Tag: stress

PIN Pulse – AI Smart Ring for BP & Glucose Trend Tracking

The Pin Universe announces the launch of PIN Pulse on Kickstarter, a next-generation smart health ring delivering the most comprehensive range of health insights available in a single ring. PIN Pulse introduces three breakthrough capabilities to the smart ring category – Blood Pressure Monitoring, Blood Glucose Risk Assessment Insights, and Sleep Apnea Detection – features that have never before been combined in one ring. Alongside these innovations, PIN Pulse integrates 13 total health metrics, bringing metabolic, cardiovascular, sleep, stress, activity, and body trend insights together in one non-invasive wearable – without needles, bulky devices, or monthly subscriptions. 

Founders Sudeshna Naik and Hrishekesh Patil created PIN Pulse after identifying a gap in existing smart rings, which tracked basic fitness metrics but lacked meaningful insights into glucose trends and cardiovascular health in a single, non-invasive wearable.

Worn comfortably on the finger day and night, PIN Pulse captures 16 distinct health metrics, giving users the most comprehensive health insights available in a single ring. Among these, Blood Pressure Monitoring, Blood Glucose Risk Assessment, and Sleep Apnea Detection are breakthrough features never before combined in one wearable. Blood pressure and glucose risk assessments are available on-demand through the companion mobile app, while other metrics like sleep, heart health, stress, activity, and body trends are monitored continuously.

PIN Pulse’s AI analyzes all collected data, connects the dots across metrics, and delivers clear, personalized insights, helping users understand patterns and trends in their health. Best of all, full access to AI-driven insights comes with no monthly or annual subscription – you buy the product once and receive lifetime access to your health data and personalized guidance. Rather than overwhelming users, PIN Pulse presents charts and wellness insights in a clear, easy-to-understand way, emphasizing long-term trends and personalized guidance so users can stay informed and confident about their health.

Non-Invasive Health Awareness in a Ring

PIN Pulse is built around a simple idea: meaningful health awareness shouldn’t disrupt your routine. The ring captures biometric data directly from the finger, one of the most signal-rich points on the body, and turns it into practical wellness insights. PIN Pulse captures 16 distinct health metrics designed to provide a comprehensive daily wellness overview.

Key capabilities include:

  • Blood Glucose Risk Assessment & Blood Pressure Monitoring: On-demand measurements performed through the app with guided pre-checks, delivering convenient metabolic and cardiovascular wellness insights without finger pricks, cuffs, or inflation hardware
  • Sleep Apnea & Breathing Analysis: Tracks nighttime patterns and potential breathing irregularities such as sleep time, stages, efficiency, Sleep Breathing Risk (OSA) to support recovery awareness and better rest quality 
  • Heart Health & Stress Signals: Monitors cardiovascular activity and physiological stress markers (heart rate, HRV, SpO₂, stress, Mood Track) to help users understand daily strain, balance, and emotional patterns
  • Activity & Energy Tracking: Captures daily movement (steps, calories, distance) and exertion levels to provide a clear view of lifestyle consistency and overall activity output
  • Body Trends & Women’s Health: Observes temperature patterns and cycle-related changes to support awareness across hormonal shifts and life stages

All insights are designed for general wellness and lifestyle awareness only, supporting informed habits, not medical diagnosis.

Designed  for Uninterrupted Health Tracking

PIN Pulse is engineered to deliver continuous, uninterrupted health tracking – day and night – without demanding constant user interaction. Unlike many wearables that require frequent charging breaks or manual engagement, PIN Pulse works quietly in the background, consistently capturing health signals as life happens.

Crafted from lightweight titanium and weighing as little as 3 grams, the ring blends seamlessly into everyday life with a discreet, jewelry-like form designed for 24/7 wear.

With up to 7+ days of battery life, 5 ATM water resistance, and wireless charging, users can wear PIN Pulse continuously – through sleep, showers, workouts, and daily routines – without disrupting their health data stream. Automatic data capture can be configured as frequently as every 5 minutes, balancing precision and battery optimization.

All data syncs seamlessly to the mobile app, creating a centralized dashboard that reveals how health signals evolve over weeks and months – not just isolated daily readings. Full app access is included for life, with no subscription required.

Personalized Health Insights Driven by AI

PIN Pulse combines multi-wavelength optical sensing, skin temperature tracking, and motion data from the finger – one of the body’s most signal-rich points – with advanced AI-driven sensor fusion. The sensors capture accurate, continuous data, and the AI analyzes patterns across multiple metrics, connects the dots, and turns them into clear, personalized insights.

Rather than presenting generic scores or constant alerts, the app highlights what has changed, what has stayed consistent, and what may deserve attention, helping users feel informed and reassured, not judged.

Users can also interact directly with the AI through the AI chat, receiving personalized guidance and awareness based on their own health trends. This makes the insights truly tailored to each individual, supporting long-term wellness and life-stage tracking.

Additional features powered by AI include Stress Monitoring, Mood Tracking, Women’s Health tracking, and Sleep Breathing Risk (OSA) indicators – all connected into one comprehensive, personalized health view.

Availability

PIN Pulse will launch via crowdfunding with a Kickstarter price of $249 and an MSRP of $499. Each package includes the PIN Pulse Smart Ring, magnetic charging dock, USB-C cable, quick start guide and a warranty card. 

The product is backed by a 12-month limited hardware warranty, covering manufacturing and component defects under normal use. 

My Celsius Cooling bracelet to help Irish women battle key menopause symptom

An Irish engineer is at the centre of a ‘revolutionary’ cooling bracelet to help women manage the debilitating hot flushes of menopause.

The ‘MyCelsius’ bracelet, worn like a wrist watch, enters the Irish market today (Apr7) and has been co-developed by Offaly native Aonghus O’Donovan.

It works by cooling users’ wrists by 10°C in under 10 seconds and is designed to dramatically reduce the discomfort of hot flushes.

Co-founders O’Donovan, 33, and Maxime Kryvian 37, the CEO of the start-up cooling tech company, say it has an 80% efficacy rate for women experiencing one of the most uncomfortable perimenopause and menopause symptoms.

“The wrist is one of the most thermally sensitive parts of your body and applying cold to it sends a signal to the hypothalamus (the body’s thermostat), to stop the sweating and flushing associated with a hot flush,” he said.

“It uses advanced thermo-electric cooling to create a soothing, cold sensation directly onto the wrist.

“By lowering local skin temperature, it helps the full body feel cooler in moments of sudden heat.”

It also works to counteract uncomfortable heat caused by hormonal changes or stress and anxiety.

Women sometimes describe a hot flush as an intense heat, originating in the torso and moving upwards into the neck and chest.

It may be accompanied by flushing of the skin and sweating, as well as palpitations and feelings of anxiety and can happen several times a day.

Research in recent years has shown that almost four in ten women in Ireland have considered quitting their jobs due to menopause symptoms.

Three years’ research has been invested into the non-medical device, which O’Donovan says has a cooling system five times more powerful than competitor products.

Based in Bristol, England, O’Donovan studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Limerick (UL), which included a year in New York designing heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems for skyscrapers.

He went on to work at Dyson before moving into Formula 1 and Aerospace engineering and has since applied design and thermodynamics principles to women’s health — working closely with hundreds of women to develop MyCelsius.

The bracelet has five different modes, including a night-time setting to prevent heat-induced sleep disruption.

The company worked with a community of women that have been integral to shaping the product’s look, feel and functionality.

For more information, see mycelsius.com.

Canyon Smart Watch Jacky SW-69 Review

The Canyon Smart Watch Jacky SW-69 is an affordable smartwatch kept simple with plenty of features to keep the curious one alight if it is their first smartwatch to try out and indeed this for me is one of those who want to delve into the samrtwatch wrold and fitness tracking.

As an owner of countless smartwatches the Canyon Smart Watch Jacky SW-69 is a nice watch to look at and use despite the name it has been given, having said that many companies do tend to give their products funny names or quesitonable numbers added on the the product and we shall not name those.

This smartwatch has it all bar calls on the watch itself or the option to respond to messages, it instead lets you look at your mails social media messages and more nmot forgetting the suite of sports activities and health features on board you can accept and reject calls and the notifictions are not rich notifications you will see more in the video review below.

With health and fitness in mind this watch does have you covered in fairness, there is plenty on board even for the more demanding type at the price level and from testing data is failty accurate when paired against other watches I own and test out not just high end ones either.

Notifications are on the button bit not rich you get a basic line of thext which is fine as it is a simple approach smartwatch and for me even though I have more expensive watches I could easily wear this as a daily it keeps you off your phone like any other smatwatch does.

Overall this is a nice simple to use smartwatch with a simple app and people like simple and it offers plenty for the fitness and health gurus out there and looks nice too with a simple magentic strap how much simpler do you want it..

Canyon Life App

 

 

Product features

  • Download Canyon Life App for iOS and Android
  • Compatible with Android 8.0 and later (smartphones with BT 4.0+ and Google Play services support, Android GO has no notifications support), iOS 14.0 and later
  • Metal case body with comfortable & nice-to-touch Two sided magnetic strap
  • Real-Time Heart Rate, Pedometer, Body Temperature, Accurate Blood Oxygen
  • 25 popular Sports Modes
  • Compatible with Google Fit & Apple Health
  • 1.3’’ Full Touch LTPS screen with 360*360 high resolution; 262K Colors
  • 380+ watch faces available at Canyon Life APP Gallery, support animated watch-faces
  • Waterproof IP-68 (fits for swimming)
  • Stress level measurement & Breath training
  • Virtual Business Card
  • Sleep monitoring, blood pressure, Weather forecast, Pop-up notifications, Drink water & sedentary reminder, Female calendar, Alarm, Stop watch & Timer, Music & camera remote control, Calculator, Flash light
  • Battery 200mAh; Charging time: up to 3 H
  • Typical usage mode working time: up to 9 days*
  • Heavy usage mode working time: up to 5 days**
  • Stand-by time: 15 days
  • 4 pre-installed games
  • 5.1 Bluetooth Low Energy Chip
  • Max Wireless Connection Range: 10 m
  • Memory: RAM 192KB; ROM 256KB; Flash Memory: 128MB
  • Firmware language list: English, German, Russian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Czech, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Slovak, Spanish, Romanian, Dutch, Arabic, Hungarian, Polish, Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Portuguese, Georgian, French, Greek, Albanian, Macedonian

BUY

Other Canyon Reviews

Other smartwatch reviews 

Video Review

What does API Testing look like in 2026

A good/efficient/capable API testing tool can handle numerous APIs built for various functionality. 

You wouldn’t know it from the surface but tools like Postman and Swagger still dominate the markets. 

Conferences are showcasing “automated testing” as if we’re still in 2018. But beneath all this hype, we see a quiet revolution is exploding everything we thought we knew about API quality.  

According to Postman’s 2026 State of the API Report, teams now ship APIs 4.2x faster than in 2022. Yet Gartner warns that 68% of API breaches originate from testing gaps invisible to traditional scanners. 

Meanwhile, developers waste 37 hours per week trying to remove flaky tests that pass in CI but fail in production (2026 State of QA Survey).  

We’re not just testing more APIs—we’re testing in a world where:  

– 87% of new systems are event-driven (async APIs, webhooks, WebSockets)  

– AI-generated code now writes 41% of API endpoints (GitHub Octoverse 2025)  

– Third-party dependencies have grown 300% since 2020 (Stripe, Twilio, Auth0)  

– Data poisoning attacks bypass OWASP’s top 10 protections silently  

Despite using all these tools, you’re still unable to meet expectations. This is because each tool misses certain functionalities, or your testing methods lack clarity.

Old testing methods aren’t just failing—they’re creating dangerous blind spots. 

After analyzing 12,000+ Reddit threads, Stack Overflow debates, and GitHub issue logs, We’ve uncovered five massive shifts every engineering leader/tester must admit. These aren’t incremental changes. They’re necessary changes that you need introduce in your CI/CD pipeline.  

Shift 1: Synchronous Testing Is no longer sufficient

Remember when APIs were neat request-response cycles? Its long gone. 

Today’s systems pulse with Kafka streams, payment webhooks, and IoT sensor floods. Testing them with Postman collections is like checking a Formula 1 car with a bicycle pump.  

Reddit’s r/apitesting sub is flooded with such desperate questions:  

> How do I validate that a webhook fires AFTER a database commit—not before?(2.1k upvotes)  

> Our payment confirmation events arrive out of order in prod. Tests pass locally.(Top comment on r/devops)  

Why are these patterns emerging? The truth? 63% of async API failures stem from race conditions invisible to synchronous tools (Twilio Engineering Blog, Jan 2026). Something that older testing practices can’t replicate which causes:  

– Message queue backlogs during traffic spikes  

– Distributed services  

– Partial failures in event transactions  

Now what should you do differently

Forward-thinking teams are openly embracing what we call controlled chaos:  

– Simulating region failures during test runs (not just in staging)  

– You start by introducing latency between services to expose timing bombs  

– Work towards validating event ordering using distributed tracing IDs which can be later in

Shift #2: Contract Testing is Important 

Contract testing tools like Pact are having a moment. Google searches for “API contract testing” grew 214% YoY. But here’s what vendor docs won’t tell you: backward compatibility checks are failing silently in 9 of 10 implementations.  

Why? Most teams test schemas, not behaviors. Consider this example a real scenario:  

> A food-delivery startup updated a `GET /orders` endpoint. The response schema stayed identical, but pagination logic changed from offset-based to cursor-based. Mobile apps crashed because tests only validated JSON structure—not how data was chunked. Result: $1.2M in lost orders and a CTO’s resignation.  

The problem here? Data drift between environments. Staging databases lack production-scale data skew. Your tests pass with 100 records but choke with 10 million.

 Stack Overflow’s top-voted API question (5.2k upvotes) shares a similar pain:  

> “Why do my contract tests pass locally but break in prod with ‘invalid token’ errors?”  

The fix isn’t more tests—it’s testing contracts in production shadows:  

– Mirror production traffic to a canary environment running new contracts  

– Validate against real data distributions (not synthetic test data)  

– Inject chaos into contract tests: “What if this field is 10x larger?”  

– Treat contracts as living documents auto-generated from test traffic (not manually updated Swagger files)  

Teams using qAPI treat contracts through schema validation, which can be enforced across environments and tied directly to test execution. Because contracts are derived from real API behavior—not manually curated specs—they stay relevant as systems evolve.

AI Testing Tools Are Failing the Auth Test (Quite Literally)  

AI-powered testing tools promise dreams: “Generate 10,000 test cases in seconds!” Vendors now embed AI into their core workflows. But Quora threads tell a darker story:  

> “Tried 7 AI testing tools. All failed at OAuth2 token rotation scenarios.” (2.4k views)  

> “My AI-generated tests passed—but missed a critical JWT expiration bug that leaked user data.” (Top comment on r/Python)  

The reality is this- 68% of engineers abandoned AI testing tools within 3 months (GitLab 2026 Survey). Why? They excel at happy paths but collapse on:  

– Token expiration/renewal flows  

– Role-based access control (RBAC) permutations  

– Idempotency key validation during retries  

– Stateful workflows (e.g., checkout processes)  

 

AI can’t replace human intuition for edge cases… yet. But progressive teams are using it strategically:  They used it to reduce human load where it matters least and preserve human judgment where it matters most.

qAPI supports this balance by enabling:

  • Rapid baseline test generation from schemas and traffic
  • Easy refinement of edge cases engineers actually care about
  • Reuse of validated flows across teams

Idempotency failures don’t announce themselves

Idempotency keys seem trivial. Yet they’re the silent killers of transactional systems. Stripe’s documentation warns about them, but testing guides ignore them. Why? Because idempotency isn’t a feature—it’s a distributed systems constraint.  

Consider this:  

– 83% of payment failures occur during network timeouts when clients retry requests  

– Without idempotency keys, retries create duplicate charges or inventory oversells  

– 95% of teams don’t test idempotency in CI/CD—they pray it works in prod  

The consequence? In 2025, a ride-sharing startup lost $4.7M when a surge pricing event triggered duplicate charges during a database failover. Their tests never simulated partial failures mid-transaction.  

Idempotency testing requires rethinking your entire strategy:  

– Simulate network partitions during payment processing (not just before/after)  

– Validate key reuse across service restarts and clock drift scenarios  

– Test with real payment gateways using test-mode webhooks (not just mocks)  

– Measure duplicate transaction rates as a core quality metric—not just “tests passed”  

Basic flaky Tests Are a Symptom—Not the Disease 

Flaky tests cost 37 hours per engineer per week. But chasing flakes is like mopping a flooded floor while the tap runs. The root cause? Testing in artificial environments that ignore production reality.  

Stack Overflow’s most-commented API question (14k monthly views) screams the pain:  

> “My API tests pass locally, pass in CI, but fail 30% of the time in staging. Why?!”  

The answer lives in three ignored dimensions:  

  1. Data drift: Staging databases lack production data skew, null distributions, and timezone chaos  
  2. Time sensitivity: Tests ignore daylight saving changes, leap seconds, and clock drift across containers  
  3. Resource constraints: CI runners have infinite CPU/memory; production has noisy neighbors and pumped up databases.

The human cost is brutal:  

– QA engineers lose trust in automation, reverting to manual checks  

– Developers ignore failing builds (“it’s just flaky”)  

– Security teams can’t distinguish real breaches from test noise  

qAPI supports this by standardizing test execution across environments, minimizing hidden dependencies, and making test behavior explainable—not magical.

The human impact is immediate:

  • Engineers trust CI again
  • QA focuses on coverage, not cleanup
  • Failures regain meaning

The Way Forward: From Testing APIs to Stress-Testing Trust  

These five shifts reveal a deeper truth: API testing isn’t about validating endpoints anymore. It’s about stress-testing trust in a world where:  

– Systems are distributed, stateless, and event-driven  

– Failures cascade silently across team boundaries  

– Security threats evolve faster than scanner definitions  

The teams winning this war share three best practices one that you need to adapt too:  

  1. They test like attackers: Not just “does it work?” but “how can it be broken when components fail?”  
  2. They value observability over coverage: A 60% coverage rate with production tracing beats 95% coverage in a sandbox  
  3. They treat tests as living contracts: Auto-generating documentation from test traffic, not manual updates  

This isn’t about buying new tools. It’s about rewiring your quality mindset. As one principal engineer at Spotify whispered in a private Slack channel:  

> “We stopped counting test cases. Now we measure ‘how many 3 AM pages did this prevent?’”  

The clock is ticking. Every minute your async APIs go un-tested for race conditions, every idempotency key left un-validated, every AI-generated test that misses auth edge cases—you’re shipping technical debt with a countdown timer.  

When APIs behave predictably under change, teams move faster without second-guessing every release. When they don’t, velocity collapses under fear, workarounds, and manual checks.

Teams that adopt platforms like qAPI are not testing more aggressively for the sake of coverage. They are testing more intentionally. Instead of validating endpoints in isolation, they validate flows that mirror how real systems behave. 

One VP of Engineering summarized this shift during a post-incident review in a way that stuck: “The real win wasn’t that we caught the bug. The real win was knowing that we would.”

By reducing the effort required to create, maintain, and run meaningful API tests, they lower the cost of doing the right thing consistently. The goal isn’t to make testing more impressive. It’s to make it dependable enough. This is where tools like qAPI makes a difference.

 

Garmin releases 2025 Garmin Connect Data Report

Garmin has released its 2025 Garmin Connect™ Data Report, highlighting overall fitness and health trends from customers around the world.  From data trends like average stress and daily steps to an increase in recorded activities, insights from the Garmin Connect community highlight key fitness and well-being trends across a range of demographics, locales and abilities.

Activity takeaways

Garmin users recorded 8% more activities this year than in 2024, with the following activities seeing the largest year over year increase:

  • Racket sports: +67%
  • HIIT: +45%.
  • Pilates: +46%
  • Strength training: +29%
  • Indoor running: +16%
  • Diving: +16%
  • Hiking: +12%

 

Health and fitness takeaways

  • Women recorded lower average stress scores than men, and Garmin users in Indonesia had the highest stress scores this year while those in the Netherlands had the lowest.
  • Garmin users got nearly 1% better sleep this year, with an average sleep score of 71.
  • Younger Garmin users typically had higher Body Battery™ energy levels, with 18–29-year-olds averaging 75. Users 40-49 years old averaged 70, while users over 70 years old averaged 64. Those in Portugal recorded the highest average Body Battery levels, while Japan had the lowest.
  • On average, users took more steps per day in 2025. Garmin users in Hong Kong took the most average steps with more than 10,000 per day.
  • Users 18-29 years old did the most outdoor running this year. 50-59-year-olds led the indoor cycling category, while those 70 years and older did the most golfing.

Click here to read the entire report.

What athletes love about Garmin Connect

 “I live a very active lifestyle, from long days surfing to runs and strength work in the gym. Being able to track my recovery, HRV, and overall performance in one place helps me make smarter decisions, stay consistent, and train with real purpose.”

–Brianna Cope, Garmin ambassador

 Garmin Connect is an organised person’s dream. It makes tracking and comparing my performance over time incredibly simple thanks to its clean colour-coded categories and easy-to-read charts. I can instantly spot trends across a week, a month, six months, or even a full year. So, when it’s time to reassess my training, Garmin Connect shows me exactly where I need to dial in my sleep, recovery, and overall workload.”

–Lauren Kalil, Garmin ambassador

“Since coming back to training and racing after having my daughter, I’ve really had to readjust my expectations for training and recovery. Using resting heart rate and HRV trends in the Garmin Connect app has been a huge help to me as I’ve recalibrated what’s normal for me right now. The data helps me know if we are getting the training and recovery load right, or if we need to back down.”

–Skye Moench, Garmin-sponsored triathlete

This year, Garmin Connect+ users can check out their own highlight reel – the Garmin Connect Rundown. Available now in the Garmin Connect app, the personalised annual report includes health, performance and activity stats, including total steps, average sleep score, totals of each activity type and more.

Garmin’s latest smartwatches – like the Venu® 4 and fēnix ® 8 Pro – are packed with popular health and fitness features and seamlessly sync to Garmin Connect, letting users track their activities, analyse their data, compete in challenges and more. Whether you’re chasing a new PR, training for an event or focusing more on overall wellness, Garmin has a smartwatch that’s ready for any goal. Click here to learn more about the latest lineup of Garmin smartwatches.

Engineered on the inside for life on the outside, Garmin products have revolutionised life for runners, cyclists, swimmers and athletes of all levels and abilities. Committed to developing technology that helps people stay active and elevate performance, Garmin believes every day is an opportunity to innovate and a chance to beat yesterday.

Luna 2.0 Smart Ring launches globally at #IFA2025

Luna, a new-age health-tech company approaching the core problem of unlocking human potential, differently, today announces the global launch of Luna 2.0 af IFA2025 its next gen smart ring which comes equipped with the new LifeOS, a powerful intelligence layer that transforms biometrics into adaptive real-time guidance. Luna 2.0 is finally available worldwide at Luna for $300/£300 and $329/£329 with surge charging case. Pre-orders have come from more than 70 countries, and Amazon availability rolling out next month.

Introducing LifeOS:  More than a health tracker, a living intelligence

LifeOS is designed to decode how the body, mind, and environment interact, going beyond raw data. It is the most data trained AI wearable intelligence integrating circadian rhythm science, biomarker signals, personal habits, and contextual data (like chat patterns and daily routines) to create a dynamic intelligence layer.

  • Circadian alignment: LifeOS learns an individual’s internal body clock to guide daily peak performance.
  • Contextual intelligence: It adapts to a user’s lifestyle, habits, and environment.
  • Open & extensible: Built as an open-source plug, LifeOS is designed to ingest additional data streams over time.
  • Trained at scale: LifeOS is powered by over 1 billion sleep events, making it the most extensively trained intelligence layer across rings.
  • 21+ day battery life: Powered by a redesigned charging case, making Luna one of the longest-lasting smart rings available.

Smarter wellness, backed by AI:

 

  • AI-driven health scoring: Luna Ring 2.0 delivers real-time sleep, readiness, and activity scores. These scores are powered by an upgraded Luna AI engine that analyses physiological patterns to offer personalised recommendations on sleep quality, stress resilience, and recovery.
  • Luna AI 2.0 assistant: Building on user feedback, the new AI system is more contextual and conversational, offering proactive suggestions for sleep optimisation, movement patterns, and energy management, bridging the gap between raw data and real-life wellness decisions.
  • Comprehensive activity logging: The ring supports advanced workout tracking, including heart rate zones, effort levels, calories burned, and more across structured activities such as running, cycling, walking, and freestyle sessions.
  • Fertility tracking: Luna detects physiological shifts in an individual’s cycle like temperature and recovery to predict phases and personalise wellness insights.
  • Manage stress: Luna spots signs of stress through heart rate, recovery trends, and temperature shifts so patterns can be identified and action taken.
  • Body training: Luna tracks daily effort and recovery to guide smarter workouts, helping build fitness without burning out.
  • Enhanced sleep analytics: Luna 2.0 now provides deeper sleep analysis with expanded insights into latency, efficiency, circadian rhythm alignment, sleep cycles, movement disturbances, and respiratory performance during rest. This demonstrates how quality of sleep affects wellbeing.

Global Rollout and Momentum

Luna 2.0 has had pre-orders across 70+ countries. Retail and distributor prescence is being established across the world for faster delivery and service. Unveiled at CES, 2025 as a first time concept, bringing Luna 2.0 to the global tech stage for the first time at IFA Berlin is an exciting step for Luna as Europe is a key focus market.

“Luna 2.0 represents a step-change in what a smart ring can do,” said Amit Khatri, Founder of Luna. “With LifeOS, we’re moving beyond passive health tracking into an era where your ring actively helps you make better decisions for performance, recovery, and long-term health.”

68% of IT leaders believe AI reduces staff stress levels

Storm Technology, a Littlefish company, today announces new findings from its survey* which found that 68% of IT leaders believe the use of AI by staff reduces stress levels.

The research – involving 200 IT decision-makers and leaders across Ireland and the UK (100 respondents per market) – found that 60% think AI will help reduce burnout in their organisation, with almost three quarters (72%) of respondents of the opinion that AI would help employees to achieve a better work life balance.

Meanwhile, some 66% think AI would allow employees to reduce manual repetitive tasks and focus on more meaningful work, with 57% revealing employees are optimistic about the potential impact of AI on their day-to-day routine.

Showing the influence of AI and the current level of uptake across businesses in Ireland, some 69% of IT leaders in this market would prefer to work for a company that is more advanced in terms of AI adoption.

The research found that 70% of respondents in Ireland are in organisations which already permit the use of AI and 68% are using the technology to assist with their own work. In fact, over half (51%) use AI on a daily basis for work purposes and only 2% never use it at all.

However, the research found that barriers remain when it comes to AI adoption, the most cited one being a lack of understanding within the wider organisation about potential applications or benefits – selected by 31% of all respondents.

Backing this up, almost three quarters (73%) of IT leaders agree that user adoption is a concern when it comes to AI implementation. Furthermore, almost a third (30%) do not believe senior management in their organisation understand the potential of AI.

The other top barriers to AI adoption were the management of data, privacy and security (28%), lack of trust in AI (27%), employee resistance (27%), and a lack of AI skills in the organisation (27%).

On the topic of AI skills, 40% of IT leaders do not believe their team currently has the technical skills or knowledge to implement or adopt AI. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, 70% think employees expect to receive AI training and enablement.

John Tallon, M365 Productivity & Adoption, Azure Application Innovation and Azure Data & AI Practice Director, Storm Technology, said: “AI is creating a predicament for people and businesses. On the one hand, it is seen as a means of reducing workload stresses, supporting creativity, and productivity. However, on the other hand, there is reluctance to adopt AI, stemming from a gap in understanding and the necessary skills required. Businesses will need to bridge this knowledge gap to capitalise on the benefits of AI. Empowering people will drive the biggest impact across the whole business.”

Why You Should Try 10 Minute Gaming Boosts Every Day

Did you know that gaming can actually be quite good for you? Everything in moderation of course, especially when it comes to screens, but yes! There’s quite a few things that some regular gaming time can do for you, and all you need is 10 or so minutes each day to benefit from them. 

So why not try having a 10 minute gaming boost once a day for the next week or so and see what it can do for you? You might find that the benefits below creep into your days and make them all the richer.

Gaming is a Lot of Fun

Pure and simple, gaming is fun. No matter the kind of games you like to play, which could be rounds of freecell and sudoku on your phone, or playing FPS shooters in multiplayer mode, you’re going to have some fun! Pop a 10 minute gaming break in the middle of the day and the day itself is likely to feel like less of a drag. 

And if you’re not a serious gamer who likes to indulge for hours every week, these 10 minute gaming boost breaks could bring more enjoyment into your usual schedule. If you’re on a 9 to 5, and your work breaks don’t quite lift the low energy the workday leaves you with, load up a game and play it for this short while.

Gaming Can Help Blow Off Steam

Feeling a bit frustrated? Feeling like you’re at boiling point and could bubble over? Remove yourself from the situation, first of all, and then think about loading up a game you like.

Gaming is great for blowing off steam when you really need to lessen the pressure. Stress can quite easily crush you even during the course of a fairly normal day, and it’s good to find efficient and healthy outlets for it. 

Using a game for this purpose is quite a quick method for taking stress off your plate, and when you’re working, 10 minutes is sometimes all you have spare! 

Gaming Allows You to ‘Reset’

Had a pretty bad morning and need a 15 minute break to yourself? Spend some time gaming during it. Doing so could help you to ‘reset’ your mood, as well as clear the cotton wool that feels like it’s clogging up your brain. 

Playing a game can help to reduce the noise going on in your head, as well as give you something else to focus on for a few minutes, and sometimes that’s all you need to get back into the head space you need for the rest of the day. 

Plus, gaming is quite easy to access, and like we said above, it’s fun! It could even feed into mindfulness techniques that help you to feel grounded and present in the moment. 

A 10 minute gaming boost once a day could help you in various ways, and especially in those above. Take a break, blow off steam, and have some fun.

Lero technological research could enable older people to live independently reducing the stress for them and those who support their self-reliance

Improving technology-enabled home care for older people to help Ireland reduce the annual €500 million impact on the economy from people falling – especially those over 65 – is one of the goals of a new interdisciplinary research programme at Lero, the University of Limerick-based Research Centre for Software.

A two-year €140,000 research programme focussing on technology-enabled care (TEC) in home environments is being part-funded by Shannon-headquartered Ei Electronics, one of Ireland’s leading indigenous electronics manufacturing and exporting companies, employing 1,250 worldwide.

Lero researcher Associate Professor Katie Crowley said that while technology-enabled care (TEC) in home environments currently has support items such as motion sensors and panic buttons, the innovative development and use of technology can help people function safely and remain at home longer.

Dr Crowley, who is also attached to The Ageing Research Centre (ARC) at the University of Limerick (UL), added: “One example of this is in relation to falls. The National Health Service in the UK report that approximately 1 in 3 adults over 65 years and half of people over 80 will have at least one fall a year.  “In Ireland, the economic impact of falls is €500 million annually, according to data from the Health Service Executive. For the elderly, having a fear of falling significantly increases the chance of having a fall, and emerging evidence suggests that having monitoring technology reduces this fear, leading to improved mobility for the older person,” added Dr Crowley, who lectures in the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at UL.

Lero lead researcher Prof. Ita Richardson believes a growing need exists to modify and integrate occupational home practice with innovative technology and software, changing homecare significantly for older people who often have cognitive, physical, caregiving and healthcare needs. “Initially, we need to understand how older people’s lives and the lives of their formal and informal carers could change through TEC,” said Prof. Richardson, who also shares her expertise with ARC.

The Lero team also includes Dr Ann-Marie Morrissey, who brings occupational therapy expertise to the project.

Ei Electronics head of research and development Mike Keegan said they are delighted to work with Lero, whose work in connected health, driverless vehicles, smart communities, and other areas is world-leading.

“At Ei Electronics, we are all about deploying dependable technologies to improve people’s living environment today and into the future. Where lives are at risk, especially among older adults living independently, nothing can be left to chance, and we hope this programme can make life less stressful for those living by themselves and those supporting that independence,” he added.