly well.

• 1:06:15David Pierce?

  Do you use them? Be honest.

• 1:06:16Speaker 07

  I've tried them. I turned them off pretty quickly. They worked, you know? I'm sure, I'm sure there are people who love like all these like very niche features. And so, you know, people like love having Siri like read their notifications out loud. I would never want that to be my situation.

• 1:06:28David Pierce?

  No, to me, it's just the, the penalty for having the nod and head shake on and get it wrong. Is that like I answer a phone call that I don't want to in the wrong.

• 1:06:39Speaker 07

  That you very clearly like shook your head vigorously not to answer.

• 1:06:42David Pierce?

  Yeah, exactly. Like that is, I know enough about this technology to know that that stuff is imperfect. And just the penalty for being wrong once terrifies me. Like even now, when I'm, I'm in the car or whatever, and it's like so and so is calling. Would you like to answer? I, I have, I never have said the word no more clearly than I do in those moments. Yeah. And still I'm afraid that something is going to go wrong. So I think making that stuff even simpler seems like a good idea. But also I feel like raises the stakes for what could go wrong.

• 1:07:13David Pierce?

  So we'll, we'll, we'll see how all of that turns out. But I do think there is probably a long road of interesting stuff to do there. I'm just not convinced it's yes and no.

• 1:07:23Speaker 07

  Right. Yeah, there's some way to like do like head nods and AR, I'm sure. You know, there are all these rumors of AirPods with cameras on them, which seems so bizarre to me. But I'm sure there's a purpose for that.

• 1:07:33David Pierce?

  I just want to be able to like quickly do a double shake of my head to skip songs. It's just like, no, no, no, not this one. Go to the next one.

• 1:07:40Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:07:41David Pierce?

  Or just like make a like a face and it just skips. Like add, immediately add that to my not interested list on Spotify and go to the next one. That's all I want.

• 1:07:49Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 1:07:51David Pierce?

  All right, Chris, thank you as always.

• 1:07:53Speaker 07

  Absolutely. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, David.

• 1:07:56David Pierce?

  All right, we gotta take one more break and then we're gonna come back and do one of my favorite Vergecast hotline questions in a while. We'll be right back.

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• 1:09:37David Pierce?

  All right, we're back. Let's get to the hotline. As always, the number is 866-VERGE-11. The email is [email protected]. We love all of your questions, and we try to answer at least one on the show every week. I've been promising a full hotline episode for a while, and that is coming. We just, there's too much going on. If they could just stop with the news for a minute, I'd love to do a hotline episode. But I think that's coming. I'm very excited about it. So get all your questions in, all of your weird tech mysteries, all of the things you want us to just ruminate endlessly on, and we'll get to them all. This week, we have a very fun question about video games.

• 1:10:12Speaker 08

  Hi Vergecast, my name is Brian. I'm in North Carolina, nearish Epic and limited run games for context. I've had this question ever since you had Riley tested on the show about Delta and emulation on iOS. It came up again at the tail end of your Origins of Podcasting episode. "Apple has a gaming problem. Why don't they just buy Nintendo? I know they have enough liquid capital sitting around that they could purchase the entirety of that company like you or I could go buy a Switch. So what's stopping them? Is it Lena Khan? Does that matter if the company isn't American? Is it that they don't actually care about games? Would Nintendo say no to a Scrooge McDuck-sized pile of Apple cash?"

• 1:10:55Speaker 08

  So that's my question. Why doesn't Apple solve its problem with gaming by eating Nintendo? What stops it from doing that? And just for fun, what would the world look like if it did? Thanks for talking about this. I've been sitting with this in my head for literal months, and I'm more than happy for it to sit in your heads instead. I need to go do other things now. Thanks, bye.

• 1:11:15David Pierce?

  All right, I have brought the Verge's foremost Nintendo expert, Andrew Webster, here to help me with this. Andrew, hello.

• 1:11:21Speaker 09

  Hello.

• 1:11:22David Pierce?

  So I caught you in the middle of writing a piece. Would you just briefly describe the piece that you're working on? Because I think it's a useful setup for what we're doing here.

• 1:11:30Speaker 09

  Oh, well, now I have to write it. But the working headline is, I have given up on guessing what Nintendo is going to do, which is a conclusion I've come to after covering them for like 15 years or so.

• 1:11:44David Pierce?

  So I want to separate this into two pieces. There is the "Why doesn't Apple buy Nintendo?" piece of it, and there is the "What would the world look like if Nintendo were owned by Apple?" And I feel like in the first case, the answer seems very straightforward, which is that anyone would, seems like they would want to buy Nintendo, right? Like, everyone, given the opportunity, including Apple, I assume, would leap to buy Nintendo. Do you think that's true?

• 1:12:12Speaker 09

  Yeah, I think what's stopping them is obviously Nintendo. Nintendo has Scrooge McDuck piles already, and they just keep getting more and more.

• 1:12:23Speaker 09

  So there's not really any reason for them to sell. And I do think that that point about Apple not caring about gaming is very true. I'm like, in addition to being the verge's foremost Nintendo expert, I'm also our only Apple Arcade expert. And it is a great service that is just nobody knows about. Because Apple does not care. And I also don't think Apple thinks it has a gaming problem because it makes a lot of money from games. And not the kind of games that Nintendo makes.

• 1:12:57David Pierce?

  Yeah, I think the question of like, would Apple be interested in making the next Zelda game is actually really interesting. I think Apple is very happy running a store in which it gets cuts of the work that other people do. And if we've learned one thing about the gaming industry in the last couple of years, it's that you spend an awful lot of money making things that may or may not work. And I guess the appeal of Nintendo is that mostly it makes things that work. Its hit rate has got to be better than anybody's, right?

• 1:13:24Speaker 09

  Yeah, and I mean, they tried this. I am one of the few people who will say Super Mario Run was an excellent game. And it was downloaded, I don't know, 200 million times, but not enough people bought it for Nintendo to consider that success. So like, you've already had Shigeru Miyamoto make a game for the iPhone and they never followed it up. So, and you know, Apple Arcade already has a very good Zelda clone, so I think Apple's pretty happy.

• 1:13:51David Pierce?

  Yeah, so before we pivot to the what would it look like thing, I just wanna, I went back after we got this question and found from last summer, the summer of 2023, there were all those emails from 2020 that leaked out in the Microsoft case. And one of them was from Phil Spencer to a couple of folks on his team about Nintendo. And I think he pretty neatly, I think, sums up everyone's feelings about Nintendo in general. And he says, I totally agree that Nintendo is the prime asset for us in gaming. And today, gaming is our most likely path to consumer relevance. This is, they're talking about Xbox, obviously. I've had numerous conversations with the LT of Nintendo about tighter collaboration and feel like if any US company would have a chance with Nintendo, we are probably in the best position. This is the best part.

• 1:14:33David Pierce?

  The unfortunate or fortunate for Nintendo situation is that Nintendo is sitting on a big pile of cash. They have a board of directors that until recently has not pushed for further increases in market growth or stock appreciation. And his basic thing is like, I don't know what to give Nintendo. They don't want our money. They don't want our resources. They're very happy being Nintendo. And I feel like that is why no one has bought Nintendo, because Nintendo is super happy being Nintendo.

• 1:14:58Speaker 09

  Yeah, we think of Nintendo as this playful company, you know, Miyamoto is like, happy-go-lucky guy, but they're a ruthless corporation that extracts as much money from everything as they can.

• 1:15:10David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:10Speaker 09

  Good luck finding Zelda on sale ever.

• 1:15:13David Pierce?

  Right, right. I mean, what, the Switch is eight years old now and still doing just fine? Like Nintendo knows exactly what it's doing. And yeah, I like to the, would they accept any offer? I'm sure there's a number. Everybody always has a number. But at some point Nintendo's market cap, I think I was looking this morning, is like $62 billion. And that's a, that's a big number. And at some point, I'm sure there is a number, but I bet that number is substantially higher than anybody thinks it is for what it would take to actually get that done. But since you brought up Apple Arcade, I just, I just want to fantasize for a minute here. Let's, let's say Apple decides to write a check for, you know, all of the cash it has, $250 billion, and it owns Nintendo. What do you think Apple would do with Nintendo?

• 1:15:57Speaker 09

  That is like, I've been thinking about this, and I feel like there's two avenues, one of which is good and will not be successful, and one of which is bad and will make a ton of money.

• 1:16:07David Pierce?

  That sounds right.

• 1:16:08Speaker 09

  The one is the Apple Arcade route, which is like, yeah, you can play like Mario 3 and the Mario Wonder and like all these games on your phone. And Nintendo has access to the hardware in a way that they do when they make their own hardware and can make things that are perfectly suited for it. Again, Mario 1 is good. It's a game designed for touchscreen. They know what they're doing.

• 1:16:31David Pierce?

  That's like a dream scenario, by the way.

• 1:16:32Speaker 09

  That's a dream scenario.

• 1:16:33David Pierce?

  A lot of like, you get to emulate all the games on your Apple devices. It becomes this like incredible place for Nintendo to put everything it's ever made, including all the new stuff. Like, that sounds awesome.

• 1:16:43Speaker 09

  Yeah, and that's what people say they want, but not enough people most likely would actually pay the money for it. And what's more likely to happen is, so Mario Run, I keep bringing it up. It was generally a failure for them, but they have had several successful mobile games, which are, there's Samurai Crossing one, there's Fire Emblem one, and they are just filled with all of the free-to-play bullshit that everyone hates. But they make so much money, they're still running. And even though Nintendo has forgotten about... Mobile gaming, they don't turn those switches off because they get money. And that is how Apple makes its money from gaming. So I think the dire scenario is loot boxes and ammo crossing.

• 1:17:26David Pierce?

  Right, or loot boxes in Tears of the Kingdom, right? Like, that's where this starts to get really dark.

• 1:17:32Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:17:32David Pierce?

  Which, of course, ruins Tears of the Kingdom in a lot of way. And so it's like, maybe there is something about the way that Nintendo works right now that is the reason it's able to do the things that it does. Like, maybe it's sick it inside of a corporation that is much more worried about maximizing growth, and it changes all of the incentives here. Like, maybe the way we have it is actually the correct way to have it.

• 1:17:51Speaker 09

  Yeah, Mario Wonder exists when I was talking to the directors because they were like, "We're not gonna have a deadline. We're just gonna let people come up with ideas, and when it's ready, it's ready." And then it was, you know, the best Mario in a decade. So that's how it happens.

• 1:18:07David Pierce?

  Yeah, yeah. So, do you think there is a world in which this ever happens in the time that we're doing this? Like, Nintendo's been around forever. We've given up guessing what's gonna happen with Nintendo. Is this just Nintendo's out here making alarm clocks, not worrying about, like, live service games? You know what I mean? Like, is this just Nintendo forever, do you think?

• 1:18:30Speaker 09

  If you can turn it around after the Wii U, I think, like, you're safe. They're, they don't have to worry about it. They're Nintendo.

• 1:18:36David Pierce?

  Fair enough. All right, before I let you go, do you know anything about the Switch 2? Can you blink twice if you know what's going on with the Switch 2?

• 1:18:44Speaker 09

  I got nothing.

• 1:18:45David Pierce?

  Yeah, fair enough. All right, Andrew, thank you, appreciate it. All right, that is it for the Vergecast today. Thank you to everybody who game on the show, and thank you, as always, for listening. There is lots more on everything we talked about. V's Smart Ring Battle Royale, Chris's story about all of the hearing health stuff in the AirPods, all of our coverage of what's been going on with Nintendo and Apple and gaming and everything. We'll put a bunch of links in the show notes, but there's lots more going on on theverge.com. It's a good website, we like it a lot. As always, if you have thoughts, questions, feelings, or a price you think is fair to buy Nintendo, you can always email us at [email protected], call the hotline 866-VERGE11. We love hearing from you. I confess, I recently have done a really bad job of looking at the email.

• 1:19:29David Pierce?

  Luckily, Liam and the other folks on our team do it better, but I wanna be in that inbox more. I love talking to all of you there, and I just suck at email, but I'm gonna do better. So- Get at me. I'm very excited to just randomly email about our feelings about technology with you. This show is produced by Liam James, Will Poor, and Eric Gomez. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Neelai and I will be back on Friday to talk about more gadgets, more AI stuff, continuing craziness at OpenAI, and lots more. We'll see you then. Rock and roll.

• 1:20:12Speaker 10

  New and exclusive holiday decor just launched online at The Home Depot. Check out the viral Grand Duchess collection with smart holiday lights you can control from your phone. Easily customize the twinkle across trees, wreaths, and garlands to match your holiday vibe. Create stunning light effects, then switch it up with the tap of your fingers. Even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want online only at homedepot.com.

• 1:20:43Speaker 11

  Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com slash apple watch series 12.