That is Optimizer, a weekly publication despatched each Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the newest telephones, smartwatches, apps, and different gizmos that swear they’re going to vary your life. Optimizer arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 10AM ET. Choose in for Optimizer here.
At CES 2026 this week, folks stored asking me what well being tech I used to be seeing on the present ground. My solely reply was this: bodily fluids. As in urine, blood, sweat, and saliva.
With most individuals, my response sometimes bought a handful of groans and raised eyebrows. Amongst insiders, I shocked nobody.
CES is floor zero of the wellness Wild West. At Eureka Park and the Venetian Expo, you’ll discover dozens of digital well being startups hawking all the things from smartwatches and good rings to good pillows. This isn’t new, per se. Urine tech particularly has all the time been a staple on the present, however what’s notable this 12 months isn’t merely the presence of this tech — it’s the concept mining these fluids will help you reside longer and more healthy.
Right here’s a few of what I noticed: at-home hormone testing kits utilizing urine and saliva; good menstrual pads and panty liners; an in-toilet hydration tracker; a mirror that analyzes your facial blood flow to estimate how properly you’re growing older; a sperm microscope; and a smart scale that analyzes metabolic well being by way of foot sweat.
It’s not simply tiny startups, both. Greater names within the house are additionally opening their platforms to accommodate knowledge sources past coronary heart fee. On the present, Withings announced it was partnering with Abbott to combine the latter’s steady glucose screens (CGMs). Oura has an analogous partnership with Dexcom that was announced in 2025. Whoop additionally added the flexibility to get blood panel data integrated into its app final 12 months, adopted quickly by Oura, and now Ultrahuman is doing the same.
On the core, this fixation on bodily fluids is proof that the complete business is doubling down on metabolic well being as the following frontier. The place digital well being began with cardiovascular well being, the following part hinges in your metabolism. So after logging tens of 1000’s of steps on the present ground, I sat down with Oura CEO Tom Hale and Dexcom CEO Jake Leach to speak about the place metabolic tech goes, the challenges forward, and what we’re more likely to see as customers.
Each mentioned the actual balancing act is between discovering helpful knowledge from further metrics and the potential to overwhelm folks with well being anxiousness. Whereas folks could also be effective with step and coronary heart fee knowledge, entering into deeper metabolic insights comes with far more delicate knowledge. Introducing extra superior detection options — like, say, hypertension or glucose alerts — raises the stakes.
“Truly, we don’t want extra sensors. We’d like extra sense,” says Hale, who views metabolic insights derived from blood or urine testing as extra more likely to be episodic than steady. For Hale, the purpose is to mix occasional, use-case-driven knowledge with longer-term baseline knowledge.
“You’re making an attempt to unravel a sure drawback. Possibly you’re going by way of an excellent annoying time, and also you’re making an attempt to handle your stress since you’re hypertensive. Okay, possibly a cortisol sweat check is actually helpful, however whenever you determine that out, are you going to repeatedly measure your cortisol? In all probability not.”
“Bringing the information collectively in a single place is actually useful. Having it in disparate locations on disparate gadgets is problematic, however you’ve bought to have know-how and software program floor precise insights and never simply, ‘Right here’s all these blood markers and right here’s the place they need to be,’” says Leach.
This can be a story as previous as well being tech — and one many corporations are attempting to unravel with AI. Therefore why you’re beginning to see so many corporations including AI-powered diet monitoring, chatbots, and insights into their apps. Dexcom added AI insights for its Stelo CGM. Oura has also done it. In the meantime, at CES 2026, Garmin introduced it was additionally adding AI nutrition logging to its app for subscribers.
On paper, it’s a pattern that makes a ton of sense. The truth is that the AI just isn’t there yet. After I push Leach on that, he agrees.
“We’ve bought to push previous that, and that is the place issues are sort of caught. A know-how like CGMs that has such apparent outcomes is a superb know-how to be pioneering that,” Leach says, noting that there are direct correlations between the life-style modifications an individual makes and the way they’re mirrored of their glucose readings.
The opposite drawback, nonetheless, is knowledge privateness. Getting blood exams is invasive, and many individuals at the moment reside in a state of heightened anxiousness. It’s a troublesome time for well being tech to ask for extra knowledge from its customers.
Working example, Oura — and by extension, Hale — acquired backlash earlier this summer season when Oura was revealed to have a partnership with Palantir and the Defense Department. Customers accused the corporate of promoting and sharing consumer knowledge, forcing Hale to come back on social media to refute the accusation. In public statements on social media, Hale said that Oura by no means sells or shares consumer knowledge; the Palantir partnership in query referred to a separate enterprise program. After I press the problem, Hale reiterates this level, including that customers’ menstrual knowledge particularly is off-limits.
Months later, Hale says “Palantir-gate” didn’t damage the corporate a lot general, however was a compelling expertise. “We weren’t promoting anyone’s knowledge, however we realized simply how afraid individuals are about that and the way a lot of a 3rd rail that’s.”
In any other case, each Leach and Hale pointed to diet, blood stress, and wearable gadget ecosystems as doubtless developments within the house. Dexcom plans so as to add macro monitoring and a redesigned app later this 12 months. In the meantime, Hale famous that we’d quickly begin seeing better integration between good glasses and meals monitoring. For instance, taking a photograph of your meal, getting calorie estimates, after which cross-referencing all that knowledge along with your given tracker of alternative. Hale additionally recognized power situation administration as one other potential avenue wearables and well being tech are beginning to discover.
“The wearable house basically is experiencing fairly the increase proper now, and I feel it’s pushed by the precise want of individuals to reside more healthy and for healthcare programs to enhance their outcomes,” agrees Leach. “Wearable know-how is the way in which we do that at scale, as a result of not each physician can see each affected person the entire time.”
Taking all this in, I don’t suppose the common Joe is all of a sudden going to be putting in pee collectors of their bathroom, going for month-to-month blood attracts, or stepping on $600 scales that inform you how lengthy you’re going to reside primarily based in your foot sweat. That would really be a dystopian 2026. However primarily based on what I noticed, and what I heard from Hale and Leach, I do suppose you’re going to begin seeing a bigger shift away from fundamental health and extra towards this concept of selling longevity by way of preventive measures. It’s going to be much less about closing your rings day by day and extra about doing small way of life experiments over just a few months and monitoring any modifications. Optimistically, these modifications might assist forestall or enhance frequent illnesses that construct up over time, like diabetes, hypertension, or excessive ldl cholesterol. Possibly these experiments will contain bodily fluids, possibly not. However clearly, the business appears to suppose metabolism is the important thing to unlocking a more healthy you.
Sadly, I feel which means extra bodily fluids.
