Wearable Technology

Recently, my grandson texted me to tell me that his wife was having some breathing issues. They did not sound too bad but I told him to check her pulse oxygen anyway. He texted back that is was 88. That was way lower than her symptoms suggested. When I questioned the result, he told me that she had measured it with her smart watch. I told him to get a real pulse oxygen measuring device. It was actually 98.

That 10 point difference is huge. Below 93 is a reason for inpatient treatment. Neither her symptoms nor her real pulse oxygen required that.

Someone recently asked me about wearable medical technology. The question was if it was a useful thing. That answer is a definite “it depends”.

There are some benefits to having heath information immediately available. The most obvious benefit is the ability to identify potential health issues before they get worse. That might be a blood pressure issue. That might be a pulse rate issue. That might be an oxygen level issue.

The second benefit is that it allows individuals to be more mindful of the effects of their activities on their health. Being able to monitor changes over time is a good thing.

Some of the devices allow remote monitoring by treating physicians. This can avoid more frequent office visits. Those take up both the patient’s and the doctor’s time.

The fact that they are portable is useful. They can travel with the patient. That allows insight into a variety of situations.

However, there are some downsides to the use of this technology. The first was evidenced by my granddaughter-in-law. Their accuracy is not always the best. Information over time is useful to check for changes. Information at a specific point in time can be pretty worthless. It can also create unnecessary anxiety.

A second issue is the limited amount of time the device can be worn before it needs to be charged again. Over-relying on a device that needs to be taken off for charging can be an issue.

A third issue is related to those individuals who become obsessive-compulsive about their results. They may over-exercise in an attempt to change their readings. They may develop an eating disorder for the same reason.

Another issue is related to some employers who have their employees use wearable trackers. Construction companies may monitor safety or fatigue or exposure to hazardous materials. Other employers may use the data to reward employees for favorable results.

This data is available in the cloud. It is not protected by medical privacy laws like HIPAA. That subjects it to potentially being sold or lost through data breaches. That loss of privacy can result in a number of serious consequences. For example, a health insurer might raise premiums if results are poor.

A June 2025 article in Nature looked at data safeguards for wearable devices. Google received the top grade closely followed by Apple. Coros, Fossil, Oura, Fitbit, Withings, Polar, Garmin and Samsung all were middle of the road performers for data safeguards. Suunto, Wahoo, Wyze, Huawei, Xiaomi, Whoop and Ultrahuman all had substantive deficiencies in privacy protection.

The bottom line is that there are pros and cons to the use of wearable technology. It is up to the individual to decide whether one outweighs the other.

I use the medical app on my cell phone to have my emergency data available for first responders to review in an emergency. It includes my medical conditions, medications and allergies.

That is my only reason to have medical information. As for other data, since it is only good when monitored over a period of time, it does not matter if I measure it every day or every week or every month. All that is important is that I do not ignore it over time. It is a classic example of to each his own.