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Smart jewelry brings fashion and tech together in the perfect marriage of beauty and brains. We've tested all the smart jewelry out there, and the Bellabeat Leaf Urban is the best piece of smart jewelry for most women.
Wearables don't have to be ugly or super masculine to be high tech and helpful. A number of small startups and a handful of big companies are finally making wearables for women. One of the most exciting new categories is smart jewelry.
Smart jewelry is turning the fitness tracker into a work of art. Some of these gorgeous pieces of jewelry use high-end materials like stainless steel, leather, and wood.
We've tested a lot of smart jewelry, and these are our favorite pieces. Every item in this buying guide offers special smart features, including fitness tracking, notifications, silent alarms, and even mindfulness reminders. Whether you want a smart necklace, bracelet, or watch, we've got you covered.
Updated on 03/13/2018 by Malarie Gokey: Replaced the Fossil Q Tailor with the new and slim Fossil Q Neely. Also added a note about Ringly, a smart jewelry brand we previously recommended. It is now out of business.
SEE ALSO: This under-the-radar Canadian brand makes buying fine jewelry easier and more affordable than ever
The best piece of smart jewelry overall
Why you'll love it: You can wear Bellabeat's Leaf Urban as a bracelet, necklace, or brooch to track your activity, stress level, mindfulness, and sleep.
Bellabeat's original Leaf Nature was the first piece of smart jewelry I ever tried, and I've been a huge fan of the company ever since. I've worn some version of the Leaf almost every day for the past two years, and the new Leaf Urban is my favorite piece of smart jewelry — period.
The Urban has a more modern and durable design that's water resistant and eco-friendly. The leaf-shaped body is made out of recycled wood composite that mimics the look of stone. It's encased in a metal clip that you can get in rose gold or silver. The metal part looks like the abstract veins of a leaf, and it opens up slightly to act as a brooch or a clip.
At either end of the Leaf Urban, the metal curves out into a loop so you can use it as a pendant on a necklace chain or wear it with a bracelet. Bellabeat includes a necklace and leather bracelet in the box along with your Leaf Urban and a tiny screwdriver for when you need to change the battery inside. The tracker is so popular that you can also find a number of handmade bracelets for it on Amazon.
The little wearable tracks your active minutes, calories burned, distance traveled, sleep duration, and sleep quality automatically. Just tap twice on the Leaf Urban to sync it with your companion app and see all the data.
You can also follow guided meditation sequences in the app and set silent alarms to wake up more peacefully in the morning. The app even has period and fertility tracking for those who are interested.
Using an algorithm, Bellabeat can predict your resistance to stress on any given day. For example: Say you didn't sleep well, you haven't exercised, and you've fallen behind on your meditation exercises — you may be more susceptible to stress on that day.
The Leaf aims to improve your well-being so you can live a more mindful, healthy life, and it does exactly that — with style.
Pros: Versatile design, eco-friendly materials, great mindfulness features, fitness tracking, and you never have to charge it
Cons: No notifications and replacing the battery after six months requires removing small screws
The best smart analog watch with a cute face
Why you'll love it: The Kate Spade Holland has a super cute watch face and all the smart features you could want, from notifications to step counting.
There are many cute-looking wristwatches with smart features these days, and one of the most adorable ones is the Kate Spade Holland hybrid watch. It connects to an app on your phone via Bluetooth so you can check your step count and customize the watch's features.
You can get notifications from just about any app on your phone so the watch will buzz when you get a call, text, or any other notification you choose. It even works with apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Google Calendar. You can also set the three watch buttons to perform different actions like taking a selfie or controlling music on your phone.
Beyond the smart features, the Kate Spade Holland is a super cute watch. It has a relatively slim profile, a slender T-style watch strap, and adorable face. The watch face is covered in mother of pearl, and it has cute golden stars and sparkles. The watch hands are pink and tipped with stars as well. Perhaps the cutest feature is the little inscription that reads, "hooray!" at the top of the watch where you can check on your fitness status.
The watch comes in a few different color combinations, including rose gold with a navy strap, gold with a brown strap, and gold or silver with a metal strap. It is a bit expensive at $225 and up, but it's well worth the price.
Pros: Lovely design, slim strap, decent-sized watch casing, adorable watch face, fitness tracking, notifications, customizable buttons
Cons: Expensive
The best fitness jewelry
Why you'll love it: The Misfit Ray is a sleek fitness tracker that's as smart as a Fitbit, but looks a lot more like a piece of jewelry.
Not too long ago, Fossil Group bought the wearable startup Misfit. Misfit's claim to fame was the attractive Shine fitness tracker, which required no charging and was easy to accessorize. Its second fitness tracker, the Ray, is very fashion forward, and Misfit is making tons of accessories for it.
My favorite thing about the Misfit Ray is how simple and subtle it is. With the right band, you could be fooled into thinking it's just a nice, minimalist bracelet.
The Misfit Ray is a slim metal cylinder with a LED light for notifications. It comes with your choice of a silicon or leather band, but you can also buy a lariat necklace for it or a number of different bands to spice things up every now and then. If you don't find what you're looking for on Amazon, Misfit just added a new collection of Ray accessories to its own site.
Since it's first and foremost a fitness tracker, the Ray can track specific activities, steps taken, calories burned, and distance traveled. It's waterproof up to 50 meters, so you can even swim with it. You can see how well you slept and set silent alarms to wake yourself up gently.
If you want to get notifications and alerts for calls and texts, you can set that up, too. Misfit lets you program the LED light in the companion app to show different colors for each notification. The Ray can also trigger a few actions, including take a selfie, control music, turn on a Misfit Bolt light bulb, play Spotify, or control your Nest or Logitech Harmony smart home gadgets.
You never have to charge the Misfit Ray, but you do have to replace the batteries every four months. Luckily, they're cheap and easy to find on Amazon.
Pros: Solid workout and fitness features, sleep tracking, smart notifications, and you never have to charge it
Cons: If you want the jewelry look, you have to buy accessories
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