Google goes after Oura

gm legends. It’s Sunday.

This week: Fitbit gets a makeover, did The Simpsons predict the hantavirus outbreak, why cliched startup advice often isn’t true, and ChatGPT promises it will remember you this time. Plus, five of our favorite launches from the past week. 

This newsletter will always remember you, legend. Enjoy.

P.S. Launching soon? We’d love to hear about it → editorial@producthunt.co 🫶

Remember the Fitbit? It’s been a bumpy road since the granddaddy of fitness trackers was bought by Google in 2021. Since then, the company has terminated Fitbit’s smartwatch lines to push its Pixel Watch instead. 

But there’s a new Fitbit on the market: Fitbit Air. The first thing you’ll notice is that it doesn’t have a screen, instead letting users view their heart rates, sleep scores, blood oxygen levelsm, and other metrics on their phone via the revamped Fitbit App.

This brings Fitbit more in line with screenless wearables like Oura and Whoop. Instead of getting bombarded with notifications that you seem stressed and tired, now you can just be stressed and tired in peace. 

We noticed a few other wearable hardware devices launching this month:

• SpeakON attaches via a magnet to your phone, running with the concept of an AI wearable that captures your thoughts in real time and makes them useful. Your words don’t come out like a stream of consciousness, but like edited copy.
• INSPEC watches you sleep. Okay, that sounds weird, so hear us out. It aims to determine when you’re dreaming, then gently prompts you without waking you so that you can become lucid and experience your dreams.
• AWEAR goes in your ear. It’s not capturing sleep or exercise, but brainwaves. The goal is to give wearers insight into their stress and emotions.

Everyone’s freaking out about the hantavirus, the deadly illness that apparently travelled via cruise ship and is now all over the web. 

So, naturally, someone pulled up a Simpsons clip as “proof” that the long-running animated series predicted the hantavirus outbreak. The show has earned a reputation for predicting world events better than an insider on Polymarket, from Super Bowls to future presidents. There’s even a Wikipedia page dedicated to the phenomenon. 

But while many such prognostications are real, many others have been faked, often with AI. Which is why Isha Godboley created Springfield Oracle. It’s one part Snopes, one part Internet Archive, and all open-source and community-verified. The result is a comprehensive resource for validating or debunking “predictions” that pop up on the internet.

(Oh, and by the way, Isha says, The Simpsons never mentioned the hantavirus.)

Another week, another default model for OpenAI. The company this week released a new model, GPT-5.5 Instant, and made it the default for ChatGPT. According to OpenAI, it’s “smarter, clearer, and more personalized” than its predecessor.

What’s that mean in practical terms? It hallucinates less, can check your math homework for you, and knows how to sort though past prompts and your files to get the answer you are looking for.

Some Product Hunt users are giving it a spin. Here are their early takes:

• Anusuya takes OpenAI at its word but is a bit surprised: “Making the smarter model the default is a bold move; most companies charge more for better.”
• Moh writes that the big upgrade is memory sources so users can see where context is coming from: “Every personalized AI system has the problem of ‘why did it say that’ — and the answer is usually buried in something the user can't inspect. Making personal context visible and editable is a harder UX problem than it looks.”
• Bogdan says that it feels more “capable” now, but he’s noticed something odd: “It seems like temporary chats now start mixing up with the main projects/chats and referencing them more. It's either just starting to do that, or it was way less obvious about it before.”  

Wasil Abdal, a marketing and growth specialist, has heard all the advice: 

• Talk to customers!
• Find your niche!
• Launch on Product Hunt! (That one’s legit, by the way.)

What he wants to know is: What's the one piece of common startup advice you think is completely overrated? 

People in the forum are getting some things off their chest, denouncing startup truisms that just weren’t true for them. 

• Fail fast: How about succeed slowly?
• Build in public: Not if it just creates more noise.
• Be on every channel: Ever heard of burnout?

It’s a spicy conversation. Check it out.