Health Wearables: Is Personalised Data Creating More Value or Confusion?
- Gavin Williams
- Jul 2
- 5 min read
The Rise of Wearable Health Tech: A New Era of Self-Monitoring
Is your wearable really telling you the full story of your health?
Devices like WHOOP, Oura and Fitbit are now everyday companions for those interested in longevity, optimisation, and functional health. They promise personalised insights, habit tracking, and performance feedback, all from the convenience of your wrist or finger. But for many users, access to this data raises more questions than it answers.
What does a high heart rate variability (HRV) really mean for me today? Why did I sleep for eight hours but still feel exhausted? Should I train or rest? These questions reflect a larger issue: while wearables offer real-time, personalised data, most people aren’t trained to interpret it meaningfully.
Even among health-literate individuals, there's a growing gap between data collection and actionable insight.
If you’re relying solely on wearables to guide your health decisions, you may be missing the bigger picture and potentially misreading the signals.
The Rise of Wearable Health Tech: A New Era of Self-Monitoring
From step counters to biometric dashboards
We’ve come a long way from simple pedometers. Today’s wearables measure everything from sleep quality and skin temperature to oxygen saturation, HRV, and readiness scores. They're pitched as performance-enhancing tools and wellness allies, increasingly adopted not just by athletes, but everyday professionals, parents, and health seekers.
The promise of longevity and optimisation
Within the longevity and functional medicine community, wearables represent a low-barrier way to track change and monitor trends. For people who thrive on metrics, gamified goals, and biohacking, they offer a sense of control over ageing and healthspan. But that sense of control can be misleading.
The Personalised Health Data Problem: We’ve Got Numbers, But Not Knowledge
Metrics without meaning
A WHOOP score or a Garmin sleep stage report can be fascinating but also misleading. While these devices excel at collecting data, they don’t necessarily help people understand that data within the broader context of their health, life stress, or medical history.
Without interpretation, many users fall into one of two traps: either they ignore the data altogether, or they obsess over it. Both paths can lead to confusion, anxiety, or poor decision-making. Especially when data from wearables is treated as static truth, rather than dynamic information within a constantly changing biological system.
Changing baselines and the illusion of certainty
Most wearables rely on algorithms that compare your data to population-level norms or personal baselines. But those baselines shift due to illness, emotional stress, travel, hormones, or even daylight savings time. Without the full picture, a single low readiness score can feel like failure when it may simply reflect an accurate, temporary adaptation.
Beyond the Wrist: What Your Wearable Isn’t Telling You
The deeper layers of functional health
Wearables are excellent at tracking surface-level metrics. But they can’t assess inflammation markers, gut health, hormonal rhythms, or early signs of chronic disease. For that, we need functional testing like blood panels, stool tests, MRIs, and other diagnostics that provide context.
It’s been argued [2] that wearables should be seen as a complement to clinical assessment, not a replacement. They’re useful trend indicators, but they rarely tell the whole story.
Tests that matter but aren’t easy to get
Most people don’t have routine access to tests like full blood counts (FBCs), cortisol rhythm panels, or brain imaging unless they’re symptomatic. This creates a paradox: we’re flooded with data from wearables, but starved of deeper insight. For true personalised care, we need access to both.
The Trap of Gamification: Are We Mistaking Points for Progress?
Health as a scoreboard vs. health as a process
Gamification has helped millions engage more consistently with movement, sleep, and mindfulness, but it has its downsides. When health becomes a series of checkboxes or points to earn, we risk disconnecting from internal cues. We override how we feel in favour of how we "score."
When feedback loops reinforce stress, not recovery
Some studies suggest that wearables can improve self-awareness[3], but they can also increase anxiety and obsessive behaviour in users who are prone to perfectionism or health anxiety.
That low recovery score? For some, it’s a helpful reminder to rest. For others, it becomes a source of stress that further disrupts recovery.
What We Actually Need: Interpretation, Integration, and Individualisation
Data literacy and functional health coaching
Interpreting your wearable data within the broader picture of your health is where the magic happens. This is where coaches, practitioners, and data-literate professionals can help by turning raw numbers into useful insights.
It’s not about ditching your device, but learning to use it better. Knowing when to question a score, when to zoom out, and when to seek more comprehensive testing is a skill set that’s not built into the wearable, but can be developed with guidance.
Bringing the full picture together
True functional health embraces complexity. A smart, personalised approach involves layering data from wearables with lifestyle insights, subjective experience, and diagnostic testing. That’s what turns information into transformation.
So, What’s the Solution?
Questions to ask before relying on a wearable:
What is this device really measuring, and how accurate is it?
What isn’t it measuring that might be important?
Am I interpreting the data in isolation or within context?
Is this data improving my decisions or creating confusion or stress?
Building a smarter relationship with your health data
Wearables are tools, not oracles. Used well, they can be motivating, informative, and supportive. But they’re not a shortcut to optimal health. For that, we still need real conversations with ourselves and our healthcare providers. Conversations that include lab tests, health history, emotional wellbeing, and more than just a readiness score.
When we integrate wearable data into a broader, functional health framework, we move beyond gamified behaviour to meaningful longevity.
References:
Llamas-Velasco, S., De la Torre-Luque, A., Lara, J. P., & Perea-Bartolomé, M. V. (2023). Effects of wearable devices on health behavior change: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 25, e47441. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37547027/
Pizzo, A., Del Din, S., & Rochester, L. (2023). Use of wearable sensors and digital health tools in clinical trials and care: State of the art and future challenges. NPJ Digital Medicine, 6(1), 121. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37391266/
Jafleh, E. A., Alnaqbi, F. A., Almaeeni, H. A., Faqeeh, S., Alzaabi, M. A., & Al Zaman, K. (2024). The Role of Wearable Devices in Chronic Disease Monitoring and Patient Care: A Comprehensive Review. Cureus, 16(9), e68921. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.68921
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📷 Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash
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