Analysis: The next step for wearable tech isn't a shinier screen or another sensor, but rethinking how we experience our own health data
Your smartwatch buzzes: 10,000 steps done. A green ring closes on the screen. You feel good. But then you swipe through tiny menus and endless charts for calories, sleep, heart rate and other indicators and the moment is gone.
We've reached a curious point with wearables. They're packed with sensors that collect extraordinary amounts of health information, but the way they give that information back to us is remarkably limited. Most of it is squeezed onto a small screen as numbers or graphs or nudges us with a vibration when we’ve been sitting too long.
This might work if you’re a fitness enthusiast who loves checking stats, but what about everyone else? What about people living with conditions where monitoring is crucial, but difficult? What about older adults, who often face changes in vision, hearing, or dexterity that make interacting with these tiny devices frustrating?
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From RTÉ Radio 1's This Week, over half the Irish population uses wearable technology for fitness and exercise goals
Beyond our eyes
The issue isn’t the data. It’s how we experience it. Currently, wearables primarily depend on the visual sense. Yet, research on how humans use technology has long demonstrated that we can interpret information through other senses too, such as hearing, touch, or even a combination of senses.
Take sonification, the process of turning numbers into sound. Astronomers have used it to "hear" distant galaxies and doctors use it when listening to a heartbeat from a patient’s hospital monitor or blood flow. As the Open Sonification manifesto states, sonification isn’t one thing, but a diversity of ways to explore the world through data and sound.
So what if your watch could sing your health data to you, not as a gimmick, but as a meaningful translation of your body’s rhythms? Imagine your steps becoming a steady beat that changes as you slow down or speed up, or your stress level gradually softening into a calmer tone as your breathing stabilises. Our ears alone are powerful, but they could become even richer when combined with touch. Smartwatches already use vibration, but almost exclusively for notifications. Sensorial substitution, blending sound with haptic feedback, could turn those same sensors into tools for self-understanding.
From RTÉ Brainstorm, is 10,000 steps in a day really the magic number for health benefits?
Picture this: you’re out for a walk. Each step triggers a light vibration in sync with a soft beat in your headphones. The rhythm gets faster if your pace increases, steadier if you slow down. Without ever looking at a screen, you feel your activity.
Now, imagine your smartwatch fusing data streams together. Sleep quality, daily steps and even the weather could be woven into a short daily mood "soundtrack." On days when you’re well-rested and active, the tune might be bright and lively; it might sound heavier and slower on days when you're tired or stressed. Instead of another unread graph, you get a quick, embodied sense of how your day looks.
For someone managing blood pressure, this could mean hearing and feeling changes as patterns, not just numbers. For someone reflecting on mood, it could mean "listening back" to a week of data and noticing how weather and sleep interact with stress.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, Cian McCormack reports on people attending medical clinics due to concerns over their heart rates when they are measured incorrectly by their fitness tracker
Why this matters for everyone - especially older adults
Ageing often brings changes in body, vision, hearing, and memory that shape how people interact with technology, but a smartwatch’s small screen and fiddly menus can be a real barrier. That’s one reason many older adults are wary of wearables: they’re seen as either fitness toys for the young or intimidating gadgets full of unreadable data.
But reframing wearables as assistive companions could open doors. A gentle pulse on the wrist confirms your heart rhythm is steady. A vibration pattern that quietly warns of rising blood pressure. These cues don’t require constant checking; they build confidence through intuitive feedback.
This isn’t just useful for older adults. Anyone who has juggled too many notifications, or who finds endless graphs draining, could benefit from data that talks, hums, or pulses back vividly.
From ABC News Australia, how accurate are smart watches - and are they good for your health?
Not just more sensors
Tech companies often announce wearables with new sensors, such as blood oxygen, skin temperature, and ECG. But adding sensors doesn’t solve the problem of making sense of the data. The industry’s focus has been on collecting more details rather than helping us live better with what’s already collected.
If we stop asking 'what else can we measure?' and start asking 'how else can we experience what we measure?', we shift from monitoring to support. That’s not just a design tweak; it’s a different philosophy of technology, one that recognises health is lived, embodied, and emotional and not just tracked.
Wearables have extraordinary potential to support health and well-being across the lifespan
For younger users, data could feel playful like a personalised soundtrack that shifts with each run. For busy workers, discreet vibrations might cue posture changes or quick breathing breaks. For older adults, intuitive tones and pulses could build confidence without the need to check tiny screens.
Wearables have extraordinary potential to support health and well-being across the lifespan. But to achieve that, they need to move beyond screens and notifications. Techniques like sonification and multimodal design aren’t science fiction, but are already used in research and specialist fields. The challenge is integrating them into everyday devices in a way that feels natural, intuitive, and meaningful. The next step for smartwatches isn’t a shinier screen or another sensor. It’s rethinking how we experience our own health data.
The research is funded by the Research Ireland Centre for Digitally-enhanced Reality
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
