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There's a nervous excitement. Visible is the frosty air coming from my competitors as they execute the "pre-race" jiggle on the start line.

A swift flick of the hips.

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

Hold on. I need to adjust my device. The same goes for the person beside me.

The person behind us expresses impatience. I won't start until… yes! Connection established, I'm off.

During the scramble, it's hard to see a person without a fitness tracker on it. And this extends beyond us participants who use them.

We're witnessing a explosive, massive sector. Companies like Apple Watch are prevalent, featuring an wide range of various models to cater to a variety of needs. Based on how advanced the device you go for, prices can range from £100 to a small fortune.

"I find it infuriating, I can't switch off."

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

"Stop telling me about a poor sleep."

Just some of the responses I've received from other tracker enthusiasts when I question what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My current opinion on my own device? Currently, irritating. It's indicating I'm off pace, making me wonder whether the overhead branches along my route are blocking my GPS connection.

Countless individuals of us strap these compact monitors onto our arms and wear them constantly, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

Gone are the days when we relied on them only to give us an rough count of our pedometer reading. Currently, they can measure our sleep patterns, stress levels, heart rate variability (HRV), our recovery score.

It's difficult to find a bodily function they aren't designed to measure.

But are they able to do what they say they do? And are the statistics we obsess over a true reflection of reality? Do they improve our daily wellness, or do the plethora of readings and motivational messages just increase our daily stresses?

Addiction or Aid?

"I find myself getting a bit preoccupied with mine," an individual confesses.

While she loves how her device monitors her runs, she finds some of its other functions "overwhelming" at times - a feeling initially realised during a significant period.

Until she found out she could change its configuration, her smartwatch kept telling her she was failing to be energetic enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a restless night.

"I have a infant, I don't need to be told I've not slept," she says. "I know that all too clearly."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"It's possible, I suppose, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is perhaps too much for me."

Inside the Device

Every device of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your vitals and processing your data, but the most use sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly project small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can monitor capillary action, detecting your heartbeat. More advanced devices detect changes in the skin conductance that flows through the skin to assess your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "spotting abnormalities before we notice anything", it could also turn us the tracked into the "worried well".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like heart rhythm analysis, which constantly monitor how normal the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is erratic signals in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not automatically signal someone is about to have a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more susceptible of a heart problem in the future.

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

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

A clinical psychologist studying wearable tech concurs. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a cohort of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use healthcare resources".

She observed a cycle with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate increased. They got even more concerned. They looked a second time, and their heart rate went up again.

"If we see data about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, naturally, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we check again - it becomes a feedback loop."