Amazon has added a new bedtime feature, called Sleep Studio, to its Echo Kids lineup. It gives children access to a curated library of sleep-focused content, including guided meditations, soundscapes, and stories from Calm, Headspace, and Moshi. The feature is included with Amazon Kids+, a subscription that comes bundled with Echo Dot Kids and Echo Pop Kids.

How it works

Parents set up sleep schedules and build playlists through the Amazon Kids Parent Dashboard. About 30 minutes before bedtime, the Echo device automatically starts playing the queued content. Kids can also trigger Sleep Studio themselves by asking Alexa, which Amazon says helps build independent sleep habits.

Amazon’s Echo Glow can also pair with the feature to add a visual cue through color-coded lighting that signals the start of a sleep window.

Content partners and availability

The content library draws from three partners. Calm contributes meditation content, lullabies, soundscapes, and sleep stories. Headspace offers wind-down content developed by child psychiatrists and pediatricians. Moshi, the kids-focused audio brand from Mind Candy, adds bedtime stories set in the Moshi Monsters universe.

Amazon says the feature was designed with child sleep research in mind, pointing to National Sleep Foundation data showing nearly half of US children do not get the recommended amount of sleep. Sleep Studio is now available on the Echo Dot Kids, Echo Pop Kids, and any Echo device with an Amazon Kids+ profile enabled. It gives Amazon’s Echo Kids hardware a clearer value proposition in the children’s tech market, where dedicated sleep apps and smart night lights have carved out a loyal audience among parents.

Smartwatches and fitness trackers are everywhere now, and more Americans are buying them than ever. But a new study suggests that owning one and actually getting meaningful health value out of it are two very different things.

Researchers from Yale School of Medicine analyzed data from 17,395 participants across three national survey cycles covering 2020, 2022, and 2024, and the picture they found is more complicated than the wearable industry would like to admit.

What the numbers actually show

Wearable device use among US adults climbed from 30.2% in 2020 to 41.1% in 2024. The problem is that everything else stayed flat or got worse. Only around half of wearable users reported wearing their device every day, and that number has not improved over time.

The data sharing numbers are even more concerning. Willingness to share wearable health data with doctors dropped from 81.3% in 2020 to 73.4% in 2024. Actual data sharing with clinicians barely moved, sitting at just 14.2% in 2020 and reaching only 19.2% in 2024. That means fewer than one in five wearable users are sharing their health data with the professionals who could actually use it to provide insights.

Why the gap keeps growing

The study found that better digital literacy made people more willing to share their data, but that willingness did not translate into actual sharing in practice. The researchers point to the health system itself as the main bottleneck.

Your doctor’s system is not set up to receive data from your wearable. Most medical records cannot connect with consumer devices, and there is no standard process for clinicians to routinely review what your Apple Watch or Fitbit has tracked.

The researchers conclude that simply getting more people to wear these devices will not close this gap. The health system needs to build the infrastructure to use the data that people are collecting.

TL;DR

Microsoft unveiled Project Solara at Build 2026, a chip-to-cloud platform for “agent-first devices” that run AI agents instead of traditional apps. Two concept devices, a wearable badge and desk companion, are being piloted with Best Buy, CVS Health, Levi’s, and Target.

Microsoft unveiled Project Solara at Build 2026, a new chip-to-cloud platform designed from the ground up for devices that run AI agents instead of traditional applications. The platform includes a lightweight operating system built on AOSP, enterprise-grade security and management through Intune and Entra ID, and what Microsoft calls “just-in-time UI,” the ability for agent experiences to adapt their interface dynamically to whatever device they are running on. Two concept device reference designs were shown: a wearable badge and a desk companion, both targeting enterprise workers.

The announcement is significant because it represents Microsoft’s first attempt to build an operating system and hardware platform around the premise that apps are being replaced by agents as the primary way people interact with computers. Google, Salesforce, and OpenAI are all building agent platforms, but Microsoft is the first to extend the concept to purpose-built hardware that is neither a phone, a PC, nor a tablet.

What the devices look like

The badge concept reimagines the corporate access badge as an always-connected AI companion. It includes a touchscreen display, a fingerprint sensor for Hello for Business authentication, a far-field microphone array and speaker for voice interaction, a side-facing camera, and WiFi, Bluetooth, 5G, and satellite connectivity, all powered by Qualcomm wearable silicon. A nurse, a retail associate, or an office worker wearing it can glance at upcoming meetings, tap to record an in-person conversation with full transcription, or ask their agents questions hands-free.

The desk concept is a small stationary device with a touchscreen, dual microphone array, speaker, UWB presence sensor, and MediaTek IoT silicon. It authenticates via facial recognition (Hello for Business) and provides ambient access to AI agents while the user works. Plugged into an external display via USB-C, it transforms into a Windows 365 cloud PC client, giving enterprises a single device that serves as both an agent companion and a thin client.

Both devices are explicitly not designed to run traditional applications. There is no app store, no browser-first experience, no traditional desktop. The entire interaction model assumes that the user’s relationship with software is mediated by agents rather than by opening and navigating individual applications.

The platform architecture

Project Solara runs on MDEP (Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform), an enterprise-grade operating system built on the Android Open Source Project. This is notable: Microsoft is building its next-generation device platform on Android’s open-source base rather than on Windows, a pragmatic choice that gives the platform access to Android’s hardware compatibility and driver ecosystem while allowing Microsoft to layer its own agent shell, security model, and management stack on top.

The platform is built on three pillars. First, enterprise readiness: Intune device management, Entra ID authentication, Hello for Business biometrics, and physical privacy controls including a hardware mic mute button. Second, an agent-driven interaction model with just-in-time UI that adapts across different screen sizes, form factors, and input modes. Third, extensibility for multiple agents, both Microsoft’s own (Copilot, Researcher, Facilitator, a new Priority Agent) and third-party agents built on Microsoft 365 Agents SDK, Copilot Studio, or the Microsoft Agent Framework.

Enterprise AI agents are already being deployed in retail, financial services, and healthcare, but they run on existing devices. Project Solara’s thesis is that purpose-built hardware, shaped around how agents work rather than how apps work, can deliver better experiences in specific workflows and environments.

Just-in-time UI

The most technically ambitious element of the announcement is just-in-time UI. Traditionally, every new device form factor requires developers to redesign their applications for the new screen size, resolution, and input method. This is one reason new device categories are expensive to create and why they struggle without a strong app ecosystem.

Microsoft’s answer is that agents should generate their own interfaces. On a small badge screen, an agent might render a minimal card with a single action. On a desk device, the same agent produces a richer visual layout. On a connected display, it generates a full dashboard. The agent adapts its presentation to the device rather than requiring developers to build separate experiences for each form factor.

Today, this works through semi-structured approaches like adaptive cards. As AI models improve at generating layouts and interfaces, Microsoft expects the system to move toward increasingly dynamic and eventually fully generative UI. The company is explicit that fully generative UI “is not here yet” but is investing in the middle of the spectrum between responsive design and unconstrained generation.

Who is testing it

Hundreds of Microsoft employees are already using the concept devices internally. The company has also announced a private pilot programme with AccuWeather, Best Buy, CVS Health, Levi’s, and Target, a list that spans retail, healthcare, and consumer services. GitHub Copilot and Dragon Copilot (Microsoft’s healthcare AI) are both exploring agent-first experiences on the platform.

The enterprise agentic AI market is consolidating rapidly, and Microsoft is betting that the next competitive advantage is not just having the best agents but delivering them through the best-suited devices. A nurse wearing a Solara badge that captures patient interactions, surfaces relevant records, and tracks follow-up tasks is a fundamentally different value proposition from the same nurse typing into a laptop between patients.

Whether enterprises will adopt yet another device category, with all the procurement, management, and change management that entails, is the central question. Microsoft’s answer is that agents reduce the cost of specialisation: because the agent adapts to the device, not the other way around, the barrier to creating new form factors drops. The platform is designed to make it possible, not inevitable. The pilot partners will determine whether it is also desirable.