🔗 Share this article

There's a feeling of anticipation. Visible is the cold breath coming from my competitors as they do the "pre-race" jiggle on the starting line.

A rapid movement of the hips.

I'm at my local weekly parkrun event and I mean business. The countdown begins...

Oh, hang on. I have to start my tracker. The same goes for the person alongside me.

The person behind us sighs. I won't start until… there! Connection established, I'm off.

In the mele, it's difficult to spot a person without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us participants who rely on them.

We're witnessing a booming, multi-billion pound sector. Names like Garmin lead the market, each with an broad selection of different devices to suit a spectrum of budgets. According to how advanced the device you choose, prices can vary between a hundred pounds to thousands of pounds.

"It makes me crazy, I can't relax."

"It provides solace… It feels like a friend encouraging me."

"I wish it wouldn't say I've experienced a restless night."

Just some of the comments I've had from fellow tracker enthusiasts when I ask what they feel about theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on mine? Right now, annoying. It's reporting my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm running below are disrupting my location tracking.

Millions of us attach these little devices onto our wrists and wear them all day and night, apparently at ease with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

A distant memory are the days when we used them exclusively to give us an rough count of our daily steps. Now, they can analyse our nightly rest, stress levels, oxygen saturation, our recovery score.

It's difficult to find a health indicator they don't track.

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the statistics we analyse a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they enhance our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the multitude of measurements and constant notifications just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

Addiction or Aid?

"I do get a quite preoccupied with mine," an individual reveals.

While she appreciates how her device monitors her exercise, she finds some of its other capabilities "daunting" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a significant period.

Before she realised she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was being insufficiently active enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a restless night.

"I have a infant, there's no point to be notified I'm tired," she says. "That fact is perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"I suppose I could, I suppose, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is maybe too much for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Each model of smartwatch has its own novel way of monitoring your health metrics and interpreting your data, but the most use detectors on the underside of the watch.

They usually project tiny, coloured LED lights onto your wrist which can detect pulsation, identifying your BPM. Higher-end devices analyse changes in the electrical current that runs through the skin to get an idea of your recovery state.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the continuously improving tech could actually prevent illness, "detecting disease before we notice anything", it could also turn us the tracked into the "worried well".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which continuously monitor how normal the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is erratic impulses in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not mean someone is on the verge of a cardiac event, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more susceptible of a heart problem in the long term.

But how to understand these figures is not straightforward. The expert worries that as more functions are incorporated, people may struggle to fully contextualise their data.

"I remain sceptical that having the capacity to monitor so many metrics is such a good idea," he says.

A health researcher studying patient behaviour concurs. Research into the impact of wearable tech on a cohort of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced greater stress and were "far more likely to use healthcare resources".

She noted a pattern with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They felt anxious. Their BPM went up. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their reading went up again.

"Upon viewing stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we obsess - it becomes a feedback loop."