The default fitness wearable is quietly shedding its screen. Screen-free devices went from a rounding error to nearly a third of tracked launches in two years, while the screens that remain skew more premium.
Among the launches Fitness Tech Trends tracks, screen-free devices, meaning rings, chest and arm straps, and audio-first hardware with no display, went from 1 of 33 launches in 2023 (3%) to 9 of 30 in 2025 (30%). That is a 27-point jump in two years, and it is significant at the 1% level (Fisher exact, p is about 0.005), a stronger footing than most single-stat wearable claims can offer.
The rise is broad, not one brand’s bet. The 2025 screen-free set spans the Whoop MG and Whoop 5.0 straps, the RingConn Gen 2 Air ring, the Polar Loop, the Garmin HRM 200 and HRM 600 chest sensors, the Shokz OpenFit 2 Plus open-ear buds, the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 with onboard heart rate, and the Suunto Aqua. Nine different products from eight makers, covering four distinct form factors. The lone 2023 entry was the Ultrahuman Ring AIR. So this is not a rounding artifact off a small base year: an entire category of display-less tracking hardware showed up at once.
The AMOLED misread
One reading worth stating plainly, because it corrects an easy misread of the same data. If you look only at raw display share, AMOLED-class panels appear to fall from 82% of tracked launches to 63%. That decline is a denominator effect, not a screen-quality story. Once you set aside the screen-free devices and look only at hardware that actually ships a display, AMOLED share rose, from 84% in 2023 (27 of 32) to 90% in 2025 (19 of 21). Screens did not get worse. Fewer wearables have a screen at all, and the ones that do skewed more premium.
The plausible driver is that continuous health tracking, heart rate, HRV, sleep, and recovery, no longer needs a wrist display to deliver value, and removing the screen buys battery life, comfort, and lower cost. The touchscreen watch is becoming one form factor among several rather than the assumed default.
Cite this data: Fitness Tech Trends, “Screen-Free Wearables Reached 30% of Tracked Wearable Launches in 2025, Up From 3% in 2023” (2026). https://fitnesstechtrends.com/screen-free-wearables-tracked-launches-2023-2025/
Methodology
Source: FTT wearables database, last updated 2026-08-04. Cohort = wearable launches with a release date in each calendar year (2023 n = 33, 2025 n = 30), de-duplicated on accent- and case-normalized brand + model.
Screen-free definition: a display_type field that is null or begins with “None” (explicit screen-free, screenless, or no-display entries). All other devices are counted as screened.
Sample: 2023, 1 of 33 launches screen-free (3.0%); 2025, 9 of 30 launches screen-free (30.0%). Difference of 27 points; Fisher exact two-sided p is about 0.005. Supporting figure, AMOLED- or OLED-class share among screened devices only: 27 of 32 in 2023 (84%) versus 19 of 21 in 2025 (90%).
Scope: figures describe FTT-tracked launches, not a census of the wearable market, and not market share. Part of the 2025 rise reflects FTT deliberately widening coverage of non-watch wearables (rings, straps, audio) during 2025, which is itself real market movement but is named here rather than hidden.
