Studies have demonstrated the power of smartwatch technology to encourage increased physical activity among its users, but what effects have this device had on exercise adherence and motivation?
An essential factor in most physical activity studies is participants’ adherence to wearing their wearable devices and providing valid data for analysis, which is key for understanding and interpreting the impact these devices have on health outcomes.
1. Tracking Steps
Wearable devices monitor physical activity by tracking steps taken and data related to physical activity like distance walked, calories burned, and sleeping patterns. Wearables have become widely utilized devices used for various applications like healthcare monitoring systems, navigational aids, consumer electronics devices, professional sports teams and advanced textile technologies.
Monitor and record health and wellness data is both inspiring and motivating for patients as well as healthy individuals alike. Numerous research studies indicate activity trackers’ positive impacts in reducing sedentary behavior across both diseased and healthy populations.
Fitness tracker apps that pair with mobile health apps can be helpful in increasing motivation to exercise by sending personalized prompts and messages as well as offering tangible rewards like raffle entries or drawings for reaching goals. Unfortunately, not all mHealth apps can effectively promote physical activity and motivate users towards fitness.
2. Tracking Heart Rate
Be it an athlete on the competitive scene, or simply striving to reach personal best, monitoring heart rate is an invaluable way to gain insight into how your body is responding during workouts and throughout your daily activities. It will allow you to understand how it functions so that you can adjust it appropriately and maximize performance.
Chest straps and wrist-based wearables use electrical or optical sensors to measure heart rate. Electrical sensors detect the small electrical current created with each heartbeat; optical devices shine light through your skin to measure how light scatters off blood vessels. Chest-band monitors tend to be more accurate than wrist or arm devices.
Recent research found that using fitness trackers increased PA in those living with chronic illness; however, other studies have highlighted possible barriers to adherence with using them such as discomfort with device design or technical issues [58].]
3. Tracking Calories Burned
Fitness trackers have become an invaluable tool in encouraging individuals to stick with exercise plans prescribed by healthcare providers or personal trainers and increase both self-efficacy and perceived control for physical activity.
However, a recent study demonstrated that fitness trackers don’t accurately reflect energy expenditure during exercise by up to 80% compared to actual energy expenditure. They suggested more accurate wristband wearables similar to research-grade actigraphs for counting calories accurately.
Researchers should make sure their studies include adequate adherence and validity measures when assessing mobile health apps for health behavior change, such as tracking daily adherence measurements using an appropriate minimum threshold of valid days per measurement (for instance 10 hours of daily wear time per week).
4. Tracking Sleep
These devices not only make data-mining fun and educational, they can also act as reality checks. For example, if your sleep quality suffers due to an unhealthy bedtime routine (e.g. binge watching Game of Thrones before bed) or too much sitting at work, using a tracker can help identify patterns and set new habits to enhance overall quality of rest.
Wearable devices, like the THIM and Motiv rings, use multiple sensors to track sleep. These include heart rate measured through photoplethysmography, blood oxygen level monitoring and movement tracking. While these wearables show promise, more research needs to be conducted to verify their accuracy.
5. Tracking Stress
Wearable devices provide users with information on their daily activity, calories burned, sleep quality, stress level and level of fitness based on steps taken and heart rate during physical exercise (Mishra, Mishra, Tripathy & Dutta 2020).
Some wearables detect changes in sweat gland electrical properties to measure stress levels, then combine this data with an indicator number which tells you how effectively you have managed it.
This feature allows users to set personal goals and monitor their progress towards them, using wearable devices or motivational messages as motivation. This approach conforms with behavior change theory and may increase self-efficacy; however, it’s important that individuals understand how their personality and preferences impact how they use mHealth apps.