Are Wearable Computers Worthwhile If They Provide Inaccurate Data?

Companies like Apple and Garmin offer smartwatches that make it possible to accurately measure your age through VO2max, which is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during intense exercise.

Experts suggest that the higher your VO2max, the healthier your heart and your chances of leading a long life. Until recently, the only people who underwent the traditional VO2max test with complex sensors while they exercised in a laboratory were elite athletes. However, a smartwatch is now good enough for anyone to measure VO2max by wearing one and being active.

While some argue that knowledge is power, one can’t help but wonder how accurate smartwatches are in measuring such metrics. After five months of delving into VO2max numbers, the writer discovered some harsh truths about their health and the restrictions of smartwatches.

The writer shares their fitness journey which started when the Apple Watch offered heart rate information as a birthday gift and indicated a VO2max score of 32, a mediocre score for someone in their late thirties. This, coupled with falling down the VO2max rabbit hole, prompted the writer to join a high-speed gym, and after five months, progress was observed. The Apple Watch showed an estimated VO2max score of 40, and the Garmin watch attested to a score of 45.

The next step was to undergo a real VO2max test, and that is where the good news ends. The result from the lab was a poor score, 25, which was a lot lower than the scores from the Apple Watch and Garmin, emphasizing the pros and cons of relying on smartwatch data to track health. Despite the inaccuracy of the watch, it helped push the writer towards tackling their health issues and perhaps improved their health.

This experience has helped the writer understand that wearables could be beneficial, despite the inaccuracies of the data they provide. This article offers tips on maintaining a healthy relationship with technology to track various health issues, from sleep to body fat, and how to interpret data. Sweat, a gym in Oakland, California, collaborated with PNOĒ, a metabolic health lab, to create a VO2max clinical test to measure people’s oxygen capacity during exercise. The test results revealed a significant difference when compared to VO2max scores provided by smartwatches from companies like Apple and Garmin. The writers discovered that the algorithms used by these companies are not entirely reliable, and that their results differ from individuals’ actual VO2max results.

Health professionals interviewed for this article agreed that the data provided by most wearables, despite being wrong, promotes individual health awareness and encourages people to take action.

Accurate numbers are not important; what matters is how the data changes over time, and the performance that counts. Wearables should be viewed as a guide, and the user must focus on their overall health rather than an exact number or measurement. Therefore, all sorts of things, such as a faulty sensor, a loose strap, or the imperfection of the algorithm, can throw the data off.