Fitness trackers are getting more personal and more powerful in 2022 and beyond

The first fitness tracker you’ve ever owned-whether early or not Fitbit, The now obsolete Jawbone, a simple pedometer, or heart monitor strap probably just tracked your steps and calories burned.early Smart watchOn the other hand, in essence, it felt like a phone companion, not a standalone device.

But fast-forwarding in 2022 changed a lot. Wearables are no longer a niche device for early adopters and fitness enthusiasts. In 2020, the Pew Research Center reported that about one in five adults in the United States regularly wears a smartwatch or fitness band. According to Strategy Analytics, global smartwatch shipments increased 47% each year in the second quarter of 2021, the fastest growth rate in the industry since 2018.

Today’s wrist-worn devices are comprehensive fitness gadgets with the following features: Read the electrocardiogram Monitor sleep quality from your wrist, Measurement of blood oxygen saturation, Above all. It not only opens up a world of opportunities, but complicates things. More access to data on heart rate, amount of sleep and activity, and overall health. However, some newer and more advanced health indicators can be difficult to understand and raise the question of whether they really help.

Therefore, according to conversations with medical professionals, tech executives and industry analysts, context and personalization are important for both current and next-generation wearables. The medical community is also excited about the potential of future fitness devices to detect more advanced indicators such as changes in blood glucose levels and the role of wearables in preventive care.

Better understand health data from fitness trackers

The biggest improvements that are likely to arrive in the near future include making health data more useful and personalized. Oura, husband When Fitbit Already, each scoring system has helped guide the industry in this direction. Some of them require a paid subscription.

For example, both Oura and Fitbit Provide a preparation score This helps the wearer determine whether it is a time of intense training or a break. These numbers are based on indicators such as resting heart rate variability, sleep, activity, and other physical signals. The hoop has a similar recovery score that provides insight into whether the user’s body is ready for strenuous exercise.

Oura The readiness score embodies the company’s overall approach to health tracking. So, according to Oura Chief Product Officer Chris Becherer, the device needs to provide context with numbers and data points. He added that he would maintain that approach with new features such as Oura’s October time forecasting tool and expand to new types of health tracking only if the company could provide equally useful insights.

“We’re not going to do it just to do it,” Bescherer said. “And make sure it fits into the overall user-friendly experience known at Oura.”

Fitbit sees another opportunity to add more personalization and specificity to health indicators. It is to investigate the link between mental and physical well-being. Fitbit is already immersing its toes in mental health EDA appAvailable at Fitbit Sense When Charge 5, Measure changes in sweat to see how your body responds to stress.

Fitbit allows the wearer to record their mood according to those measurements so they can see how they felt when the measurements were taken. By analyzing this type of data over time, Fitbit can better understand what physical changes mean for a person’s overall health and gain more complete insights.

Over time, we can get more and more correlations between this idea of ​​”how do I feel?” Jonah Becker, Fitbit’s Design Director, said: “I think this is a powerful thing.”

The ability to measure additional body signals, such as skin electrical activity (ie, EDA app sweat readings), may also lay the foundation for the future. Fitbit features.. Eric Friedman, Co-Founder and Vice President of Research at Fitbit, said of Fitbit. Sleep stage Function as an example. This ability to notify the wearer of the time spent in light, sleep, or REM sleep is only possible for other metrics in front of it, such as measuring heart rate or movement.

“Think of it and EDA, and you … start building things together, start superimposing these health indicators on each other, and move on to the next,” said Friedman. ..

Glycemic monitoring could be the next big step in health tracking

It remains unclear what exactly that “next thing” is. However, reports and expert forecasts point to wearable glycemic monitoring as an area of ​​interest.

However, that does not mean that diabetics can rely on smartwatch measurements to calculate their insulin dose. Still, for the foreseeable future, more invasive devices that destroy the skin will be needed, said Dr. Steven Le Boeuf, president and co-founder of Valencell, which manufactures health sensors for wearable devices.

Instead, future blood glucose monitoring smartwatches may be able to make a broader observation of whether the wearer is in a hypoglycemic, normoglycemic, or hyperglycemic condition. This helps the wearer understand if dietary or exercise changes are affecting blood glucose, or if the user needs to use a glucose meter, says Dr. Le Boeuf.

“Now there are all sorts of positive implications,” said Dr. Le Boeuf. “So I think wearables can see the technology, whether it comes from Valencel or another entity.”

Dr. Zahifayad, director of the Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Imaging in Mount Sinai, also sees many possibilities in this area. Blood glucose monitoring features such as those mentioned above help wearables provide more personalized nutritional advice. This is important because today’s recommendations are usually based on extensive census, and according to Dr. Fayad, there is a lack of customization.

“The gut microbiota varies from person to person, responds differently to food, and responds to lifestyle changes,” says Dr. Fayad.

However, it is unclear when or whether this type of feature will appear in everyday smartwatches and fitness trackers. Apple has blood glucose monitoring Apple watch, Both reports from Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal suggest that technology is in its infancy.

Roberta Cozza, Gartner’s Senior Director and Analyst, believes there is still a long way to go. Research is being conducted in this area, but she believes that accuracy and medical clearance present challenges.

“I think this requires something medically approved,” she said. “So it will take some time before we find something that is really easy to use and reliable.”

Smartwatches and fitness trackers are already beginning to blur the line between medical and wellness devices. Adding more sophisticated indicators, such as glucose measurements, means that tech companies need to be careful about how users interpret these measurements.

“Vendors may need to find new ways to be more clear to consumers about what they expect when they wear some of these devices,” Cozza said. .. “This is getting more and more complicated.”

Bridging the gap between doctor visits

The medical and technical communities seem to share a common goal when it comes to advances in the wearable space. It’s about helping people take better care of themselves between doctor visits.

“Instead of having one data point per year, we have continuous data points for all parts of the day,” says Becherer of Oura.

This is part of the inspiration behind the new features that have appeared in recent wearable devices. for example, Amazon Hello The Health app includes a tool to estimate body fat percentage based on images taken from your smartphone’s camera and analyze it using machine learning and computer vision. This feature is somewhat controversial when it comes to personal privacy.

However, Melissa Cha, vice president of Amazon’s Halo division, says the goal behind this feature is to enable people to keep a log of physical changes.

“If you have a long-term record and want to discuss changes in body composition over time, you can share it with your healthcare provider or doctor,” Cha said.

Dr. Devin Mann, an associate professor of artificial health and medicine at New York University Langone Health, believes that there will be more crossovers between medical and consumer equipment. That’s because each side has something to learn from each other.

While medical device manufacturers are trying to reach a wider audience, commercial wearables are gaining more advanced health monitoring capabilities.

“We’re like watching these two streams come together,” Mann said. “And there is more overlap between them.”

In the long run, some experts are excited about the potential for early detection of illness using wearable devices. Although this type of function is still in its infancy, Dr. Paul Friedman, an AI cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic Cardiology Workgroup, is encouraged by the industry’s progress. According to Dr. Friedman, a few years ago, most doctors would not have relied on data from health trackers to provide medical information. But it’s changing.

“The answer would have been no. When they were investigated, nine out of ten answered no,” Friedman said. “Now it’s almost reversed.”