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An atmosphere of building tension. Visible is the cold breath coming from my fellow runners as they perform the "about to run" shuffle on the beginning point.

A swift flick of the hips.

I'm at my local weekly parkrun event and I mean business. The countdown begins...

Oh, hang on. I have to sort my device. So does the runner alongside me.

The person in the line tuts. I refuse to go until… done! Connection established, and I'm running.

Amidst the crowd, it's difficult to spot a person without a smartwatch on it. And this extends beyond us athletes who rely on them.

We're witnessing a booming, multi-billion pound industry. Companies like Garmin dominate, each with an broad selection of different versions to cater to a range of needs. Depending on how high tech the model you go for, costs can vary between £100 to a significant investment.

"It makes me crazy, it's impossible to stop checking."

"It reassures me… It feels like a companion encouraging me."

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

A handful of the comments people have shared from like-minded device users when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My current opinion on mine? Right now, irritating. It's reporting I'm not hitting my target, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm running below are interfering with my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us strap these compact monitors onto our arms and keep them on 24/7, ostensibly unconcerned with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

Gone are the days when we used them only to give us an rough count of our step count. Now, they can track our sleep quality, blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), our body battery.

It's tricky to find a physical metric they fail to monitor.

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the numbers we scrutinise a faithful picture of reality? Do they enhance our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the multitude of metrics and constant notifications just contribute to our daily stresses?

Addiction or Aid?

"I do get a quite preoccupied with mine," an individual admits.

While she loves how her device records her workouts, she finds some of its other capabilities "excessive" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a pregnancy.

Prior to discovering she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be productive enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I have a infant, there's no point to be informed my sleep was poor," she says. "I know that perfectly well."

Is it not possible to just remove it?

"It's possible, I suppose, but I've got this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its workout tracking, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

How Do They Work?

Every device of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of measuring your health metrics and interpreting your data, but the majority use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly shine small, green LED lights onto your skin which can observe capillary action, identifying your BPM. Sophisticated devices analyse changes in the skin conductance that runs through the skin to get an idea of your recovery state.

The Professional Viewpoint

A data scientist says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the ever-evolving tech could realistically prevent illness, "detecting disease before we notice anything", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic impulses in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is on the verge of a cardiac event, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a stroke in the long term.

But how to make sense of these figures is complicated. The expert worries that as additional features are introduced, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.

"I remain sceptical that having the capacity to monitor so much data is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A clinical psychologist focusing on wearable tech echoes this sentiment. A study into the impact of wearable tech on a set of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced greater stress and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a alarming metric on their watch. They felt anxious. Their BPM rose. They got increasingly anxious. They looked a second time, and their anxiety increased again.

"Upon viewing data about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, naturally, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We check, we obsess - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."