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There's a building tension. I can see the frosty air exhaled by my rivals as they do the "about to run" wiggle on the starting line.

A quick movement of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I'm serious. The countdown begins...

Hold on. I must adjust my device. The same goes for the runner next to me.

The person behind us sighs. I'm not moving until… yes! Signal acquired, and I'm running.

During the scramble, it's hard to see a wrist without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us participants who rely on them.

This is a explosive, multi-billion dollar market. Companies like Apple Watch dominate, all offering an wide range of various devices to fit a spectrum of lifestyles. According to how feature-packed the device you go for, price tags can vary between a hundred pounds to thousands of pounds.

"It drives me insane, I'm unable to stop checking."

"It provides solace… It's like a supporter encouraging me."

"Please don't notify me about a restless night."

Just some of the responses people have shared from like-minded tracker enthusiasts when I question what they think of theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on mine? Right now, frustrating. It's indicating my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the overhead branches along my route are interfering with my GPS connection.

Countless individuals of us attach these compact devices onto our wrists and keep them on constantly, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're continuously recording us.

Gone are the days when we relied on them exclusively to give us an idea of our daily steps. Today, they can measure our sleep quality, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our VO2 max.

It's tricky to find a bodily function they fail to monitor.

But are they able to do what they claim to do? And are the statistics we obsess over a accurate representation of the truth? Do they boost our overall health, or do the avalanche of readings and motivational messages just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

Addiction or Aid?

"I find myself getting a quite fixated with mine," one user reveals.

While she appreciates how her device monitors her exercise, she finds some of its other features "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a pregnancy.

Until she found out she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was being insufficiently active enough. Later on, the watch insists her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I've got a infant, it's unnecessary for me to be informed my sleep was poor," she says. "That fact is all too clearly."

Couldn't she just remove it?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she explains. "I love it for its fitness insights, I just wonder whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

Inside the Device

Each model of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your vitals and processing your data, but the majority use detectors on the back of the watch.

They usually emit tiny, coloured LED lights onto your skin which can detect capillary action, identifying your heartbeat. More advanced devices detect changes in the skin conductance that passes over the skin to assess your stress levels.

A Fine Balance

A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the rapidly advancing tech could actually save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which continuously monitor how healthy the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic impulses in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not automatically signal someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more at risk of a heart problem in the future.

But how to make sense of these numbers is complex. The expert fears that as more functions are introduced, people may find it hard to fully understand their data.

"I have some doubts that being able to monitor so many things is such a good idea," he says.

A clinical psychologist focusing on patient behaviour concurs. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a cohort of cardiovascular patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced heightened worry and were "more inclined to use medical services".

She identified a cycle with her patients - they noticed a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate went up. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their reading went up again.

"Upon viewing stats about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, understandably, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we obsess - it becomes a feedback loop."