The category “wearable tech” includes fitness trackers like the Fitbit and smartwatches like the Apple Watch and the LG Watch, although the list keeps going from there. These devices only touch your skin, but thanks to modern technology they can monitor your heart rate and track your steps. They can also do plenty of other things depending on what you look at and what you connect the device to, so wearable tech has several ways it can improve your health.
Health and Fitness Tracking
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By monitoring things like your heart rate and using devices like accelerometers and altimeters to track the steps you take, fitness trackers and smartwatches can track how many calories you’re using and encourage you to exercise more. You may have heard “always try to walk 1,000 steps per day,” but these devices can offer much more personalized information if you set them up right.
You can also connect their fitness monitoring to a nutrition app when you sync it up with a smartphone like a Galaxy S8 with T-Mobile. The Galaxy S8 is an Android phone and works with all the apps offered by Google Play, which means you have dozens of choices for apps that count calories or help you stick with a diet. In fact, the Galaxy S8 with T-Mobile comes with Samsung Health pre-installed, which means you can start counting calories right away.
Sleep Monitoring
This is something else fitness monitors and smartwatches can do, although not all of them have the right parts, so make sure it’s on the feature list before you wear your Apple Watch to bed. A sleep monitor can track the amount of time you spend in regular sleep and deep sleep thanks to the different ways your body behaves during the sleep cycle, and once you wake up, it can tell you how well or poorly you slept. It can also warn you if you keep waking up in the night and whether you’re running on a sleep deficit.
Stress Reduction
When you live in a constant state of stress, you can forget that you’re supposed to feel more relaxed throughout most of the day. Special devices like the Pip measure the skin conductivity of your fingertips, a trait that has a direct link to your current stress level. The Pip then sends information to your iOS or Android smartphone, and the lower your stress level is, the faster the scene will change on the app. The app also offers some basic stress reduction techniques you can practice, and you can tell whether they’re working based on the scene changes.
Blood Pressure Control
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High blood pressure is another common problem for millions of Americans, and it happens thanks to several risk factors like genetics, obesity, poor nutrition, and stress. A regular fitness tracker doesn’t grip your arm hard enough to track blood pressure, but there are devices that can. You just slip one onto your arm or your wrist and a Bluetooth connection will let you make regular measurements, and it can even take three measurements and give you the average the same way a medical professional does.
The way this helps is by tracking your blood pressure and sending you reminders for when it’s time to take your blood pressure medication. These devices can also act as regular fitness trackers and work with apps that specifically tell you how to improve your blood pressure by eating well and exercising.
Meditation
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Medical science has been able to track brainwaves for decades, but these days the devices that can do this can come on a headband thinner than your finger. High-tech headbands like the Muse can check your brainwave activity level and send the info to your smartphone. The Muse app will then play weather sounds: If you’re calm and meditating, the weather will be calm, and if your mind wanders you’ll hear a storm arrive.
Wearable tech can’t directly make you healthier without becoming an implant, but by monitoring your health and giving you live feedback, it can encourage you to exercise and meditate more while stressing less. All you need is the right device.
