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LuckyGuy's avatar

What functions would you want to add in a health fitness watch?

Asked by LuckyGuy (43691points) July 19th, 2023
20 responses
“Great Question” (2points)

I have been wearing a Garmin Forerunner 265s for about 6 weeks and am amazed at what it can figure out once it adapted to my body physiology. It has sensors for heart pate and blood oxygen saturation, accelerometers and a GPS.
Of course it knows heart rate, HR. Easy. But how does it know respiration? HR is not constant. It increases speed slightly when you inhale and decreases when you exhale. From that lead and lag it determines breathing rate. It deduces other things:
– Stress level
– Heart rate variability
– VO2 Max
– Sleep quality
– Training readiness
It takes about 3 weeks to learn your normals and then works with those numbers to calculate other values.

What additional functions or values would you like to see in a fitness watch – even if it requires an additional sensing element?
I would add:
– Alcohol or THC impairment level determined from heart rate and motion
– Hot flash detection and tracking
– Blood pressure

What would you add?

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Answers

LuckyGuy's avatar

I’d like to see how my VO2 Max numbers compare to a population of of individuals my age, and also the average age of someone with the same numbers as mine.
For example: instead of classifying VO2 Max reading as Fair, Good, Excellent or Superior. I’d like to see it read a number from zero to 100 indicating percentile. something like 80th percentile or 95th percentile. It is easier to see progress with a numerical value.

I’d like to have the option to display the average age of someone with my values. e.g. If I am 65 and it says 65, then I know I am average. If it says 75 then I know I need to work on my health more. If it says 50, that means I should buy that Corvette I’ve been lusting over.

(I have already made an Excel worksheet with this function using the same data set used by Garmin.)

Forever_Free's avatar

I too love my new Garmin Epix gen 2. I would have hoped this was in General but I may add some off the cuff (no pun indented sensors)
– Blood Pressure 100% – It’s a real indicator of Stress and many other important indicators.
– adrenaline level
– Cortisol levels
– Serotonin Level
– fall detector on the Apple watch is an important feature not on the Garmin.
– Dehydration sensor
– Screen overuse detector
– BS detector Needs an AI program that scans all conversations.
– toxins detector
– personal smoke & Carbon Monoxide detector
– An ID 10 T detector
– I use mine to hike a lot. While the maps are great, I would like an off trail detector if I significantly stray from a predetermined charted course. With an option to text someone else an off course text.

chyna's avatar

Due to sleep apnea, my brother would fall asleep at the wheel every time he drove for more than 10 minutes. How he never had an accident is beyond me.
But I think some type of sensor that would go off if you fell asleep while driving would be ideal.

LuckyGuy's avatar

This is great. I’m making a list and putting the suggestions in one of three columns:
No additional sensors needed, Extra sensors needed, Sensor and Internet connection needed.
@chyna I can imagine a watch that detects when you are driving from wrist orientation and velocity and buzzes when you don’t make the usual number of steering wheel corrections per minute.

ragingloli's avatar

Countdown to death, with a voice saying “tick, tock, tick tock” in regular intvals.

RocketGuy's avatar

@ragingloli – that’s the plot device in the movie In Time.

@LuckyGuy – I have a FitBit Versa 3. The feature I like most about it is the battery life. I can go about 5 days without recharging.

Forever_Free's avatar

@RocketGuy The Garmin is averaging about 10 days for me even being used. Such a far cry from my daily charge on my Apple Watch.
They even have a model that does a Solar trickle charge. My daughters Garmin has only been cable charged once in 2 months.

JLeslie's avatar

Blood Pressure
Heart rate
Compass
Outside temperature
Find location of friends and share mine
Emergency medical info about me and emergency contact

LuckyGuy's avatar

I would also like to see A1C blood sugar levels.

chyna's avatar

^Yes!

JLeslie's avatar

What I don’t understand is why doctors don’t test after eating to see how high insulin and sugar is. A1C is over time. The immediate feedback is how high is my sugar or insulin after I eat “this” is important. Diabetics have that information.

RocketGuy's avatar

@JLeslie – You need one of those real time glucose meters stuck to the back of your upper arm. There’s a guy on YouTube who did food experiments while monitoring in real time. He found differences between eating white rice vs brown rice, for example.

JLeslie's avatar

@RocketGuy There was a woman who monitored her levels constantly and she found consuming some vinegar lowered insulin levels. I don’t remember if the vinegar was in the meal or what.

LuckyGuy's avatar

Ooo! What about a reaction time tester?! The watch would flash a green or red or blue square randomly on the watch face. and you would have to touch it. as quickly as possible.
It would learn how fast you do it normally and then periodically check your response to see if you are in the normal range. Alcohol would slow you down. So would some mild strokes.
It would simply be called “reaction time” with no medical information attached.

LuckyGuy's avatar

My list is getting longer. Keep them coming!

Tropical_Willie's avatar

My Smartwatch has a body mass by percentage for water, fat, muscle and bone.

RocketGuy's avatar

@Tropical_Willie – my new bathroom scale measures those, then Bluetooth links to my phone and health app to collect that data.

LuckyGuy's avatar

My reaction time idea exists. See this Whack-A-Mole game
It has 2 modes: the first measures reaction time. The second measures how long of a light sequence you can remember. It starts of with 1 , then 2 then… Maybe you get to 5 or 6 on a normal day. Do you get the same number if you are impaired by alcohol or THC or other drugs?

rebbel's avatar

Blood sugar measurement.
Blood pressure measurement.
Prostate health “detector”.

LuckyGuy's avatar

My watch has a function called Body Battery. It discharges as I work, or stress, or exercise. and charges when I sleep. I just learned about it and now have it on my display. If I take a nap it charges up.
Today after a moderate quality sleep I woke up with my Body Battery at 83%. I’ve been working hard most of the morning putting in some drainage for my patio. After 2.5 hours my BB is at 62%.

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