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An atmosphere of feeling of anticipation. Visible is the frosty air emanating from my competitors as they execute the "pre-race" jiggle on the start line.

A swift flick of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I mean business. It's almost time...

Oh, hang on. I need to adjust my device. So does the runner alongside me.

The person in the line expresses impatience. I won't start until… done! Connection established, I'm off.

In the mele, it's challenging to spot a person without a smartwatch on it. And it's not just us athletes who rely on them.

We're witnessing a explosive, multi-billion dollar industry. Names like Samsung Galaxy are prevalent, each with an wide range of different models to fit a range of budgets. Based on how advanced the model you go for, prices can start from a hundred pounds to a small fortune.

"I find it infuriating, I can't relax."

"It reassures me… It's like a companion guiding me."

"Stop telling me I've experienced a restless night."

A small sample of the comments people have shared from fellow device users when I ask what they feel about theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My feelings on mine? At this moment, irritating. It's reporting I'm not hitting my target, making me wonder whether the foliage I'm passing under are interfering with my location tracking.

A vast number of us fasten these small devices onto our wrists and keep them on all day and night, seemingly unconcerned with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

Gone are the days when we relied on them only to give us an idea of our step count. Currently, they can measure our sleep quality, stress levels, heart rate variability (HRV), our VO2 max.

It's tricky to find a bodily function they fail to monitor.

But do they do what they claim to do? And are the data points we scrutinise a true reflection of our actual health? Do they improve our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of metrics and motivational messages just increase our daily stresses?

A Complicated Bond

"I become a quite obsessed with mine," a wearer confesses.

While she values how her device tracks her runs, she finds some of its other features "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a major life event.

Before she realised she could change its configuration, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was not being productive enough. Later on, the watch frequently reports her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I have a infant, I don't need to be informed my sleep was poor," she says. "That fact is only too well."

Is it not possible to just take it off?

"I suppose I could, I suppose, but I have this love-hate relationship with it," she explains. "I appreciate it for its exercise data, I just wonder whether the additional features it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

How Do They Work?

Different brands of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of measuring your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the vast bulk use optical sensors on the back of the watch.

They typically emit tiny, coloured LED lights onto your wrist which can monitor pulsation, recording your heartbeat. Higher-end devices measure changes in the bioimpedance that flows through the skin to get an idea of your recovery state.

A Fine Balance

A data scientist says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially prevent illness, "spotting abnormalities before we notice anything", it could also turn us device users into the "worried well".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly monitor how stable the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is irregular signals in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is about to have a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more at risk of a heart problem in the years to come.

But how to understand these readings is complicated. The expert concerns that as further capabilities are incorporated, people may find it hard to fully contextualise their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that having the capacity to monitor so many things is such a good idea," he says.

A clinical psychologist studying patient behaviour concurs. Her work into the influence of wearable tech on a set of individuals with health issues suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use medical services".

She identified a cycle with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate went up. They got more worried. They checked again, and their heart rate increased again.

"When people are presented with stats about ourselves that we lack context for then, naturally, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We look, we check again - it becomes a feedback loop."