This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: That big, flat Apple Watch redesign we expected in 2021 might arrive this year to soothe our lingering disappointment. The latest renders by Ian Zelbo, spurred by a tweet from leaker ShrimpApplePro, make Apple Watch Series 8 look quite appealing.

Also on The CultCast:

• Is Cupertino about to “fix” Apple TV’s biggest problem?
• The AR/VR headset Apple’s been working on for so long sounds like it’s almost ready for prime time.
• Apple employees, like many other tech workers these days, just don’t want to report to the office. Who can blame ’em?

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video livestream, embedded below.

This week’s show is sponsored by Jamf Now and Squarespace. See below for special offers.

Withings, maker of health devices and smartwatches, launched its new ScanWatch Horizon wearable on Tuesday. It looks like a classic dive watch but packs modern health and activity tracking, 30-day battery life and Apple Health integration.

It’s not cheap, but there are reasons for that.

After ongoing rumors and leaks, Google finally confirmed Wednesday at its I/O 2022 developer conference that the Pixel Watch exists. And the round-cased smart watch will be released in fall 2022 alongside the Pixel 7 smartphone.

The Pixel Watch will duke it out with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Watch, which it resembles. But it will also look to knock market leader Apple Watch off its pedestal.

Aura Devices updated its health-metrics-focused smart band for Apple Watch Wednesday by slimming it down and adding a fitness-oriented subscription service.

The second-generation Aura Strap 2 records metrics like body fat percentage, muscle density and water levels.

Six months after its launch, people are still griping about Apple Watch Series 7. Even our own Lewis and Erfon recently agreed on The CultCast that Series 7 wasn’t worth the upgrade.

Many have moaned that it lacks new features, with some even suggesting it was a last-minute rush-job on Cupertino’s part. Personally, I don’t believe a word of it. I love my Series 7 and I think the haters have got it all wrong. Here’s why.

Apple has started selling refurbished units of the Apple Watch Series 7 through its online store, nearly seven months after it first went on sale.

If you have been looking to buy a new Apple Watch on a tight budget, you cannot go wrong with Apple’s refurbished store offering.

May 2, 1995: Apple enters the wearables space with its first watch, a timepiece with no fitness-tracking tech, no on-screen notifications and a whole lot of 1990s styling.

The first Apple watch comes two decades before wearables will become a thing. A regular wristwatch, the freebie gadget is available as a special mail-in offer to Mac OS upgraders.

Apple developers are trying to enable the upcoming Apple Watch Series 8 to sense the wearer’s body temperature, according to a trusted analyst. But it’s not a done deal. Cupertino also hoped to make sensing body temp part of Series 7 but couldn’t work out the bugs.

This is just one of the health-related sensors that are proving to be a challenge for the Apple Watch team.

Why mess with multiple chargers for multiple devices when you can use one for everything? A quality charging station can provide the same charging power as dedicated cables, while taking up a fraction of the space.

The modular Omnia Q5 5-in-1 Wireless Charging Station can power five devices at once: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods and Apple Pencil. And for a limited time it’s $89.95 (regularly $120) with code SPRING10.

Wristcam, the camera-equipped Apple Watch band, now features FaceTime-like video calling, the company said Thursday.

The accessory initially launched in December 2020 with an 8-megapixel camera and a 2MP selfie camera. It was the first watch-band camera to receive the “Made for Apple Watch” designation.