Abstract
In the field of health care management, smart wearable devices and its supporting technologies have tremendously made a name all around the globe. Smart watches and other sensor trackers are practically being used by various people and its usage has shown to be accompanied with lots of benefits. This technology was envisaged to play a vital role in the healthcare needs of people; especially with applications in the healthcare sector. The objective of this study, therefore, is to evaluate the technological impact of wearable sensors in human health and fitness (HHF). A web based survey was used for data collection for the period of one month. Emails were sent to registered members of a particular gym who uses any of the smart wearable sensors in keeping fit. The study findings indicate that among the smart wearable devices examined, smart wristwatches (45.6%) appears to be the most commonly used wearable sensor device followed by smart wrist bands (34.7%), smart textiles (10.7%) and smart rings (9.1%). This signifies that a large number of people can effortlessly use SWSs and devices and are optimistic about its support in their daily healthcare/fitness needs. Users are positive on the technological prospects of SWSs and devices; although there is a gap between personal motivation to use wearable devices and trust in the confidentiality and privacy of data generated.
 Keywords: Devices, Health, Fitness, Wearable, Sensors
Highlights
The advent of affordable and efficient portable sensors is attributed to different factors, one of which is the introduction of wireless communication networks (Kwee-Meier et al, 2016; Lee et al, 2016)
An appreciable level of technology use is clearly seen as respondent agreed to the usage of at least one Smart wearable sensors (SWSs) device; with Smart wrist watches (SWWs) 171 (45.6%) been the most used wearable devices, followed closely by Smart wrist bands (SWBs) 130 (34.7%)
While 49.1% of the respondents believed that wearable sensors enhances the communication between them and their doctors, a lesser percentage of the respondents (36.3%) are of the opinion that wearable sensors does not in any way reduce the cost of healthcare since the actual cost of health care is borne by the users
Summary
The advent of affordable and efficient portable sensors is attributed to different factors, one of which is the introduction of wireless communication networks (Kwee-Meier et al, 2016; Lee et al, 2016). SWSs has been seen to be of great benefit to the wellbeing of the user, some are designed in the form of simple fitness tracker with tracking capabilities as well as accessing and monitoring user’s physical activities which are in line with medical fitness and wellness of patients (Dohee et al, 2016; Lee et al, 2016) Significant parameters such as, the heart-beat rate, the blood pressure (BP), the pulse rate, muscle actions, sugar and glucose level, electrocardiogram (ECG), body temperature, digestion of oxygen saturation, the stress levels and eating habits are measurable by SWSs (Jayoung et al, 2018). SWBs was first used on athletes to monitor their heart rate performance in real-time during an exercise routine (Koydemir and Ozcan, 2018)
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