What we learned being at the world’s biggest tech show this week
Happy Friday and greetings from Las Vegas. All week we’ve been rolling through the annual Consumer Electronics Show — and, yes, it’s as wild as ever. From the usual flood of TVs and robots to the latest AI gadgets, CES is proof that tech is infiltrating every corner of our lives.
But health tech continues to steal the show — and this year, it feels like it wants every part of you.
In the last year, we’ve seen a dramatic shift in health tech. Biomarkers, and at-home diagnostics became buzzy words taking us beyond steps and heart rate but instead promising us how our bodies actually work.
Blood panels and metabolic insights were suddenly hot topics outside of clinics, as consumer gadgets began promising physician-level data without ever leaving your house.
In 2026? The trend isn’t slowing— it’s exploding. Health tech at CES was dominated by devices and platforms aimed not just at tracking activity, but capturing biology: from advanced smart scales analyzing 60 biomarkers in seconds to connected apps that tie nutrition, sleep, stress, metabolism, and yes… even urine analysis into your daily digital health picture.
But here’s the rub for me.
What started as truly insightful has fast started feeling stressful.
If it were up to brands, they’d have access to (and sell) every part of you — including your bowel movements.
One marketing executive I spoke with said to me, “you’re getting rid of it so why not get something out of it.”
That casual line which was delivered with a smile, hit me weird. It was as if we’ve become data vessels first and humans second.
Brands are unbashfully wanting to cash in on every single molecule of your being.
DNA, AI, and Nutrition & Stool Tracking — A Microcosm of the Trend
I highlighted it earlier this week but take Garmin’s big CES announcement: the addition of food, calorie, and macronutrient tracking inside its Connect+ ecosystem. Huge in theory because nutrition is a cornerstone of performance — but Garmin is not doing this for free. It’s tucked into Connect+, the paid subscription tier, locking what many would consider basic health tracking behind a paywall.
Garmin’s version blends your fuel logs with workouts and recovery stats, and even uses AI to summarize patterns and offers suggestions. And that’s great. Garmin clearly wants its users to live healthy lives. But only if you pay.
And this mirrors a larger move we saw everywhere at CES: companies are pushing integrated health ecosystems and narratives claiming to know you better than you know yourself.
From Scales to Mirrors to your Toilet Bowl? They Want to Deep Dive Into Your Biology
This year’s show wasn’t just wearables and watches — it was nearly every surface and output of your body:
Withings Body Scan 2 turned the humble bathroom scale into a biomarker hub, saying they can measure over 60 metrics in under 90 seconds — everything from heart efficiency to metabolic health, even patterns linked to prediabetes risk. They call it a ‘Longevity Station.’ I’m still on the fence after taking my socks off and going through the demo. We’re hoping to review to get a better sense of if this is worth it or simply stress inducing.
Women’s health had a real presence at CES 2026, not as a niche corner but as a core category. I thought Peri, a small wearable that adheres to the torso and tracks perimenopause symptoms like anxiety, hot flashes, night sweats, sleep disruptions, and menstrual changes, was interesting. Paired with an AI-powered companion app, Peri aims to help women understand what their bodies are signaling during a phase of life that’s often misunderstood, underdiagnosed, or dismissed entirely. Available for pre-order now for $449.
Vivoo, Withings U-Scan, and Throne all want to be in your bathroom evaluating just how healthy you are by analyzing your pee and in some instances your stool. That’s right, Throne will (with a camera) track how often you go, you poo sizes, and how they change over time. With Vivoo and Withings, they want you peeing on their sensor so they can tell you how well you’re hydrating, ketone levels, vitamin-c levels, Bio-acidity, and more.
Across the entire floor you could find talks on next-gen biomarkers and “longevity stations” aimed at early detection and prevention. Yet, in all of this, at no time did I hear one company talk about saving anyone. No case studies or examples, just fear.
From Insightful to Stressful
The human mind is wired to respond to signals of threat and uncertainty — a survival mechanism that once helped us flee predators.
Today it helps sell health tech.
Imagine this scenario: You use a urine sensor first thing in the morning and it flags an irregularity. You go to work stressed. You can’t focus. Your heart rate edges up. That night, your Whoop or another wearable flags your elevated HR as a potential concern. Suddenly you’re trying to interpret two systems — both telling you you might be “off”. It’s easy for that to cascade into anxiety.
This is the tension at the heart of CES 2026’s health tech trend: we’re trading peace of mind for data-driven uncertainty. Not data vetted by doctors but written by computer scientists and .
Yes, more information can help prevention and performance — but when every device is vying for a piece of your biology, it can also create situational stress that undermines the very wellness it promises to improve.
It’s one thing to know your sleep cycles; it’s another to chase every metric that says you “might be progressing toward a condition.”
The big question for 2026 isn’t whether health tech can measure your pee, body composition, or food logs — it can. It’s more like: how important is all of this information on a daily basis?
One executive chalked this up as progress.
But from where we sit — in the athlete world where stress management is as critical as training load — that’s not always good news.
Sometimes, I just want to take a dump in peace.
Thoughts?
What do you think, are brands recklessly sewing fear to sell us our every insight.
Let us know in the comments.
Note: This piece was written by a human who was in Las Vegas for an entire week experiencing the above first hand.
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