This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest phones, smartwatches, apps, and other gizmos that swear they’re going to change your life. Optimizer arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 10AM ET. Opt in for Optimizer here.
The other day I was staring into my toilet. Not because I was hungover, stricken with food poisoning, or in the midst of a deep clean. No, I was installing a gadget that I affectionately call the Pee Shell. The actual name is the Withings U-Scan, a $380 at-home urinalysis test with a removable cartridge that either measures your nutritional biomarkers or the likelihood of developing kidney stones.
Somehow, for legitimate work purposes, I was going to spend the next several weeks measuring my pee. Because my pee was going to provide crucial data about my ketone, vitamin C, hydration, and “bioacidity” levels, whatever the hell that meant. Armed with this data, I could theoretically further optimize my diet and… I don’t know. Be healthier?
Also on my mind was a new smart hormone testing kit I’d have to set up. I repeat: a smart hormone testing kit. Because apparently hormone optimization is a trending wellness topic, particularly among influencers trying to “naturally heal their polycystic ovary syndrome,” realign their cortisol levels, or conquer the dreaded and ambiguous specter of “inflammation.”
Marked in my calendar? The next two-week testing stint for my last pair of over-the-counter continuous glucose monitors. Or, as companies have begun to call them, glucose biosensors. In my inbox were several pitches proposing I set up an appointment to get my blood drawn so that I could upload the data into an algorithm so I could keep an eye on more biomarkers than I could feasibly keep track of. It’s not from hokey, no-name startups, either. These were also features Oura and Whoop introduced in the past year. In the past, I’ve tested multiple sweat patches that claim to optimize my hydration so I can perform better.
It was at this point, right before my cat batted my ceramic Oura Ring 4 from the toilet tank into the bowl, that I realized the cursed truth: I’ve become a living, breathing wellness tech science experiment.
On paper, I’m an ideal subject for this extensive testing. I’m genetically predisposed to diabetes and have multiple metabolic conditions. I train a lot. Theoretically, tracking all these factors could give me insight into how well treatments are working between doctor’s appointments. I could tweak my nutrition, log it, and have evidence for a more informed check-in with my doctor. Combined with long-term sleep, heart rate, blood oxygen, and cardio fitness metrics, this maximalist approach could perhaps empower me to conquer the hormonal imperfections I was born with.
But it’s a laborious undertaking. There’s always an optimal way to use these wellness gadgets and features. Tests and measurements need to be conducted under specific conditions, or you could bork results. For example, when Samsung introduced smartwatch body composition measurements, reviewers were advised to obtain their measurements at the same time every morning, on an empty stomach, after going to the bathroom, preferably not on your period or wearing jewelry, and with moisturized hands. I’m not kidding. I know several reviewers who were scolded by the Galaxy Watch 4 for having dry fingers.
With connected health gadgets and wearables, the device itself only stores data for a certain period of time, and it varies on each device. Most gadgets and apps recommend daily syncing. If you are looking for multiple data inputs, compiling everything in a single place is flippin’ hard. The digital health tracking space is incredibly fragmented. It can legitimately take an hour or two out of your day.
This level of self-monitoring can be anxiety-inducing for simple metrics like steps, activity, and heart rate. These extra features that dig into your saliva, sweat, blood, and urine make health tracking feel exponentially more Orwellian. But speaking as an “ideal test subject,” I feel compelled to put my decade of wearables expertise to good use. If there is any value to this approach, I’m willing to be a guinea pig. For better or for worse.
Oura is perhaps the company that crystallizes this moment. I’ve been long-term testing various Oura Rings for the past six years. Back then, all Oura did was track your sleep, recovery, and basic activity metrics.
In 2025, I’m testing its latest ceramic Oura Ring 4 model. (Don’t worry, I disinfected it three times.) The amount of data that I can feed through Oura’s app right now is astounding. When used with a Dexcom Stelo glucose biosensor, I can view my blood sugar levels and chat about them with an AI in the app. I can order blood tests from Quest Diagnostics from the app, too. Once those tests — not ordered by my primary physician, mind you — are complete, the results for 50 metabolic and cardiovascular biomarkers can be viewed right next to my sleep, heart rate, exercise, nutrition, stress, cardiovascular fitness, and illness prediction data. I wouldn’t be surprised if this time next year, my Pee Shell data or any number of digital hormone tests could live in the Oura app, too.
Convenient for biohackers! It’s a big reason why Oura is such a popular brand in the wellness space. Or at least it was, until Oura sparked controversy this summer for partnering with Palantir and a contract with the Department of Defense, leading to a viral backlash and users canceling subscriptions over concerns the company would share their private data with the government and military. Oura CEO Tom Hale later denied that the company would ever share user data with third parties, clarifying the nuances of its privacy policy, encryption, and the different standards for consumer products and government contracts.
Whether Hale was telling the truth isn’t the point, though. This whole thing illustrates a fundamental problem with the notion that collecting more data leads to better health.
I’m not denying that self-monitoring wearable data has improved and even saved lives. But the sheer volume we’re adding to the mix is baffling. The average person doesn’t have a medical degree, nor the training to meaningfully parse that data. I certainly don’t and I’ve been reporting on this stuff for about a decade. Also, it’s taken six doctors over 12 years for me to get accurate diagnoses and a proactive treatment plan. I’d argue doctors are also unsure of how to effectively interpret wellness data. Plus, more data isn’t the main reason why I finally got answers. That I’d attribute more to a masochistic stubbornness to do battle with the US healthcare system.
And then there’s the question of for whom am I collecting this data. What parts of these health data transactions are protected by HIPAA? (Little to none for consumer wearable data.) Should any company be trusted with data mined from substances inside my body? (No.) Or is it all good because it’s been marketed for “self-education” under the deliberately ambiguous wellness label? I’m more cavalier with my health data than most, but pushing toward constant, always-on, ever-expansive, and invasive health tracking? Where the burden of interpreting data is left to users — and increasingly, AI chatbots? Without adequate regulatory guardrails in place?
I know that’s a colossally bad idea. So, I guess I’ll see you all in future Optimizers as I discover if any part of the wellness surveillance state is actually worth it.
