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There's a building tension. Visible is the frosty air emanating from my competitors as they perform the "starting line" shuffle on the beginning point.

A swift twitch of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local Saturday morning race and I'm serious. It's almost time...

Oh, hang on. I have to adjust my device. The same goes for the runner next to me.

The person waiting sighs. I'm not moving until… there! Signal acquired, away I go.

Amidst the crowd, it's hard to spot a person without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us athletes who rely on them.

It's a explosive, multi-billion pound industry. Companies like Samsung Galaxy lead the market, each with an broad range of different versions to suit a spectrum of lifestyles. According to how advanced the watch you go for, prices can vary between an affordable sum to a significant investment.

"I find it infuriating, I'm unable to relax."

"It provides solace… It acts as a friend encouraging me."

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

A small sample of the reactions I've had from other tracker enthusiasts when I question what they think of theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My current opinion on my own device? Currently, irritating. It's telling me I'm not hitting my target, making me wonder whether the trees I'm passing under are blocking my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us attach these little devices onto our arms and wear them all day and night, ostensibly unconcerned with the fact they're constantly tracking us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them only to give us an estimation of our step count. Currently, they can analyse our nightly rest, heart rate, glucose levels, our VO2 max.

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

But do they do what they claim to do? And are the numbers we scrutinise a true reflection of our actual health? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the multitude of measurements and constant notifications just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

A Complicated Bond

"I become a quite preoccupied with mine," a wearer reveals.

While she loves how her device monitors her exercise, she finds some of its other features "overwhelming" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a significant period.

Until she found out she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch kept telling her she was not being productive enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I am caring for a young baby, I don't need to be told I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware perfectly well."

Couldn't she just remove it?

"I could, perhaps, but I'm in this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I value it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether the myriad other functions it can now do is possibly too much for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Every device of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your health metrics and analysing your data, but the vast bulk use optical sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They usually shine tiny, coloured LED lights onto your arm which can observe blood flow, identifying your heartbeat. Higher-end devices detect changes in the bioimpedance that passes over the skin to assess your recovery state.

The Professional Viewpoint

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could realistically aid early diagnosis, "spotting abnormalities before we feel unwell", it could also turn us device users into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that newer wearables can conduct tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic impulses in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not mean someone is about to have a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more susceptible of a heart problem in the years to come.

But how to understand these numbers is complex. The expert fears that as additional features are incorporated, people may find it hard to fully comprehend their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that being able to monitor so much data is such a positive development," he says.

A clinical psychologist studying wearable tech agrees. Her work into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced greater stress and were "had a higher tendency to use doctor's time".

She identified a cycle with her patients - they noticed a worrying figure on their watch. They became worried. Their pulse increased. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their heart rate went up again.

"Upon viewing numbers about ourselves that we don't really understand then, understandably, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We check, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."