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A sense of building tension. Apparent is the frosty air emanating from my fellow runners as they perform the "about to run" wiggle on the beginning point.

A quick flick of the hips.

I'm at my local Saturday morning race and I mean business. Three, two, one...

Oh, hang on. I need to sort my device. So does the guy alongside me.

The person behind us sighs. I'm not moving until… done! GPS ready, I'm off.

During the scramble, it's difficult to see a arm without a smartwatch on it. And this isn't only us participants who rely on them.

We're witnessing a booming, massive industry. Names like Garmin dominate, all offering an broad range of diverse devices to fit a spectrum of lifestyles. Depending on how advanced the device you select, costs can vary between a hundred pounds to thousands of pounds.

"I find it infuriating, I'm unable to stop checking."

"It provides solace… It acts as a companion supporting me."

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

A handful of the responses I've received from fellow device users when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My thoughts on my own device? Right now, frustrating. It's reporting I'm off pace, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are disrupting my satellite signal.

Countless individuals of us strap these compact devices onto our arms and wear them constantly, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're continuously tracking us.

A distant memory are the days when we depended on them exclusively to give us an rough count of our daily steps. Currently, they can measure our sleep quality, heart rate, glucose levels, our recovery score.

It's difficult to find a health indicator they don't track.

But can they do what they say they do? And are the numbers we scrutinise a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they improve our daily wellness, or do the avalanche of measurements and constant notifications just add to our sense of overwhelm?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I find myself getting a bit preoccupied with mine," one user confesses.

While she appreciates how her device records her runs, she finds some of its other functions "daunting" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a pregnancy.

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was failing to be active enough. Later on, the watch insists her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I have a infant, there's no point to be told my sleep was poor," she says. "I know that perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I have this love-hate relationship with it," she explains. "I value it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether the myriad other functions it can now do is maybe too much for me."

Inside the Device

Every device of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of monitoring your vitals and interpreting your data, but the vast bulk use sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They typically shine minute LED lights onto your skin which can detect blood flow, detecting your heartbeat. Higher-end devices detect changes in the bioimpedance that runs through the skin to gauge your nervous system activity.

A Fine Balance

One expert says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically prevent illness, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us device users into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which constantly monitor how stable the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is abnormal signals in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not automatically signal someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an early warning they might be more vulnerable of a stroke in the long term.

But how to make sense of these figures is complex. The expert fears that as further capabilities are added, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

"I have some doubts that the ability to monitor so many metrics is such a positive development," he says.

A professor specialising in cardiology echoes this sentiment. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a specific group of individuals with health issues suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced increased anxiety and were "far more likely to use doctor's time".

She identified a cycle with her patients - they noticed a concerning reading on their watch. They became worried. Their BPM rose. They got increasingly anxious. They looked a second time, and their heart rate went up again.

"Upon viewing stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, understandably, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We look, we obsess - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."