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A sense of building tension. Visible is the chilled vapour emanating from my fellow runners as they perform the "starting line" shuffle on the starting line.

A quick movement of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local 5km community parkrun and I mean business. Three, two, one...

Hold on. I need to start my watch. So does the guy next to me.

The person behind us sighs. I refuse to go until… yes! Connection established, and I'm running.

In the mele, it's challenging to find a person without a wearable on it. And it's not just us participants who use them.

We're witnessing a booming, multi-billion dollar industry. Names like Garmin lead the market, each with an broad selection of diverse versions to fit a range of budgets. Based on how advanced the device you go for, price tags can vary between a hundred pounds to a significant investment.

"It makes me crazy, it's impossible to stop checking."

"It reassures me… It feels like a companion supporting me."

"I wish it wouldn't say I've experienced a restless night."

A handful of the comments people have shared from like-minded smartwatch wearers when I ask what they think of theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My current opinion on my own device? Currently, irritating. It's telling me I'm not hitting my target, making me wonder whether the trees along my route are interfering with my location tracking.

A vast number of us fasten these small devices onto our arms and keep them on all day and night, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're perpetually recording us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them only to give us an idea of our step count. Currently, they can measure our sleep patterns, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our body battery.

It's difficult to find a health indicator they aren't designed to measure.

But do they do what they claim to do? And are the numbers we analyse a faithful picture of the truth? Do they improve our overall health, or do the plethora of measurements and constant notifications just increase our sense of overwhelm?

A Complicated Bond

"I become a bit preoccupied with mine," an individual confesses.

While she appreciates how her device tracks her exercise, she finds some of its other functions "daunting" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a major life event.

Before she realised she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch kept telling her she was not being energetic enough. Now, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I've got a young baby, it's unnecessary for me to be told I'm tired," she says. "That fact is only too well."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"I could, I suppose, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she explains. "I value it for its fitness insights, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is maybe too much for me."

How Do They Work?

Different brands of smartwatch has its own unique way of measuring your health metrics and analysing your data, but the majority use sensors on the back of the watch.

They commonly project minute LED lights onto your skin which can detect capillary action, detecting your heartbeat. Sophisticated devices measure changes in the electrical current that flows through the skin to gauge your recovery state.

The Professional Viewpoint

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially save lives, "detecting disease before we feel unwell", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly monitor how normal the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is irregular impulses in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not mean someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an advance notice they might be more susceptible of a blood clot in the future.

But how to make sense of these figures is not straightforward. The expert fears that as further capabilities are added, people may struggle to fully comprehend their data.

"I have some doubts that having the capacity to monitor so many metrics is such a good idea," he says.

A health researcher studying wearable tech agrees. A study into the impact of wearable tech on a set of heart condition patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced heightened worry and were "had a higher tendency to use healthcare resources".

She noted a pattern with her patients - they saw a concerning reading on their watch. They felt anxious. Their BPM increased. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their reading increased again.

"If we see stats about ourselves that we lack context for then, understandably, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we check again - it becomes a vicious cycle."