Personal activity trackers are becoming a very popular item not only amongst the athletic and physically fit, but with many people interested in tracking their daily physical activity. Although wearable fitness trackers are not necessarily new technology, athletes have long made use of similar products, the new lightweight, wristband hybrid was made available to consumers for less than a decade. As the popularity of these products continues to grow, developers and producers continue to improve their capability and reliability. What was once a simple, wrist mounted device, tracking pulse, steps (pedometer function) and calories consumed, is now a multipurpose product equipped with App interfaces and syncing capabilities using Bluetooth technology.
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Improvements such as these could possibly replace drawing blood from a patient in search specific biomarkers (Howell, 2014) signalling health concerns. The origin of this proposed sweat analysis is actually based on research conducted by the U.S. Military, as described in a linked article US Military’s Skin Sensors Could Reveal Science of Sweat. Upon reading both articles I was struck by how the evolution of this product appears to align with material read and discussed in our course. For example, a device to record heart rate based on activity level was originally developed by the military, and later adapted for use with athletes, typically within a laboratory or controlled environment where other diagnostic technology was present to record other pertinent factors. Overtime, and based on advancements in other the technological products used in other fields (digital and medical) resulted in the creation of a pedometer; a small product worn on one’s person recording activity level based on the number of steps taken over a certain period of time, providing a value representative of the caloric count the wearer
Improvements such as these could possibly replace drawing blood from a patient in search specific biomarkers (Howell, 2014) signalling health concerns. The origin of this proposed sweat analysis is actually based on research conducted by the U.S. Military, as described in a linked article US Military’s Skin Sensors Could Reveal Science of Sweat. Upon reading both articles I was struck by how the evolution of this product appears to align with material read and discussed in our course. For example, a device to record heart rate based on activity level was originally developed by the military, and later adapted for use with athletes, typically within a laboratory or controlled environment where other diagnostic technology was present to record other pertinent factors. Overtime, and based on advancements in other the technological products used in other fields (digital and medical) resulted in the creation of a pedometer; a small product worn on one’s person recording activity level based on the number of steps taken over a certain period of time, providing a value representative of the caloric count the wearer