At CES 2025 in Las Vegas, cutting-edge wearable health tech is pushing boundaries beyond basic activity tracking, offering new capabilities like blood sugar monitoring, heart murmur detection, and more. These innovations are changing how people engage with their health, though questions remain about the reliability of the data they provide.
In a market projected to exceed US$100 billion by the end of the decade, wearable devices such as smartwatches and fitness trackers are evolving. The global tracker market, which includes watches, bands, and other devices, is now valued at approximately US$60 billion, according to industry estimates.
“Before smartwatches, no one was thinking about heart-rate monitoring,” said Anna Barnacka, CEO of MindMics, a health-tech startup that unveiled its latest innovation at CES. “Today, everyone is quite aware of how important it is.”
MindMics’ new earbuds use wave-based technology to deliver a comprehensive analysis of cardiac activity, including the condition of heart valves. The device has been shown in clinical trials to detect a murmur in a patient with aortic stenosis, a heart condition that narrows a valve. Currently, diagnosing such conditions typically involves invasive procedures like inserting a probe into an artery.
Another significant debut at CES is Stelo, a wearable patch from California-based DexCom. Stelo is the first non-prescription device designed to continuously measure blood glucose levels, marking a shift in how these devices can be used. While glucose monitoring devices have traditionally been reserved for people with diabetes, Stelo is also available for those with prediabetes or anyone interested in monitoring how food affects their blood sugar.
DexCom’s Chief Operating Officer Jake Leach explained, “The vast majority of people with prediabetes don’t know they have it because they haven’t been tested.” According to the CDC, around 100 million Americans are affected by elevated blood sugar levels, but many remain undiagnosed.
In addition to glucose and cardiac monitoring, the latest generation of wearable devices includes those capable of detecting sleep apnea, measuring blood pressure, and tracking cardiac arrhythmia. However, the accuracy of the data collected by these wearables is not without controversy.
Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research, raised concerns about the approval process for such devices, describing it as “pathetic.” She criticized the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) validation procedures, noting that connected devices are not subjected to the same rigorous testing as pharmaceuticals.
Zuckerman emphasized the need for greater transparency, stating, “The only way I could tell whether the quality of the data is improving is if it were being made publicly available in a way that somebody like me could evaluate.” However, such data is often not accessible for independent review.
Despite these concerns, some devices, including those from MindMics and DexCom, have undergone independent evaluations by doctors and researchers, with positive findings for specific use cases.
Tammy Brady, a professor at Johns Hopkins University specializing in hypertension in children, cautioned against over-relying on wearable devices for blood pressure readings. While she acknowledges the potential benefits of widespread blood pressure monitoring, she stressed that the current technology is “too approximate to use reliably.”
Brady, a member of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) committee on blood pressure monitors, hopes that ISO standards for cuffless blood pressure measurement will lead to more rigorous testing by manufacturers and regulatory bodies like the FDA.
As health-tech wearables continue to advance, they are reshaping how we track and understand our health. However, ensuring that these devices deliver accurate and reliable data remains a crucial challenge for the industry.
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