Wearable Technologies: smartwatches, fitness trackers and wristbands
This short review focuses on one category of Wearable Technologies: Smartwatches, fitness trackers and their use of Core Body Temperature monitoring for a broad range of applications.
Introduction
Wearable Technologies – A definition
The term “Wearable” or “Wearables” or even “Wearable Technologies” describe all various technologies that employ electronic devices that can be worn as accessories, integrated into clothing, or even implanted or tattooed in the user’s body or skins. [1,3]
The industry of Wearable Technologies kicked off in 2014 with the development of smartphones and low energy bluetooth that allowed those products to develop fast. The industry of wearable technologies comprises various product categories from E-textiles, hearables, extended & virtual reality (ER & VR), to smartwatches. The growth of wearable technologies industry accelerated in recent years despite the COVID-19 represented by the launch of the 7th generation of the Apple watch in 2021. [2]
The rapid adoption of such technologies has placed wearable technology at the center of the Internet of things (IoT). Indeed, throughout the years, devices computing abilities, features and the sensors incorporating them have been multiplied driven by the advances in allied technologies such as wireless communication, computation and miniaturization. Sensor technologies have supported the raise of smart devices as a disruptive innovation particularly suited for monitoring and tracking functions. The development of wearables combining and integrating multiple sensor technologies has further augmented the capabilities of monitoring, sensing, tracking and data analytics, especially in the fields of Health & Wellness and Sport & Fitness.
The Evolution of Smartwatch and Fitness Trackers markets
This market is a booming consumer device market – initially driven by the activity market and nowadays dominated by smartwatches and fitness trackers.
Primarily a consumer device and B2C market driven by the largest payer – Apple, it now extended to fitness, wellness but also to health monitoring with companies offering technologies for workplace health and safety. Smartwatches and fitness trackers allow to monitor real-time key physiological metrics. The most widely monitored metrics are:
- Step counting (activity characterization & metrics)
- Geo-localization
- Blood pressure and other cardiac metrics based on optical HR, HRV, spO2).
- Temperature (peripheral, core body temperature) for fever detection and ovulation monitoring.
Who uses Core Body Temperature Monitoring via Smartwatches or Fitness Trackers?
- Athletes and Sport Amateurs for Sports Performance Evaluation
- Organizations for workplace health and safety, and heat stress prevention
- Caretakers for Remote Patient Monitoring and baby monitoring
- Individual health monitoring with fertility tracking, circadian rhythm for sleep analysis,
Core Body Temperature sensor integration into an upper-arm medical device
greenTEG’s Core Body Temperature Monitor was successfully integrated into SensArm, Waire Health‘s Technology to develop the most advanced medical grade wearable vital signs monitor for non-invasive, continuous and remote patient monitoring. A compact and miniature sensor with an AI-based algorithm allowed greenTEG to develop three sensing solutions designed to suit your application needs:
- CALERA® Technology | Core Body Temperature monitoring solution for OEM integration for Wearable and MedTech applications.
- CORE Body Temperature Monitor | Core Body Temperature monitoring solution for B2B & White Labeling.
- CALERAresearch | Core Body Temperature monitoring solution for Research applications.
This short video relates well the advantages of Core Body Temperature monitoring for Individual Health Monitoring including Sleep or Circadian Cycle Tracking:
N.B. Due to copyright reasons, this video is available only in Switzerland. Contact us for more information.
greenTEG offers the world’s first core body temperature sensor for continuous and non-invasive measurements on the wrist, upper-arm and chest body positions. greenTEG’s CALERA® technology has been developed and validated by more than 10 clinical trials showing for all position with clinical-grade accuracy.
- Validation study of Chest-worn device: Core Body Temperature Sensor Under Real-Life Conditions.
- Validation study of wrist-worn device, available here.
- Validation study of upper-arm-worn device, available here.
- Validation study for baby monitoring, available here.
References
[1]Tiwari V.N., Bopardikar A.S., De A. (2022) Non-invasive Monitoring of Health Using Sensor-Rich Wearables and Smart Devices. In: Gargiulo G.D., Naik G.R. (eds) Wearable/Personal Monitoring Devices Present to Future. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5324-7_7
[2] IDTechX Webinar – 2021
