Beyond the data: What comes after health tracking?
Your watch knows how many steps you took yesterday. It may know how long you slept, how your heart rate changed during exercise and whether your activity is higher or lower than usual. The amount we can learn about ourselves from a device on our wrist, finger or body has changed dramatically, and the technology is moving quickly.
Wearables are no longer simply counting steps. They are becoming increasingly sophisticated tools for understanding patterns in our health, fitness and behaviour. Apple continues to expand the health and fitness capabilities of Apple Watch, Google is bringing AI-powered personal health coaching into Fitbit, and specialist companies such as WHOOP and Oura are combining continuous tracking with increasingly personalised guidance.
But as technology becomes better at telling us what is happening in our bodies, a bigger question is emerging: what do we actually do with all that information?
For VIWELL, that's where the next chapter of digital wellbeing becomes interesting.
Health tracking is becoming part of everyday life
Health tracking has moved far beyond the traditional step counter. Today's wearables can monitor combinations of movement, heart rate, sleep, temperature, exercise intensity, recovery and other health and fitness indicators, giving people access to information that was once much harder to see in everyday life.
Major technology companies are investing heavily in this direction. Apple Watch brings together overnight health metrics through features such as Vitals and provides training-load information to help users understand how recent exercise may be affecting their bodies. Google is moving further into personalised health guidance through Fitbit, using health and fitness information alongside individual goals to provide more personalised plans, guidance and contextualised insights.
Specialist wearable companies are moving in a similar direction. WHOOP uses measures around areas such as sleep, strain and recovery alongside individual goals to provide personalised guidance, while Oura combines information around sleep, activity, readiness and resilience with AI-supported guidance.
The evolution of the category points to something important: people increasingly have the ability to understand patterns in their health before those patterns would otherwise be obvious. Having that information can be valuable, but the more information we collect, the more important the next question becomes: what happens after the insight?
More data doesn't automatically mean better health
Imagine your wearable tells you that you haven't been sleeping enough. That's useful information, but knowing it doesn't necessarily explain why or tell you what change will realistically work for you.
Maybe late-night work is interfering with your sleep. Perhaps stress is making it difficult to switch off. Maybe an inconsistent routine is part of the problem, or persistent sleep difficulties require professional attention. The same applies to movement. Knowing that you took 4,000 steps yesterday gives you a measurement; turning that information into a behaviour that works around your job, family, motivation, environment and goals is a different challenge.
This distinction matters because health data and health behaviour aren't the same thing.
Research suggests that wearable technology can play a useful role in supporting behaviour change. A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis published in The BMJ examined 121 randomised controlled trials involving 16,743 participants. Interventions using physical activity monitors were associated with an average increase equivalent to approximately 1,235 additional steps per day and around 49 additional minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week compared with control groups.
A broader 2022 umbrella review published in The Lancet Digital Health brought together 39 systematic reviews involving 163,992 participants and similarly concluded that activity trackers can support increases in physical activity.
The point isn't that tracking alone changes health. It's that information can become much more valuable when it helps people understand their behaviour and supports them in taking action.
From knowing to doing
For years, health technology has become increasingly good at answering questions such as: How much did I move? How did I sleep? How hard did I train? How has this changed over time?
The next challenge is helping people answer a different question: What should I do next, and what makes sense for me?
Because the same insight shouldn't necessarily lead to the same action for everyone. Two people may both be less active than they would like to be, but one might find a walk after lunch realistic while another prefers exercising before work. Someone else may need to begin with a much smaller movement goal because of their current routine, ability or circumstances.
That's where personalisation becomes important. Useful wellbeing technology shouldn't simply create more information to check; it should help make the next healthy action relevant, achievable and easier to repeat.
And repetition matters because progress rarely comes from understanding something once. It comes from what we're able to put into practice consistently enough to become part of everyday life.
Why wellbeing needs a wider view
There is another reason health data alone doesn't tell the whole story: our lives don't operate as separate datasets.
Poor sleep can affect energy and motivation. Stress can influence how we eat, move and recover. Financial pressure can affect mental wellbeing. Work can influence sleep, stress and the time available for physical activity. Social connection can influence how supported we feel.
These areas interact, which is why VIWELL approaches wellbeing across six connected pillars: physical, mental, nutritional, social, financial and professional wellbeing.
A step count can tell us something useful about movement, and a sleep metric can tell us something useful about rest. But supporting someone's wellbeing means understanding those signals within a broader picture of their goals, behaviours and everyday life.
The opportunity isn't simply to collect more data. It's to make that data more meaningful within the life someone is actually living.
Where VIWELL fits
VIWELL isn't trying to replace the wearable on your wrist or finger. Wearables can be powerful sources of personal health, fitness and activity information, and the category is becoming increasingly sophisticated.
Our strategy is to build on that ecosystem by helping connect health and wellbeing information with an individual's goals and wider wellbeing journey. In simple terms, it means moving from “Here's what your data says” towards “Here's what you can do next.”
VIWELL is designed to turn understanding into action through personalised goals and recommendations, wellbeing activities, challenges, expert-led content, progress tracking and positive reinforcement. Based on an individual's wellbeing goals and journey, the experience can surface more relevant resources and actions rather than expecting the user to decide what every piece of information means on their own.
That journey also extends beyond the physical metrics that wearables are particularly good at capturing. Someone may want to improve movement or sleep, while someone else may need support around stress, nutrition, social connection, financial wellbeing or healthier ways of working. Looking across these dimensions allows wellbeing to be approached as an interconnected experience rather than a collection of isolated numbers.
The goal isn't to give people more things they should be doing. It's to help make the next useful action clearer, more relevant and easier to sustain.
The future is not another dashboard
Wearables have changed our relationship with health information. We can see more, track more and recognise patterns that would once have been difficult to observe in everyday life.
And the category isn't standing still. Apple, Google, WHOOP, Oura and others are increasingly moving beyond measurement towards personalised interpretation, guidance, coaching and AI-supported experiences. That's good for consumers, and it raises the bar for the wider digital health and wellbeing industry.
The next generation of wellbeing technology therefore won't be defined only by who can collect the most data. The bigger opportunity is helping people understand what matters, what they can realistically do next and how those actions can become habits that support meaningful progress over time.
That's the direction VIWELL is building towards: connecting insights with personalised action across the wider wellbeing journey, while recognising that our physical, mental, nutritional, social, financial and professional wellbeing are all part of the same life.
Knowing more about ourselves is valuable. What we do with that knowledge is where progress begins.
References
- Larsen, R. T., Wagner, V., Korfitsen, C. B., et al. (2022). Effectiveness of physical activity monitors in adults: systematic review and meta-analysis. The BMJ, 376, e068047.
- Ferguson, T., Olds, T., Curtis, R., et al. (2022). Effectiveness of wearable activity trackers to increase physical activity and improve health: a systematic review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. The Lancet Digital Health, 4(8), e615–e626.
- Apple. Apple Watch health and fitness features, including Vitals and training load.
- Google. Fitbit personal health coach and personalised health guidance.
- WHOOP. Personalised health, recovery and coaching features.
- Oura. Oura Advisor and personalised health guidance.
