In its newest competitor to the Apple Watch, Fitbit rolled out a $330 smartwatch with a few new tricks. The company’s Fitbit Sense smartwatch has new sensors to track stress levels and skin temperature, as well as a new ECG app that is pending FDA clearance.
Fitbit has emphasized health features in its devices since it first began integrating heart rate monitoring into its devices. Its newest smartwatch goes a step further with features to track stress, including an ectodermal activity sensor, which effectively picks up on sweaty palms by measuring changes in the skin’s conductance.
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Fitbit also said it provides a stress management score, based on a user’s heart rate, sleep and activity data.
“We are breaking new ground with our wearables, helping you better understand and manage your stress and heart health, and pulling your key health metrics together in a simple and digestible way to track things like skin temperature, heart rate variability, and SpO2 so you can see how it’s all connected,” Fitbit CEO James Park said in a news release.
In addition to these new features, Fitbit has several ongoing studies to prove the value of its wearables’ health features. The company is currently running a large-scale study of its technology’s ability to detect atrial fibrillation compared to a physician-interpreted ECG patch. Fitbit has previously said it plans to submit its atrial fibrillation algorithm to the FDA for clearance.
Detecting Covid-19 using wearables
Fitbit is also running a study to evaluate its devices’ ability to detect Covid-19 based on user-reported symptoms, their heart rate, respiration rate and heart rate variability. When someone is fighting an infection, their resting heart rate tends to increase.
Fitbit published a preprint with initial data showing its algorithm could detect 50% of Covid-19 cases a day before symptoms appeared with 70% specificity. But it had some limitations. For one, being a preprint, the study has not yet been peer reviewed.
The study was also retrospective, with its 1,181 participants self-reporting their symptoms and when they first appeared. Because of this, there was some imprecision on the exact date when symptoms started. Participants also reported whether they took a PCR test and the result. Since all of the participants owned a Fitbit, the study also isn’t necessarily representative of the general population.
“The bigger point to take away is that things change in your body as you get Covid-19 or other diseases that we can reliably track with a wearable,” Conor Heneghan, Fitbit’s lead research scientist, said in a phone interview.
In the future, Heneghan said he’d like to do a prospective study to verify the results in a real world setting. He’s also considering other potential signals that could be used to detect Covid-19.
“Skin temperature could be an interesting marker,” he said. “We continue to work on adding new sensors and inputs to the algorithm and refining what we already have.”
Other research groups are considering wearables’ ability to track the spread of viral disease. Researchers with the Scripps Research Translational Institute have launched a virtual study to evaluate the use of wearables to quickly detect and track the spread of viral illnesses, and are bringing in participants that have a Fitbit, Apple Watch, Garmin or other wearable device that can measure resting heart rate.
