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There's a feeling of anticipation. Visible is the cold breath exhaled by my rivals as they do the "about to run" jiggle on the start line.

A swift flick of the hips.

I'm at my local Saturday morning race and I mean business. The countdown begins...

Hold on. I have to adjust my device. As does the person alongside me.

The person waiting tuts. I'm not moving until… done! GPS ready, away I go.

During the scramble, it's difficult to find a wrist without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us runners who wear them.

This is a booming, multi-billion pound sector. Brands like Samsung Galaxy lead the market, featuring an extensive array of various versions to suit a range of budgets. According to how feature-packed the device you go for, price tags can range from an affordable sum to a small fortune.

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

"It provides solace… It's like a friend supporting me."

"Please don't notify me about a poor sleep."

A small sample of the comments I've had from fellow smartwatch wearers when I inquire what they think of theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My current opinion on my own device? At this moment, frustrating. It's reporting I'm not hitting my target, causing me to question whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are blocking my location tracking.

Millions of us strap these small monitors onto our wrists and use them 24/7, apparently at ease with the fact they're continuously tracking us.

Gone are the days when we used them only to give us an idea of our step count. Today, they can measure our sleep quality, heart rate, glucose levels, our body battery.

It's tricky to find a health indicator they fail to monitor.

But do they do what they say they do? And are the statistics we analyse a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they enhance our overall health, or do the plethora of metrics and constant notifications just contribute to our daily stresses?

A Complicated Bond

"I find myself getting a bit obsessed with mine," a wearer confesses.

While she values how her device records her workouts, she finds some of its other capabilities "overwhelming" at times - a feeling initially realised during a major life event.

Until she found out she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch kept telling her she was being insufficiently energetic enough. Later on, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I have a infant, it's unnecessary for me to be told I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware perfectly well."

Couldn't she just remove it?

"I could, theoretically, but I have this love-hate relationship with it," she explains. "I value it for its fitness insights, I just wonder whether all the other things it can now do is perhaps excessive for me."

How Do They Work?

Every device of smartwatch has its own novel way of tracking your vitals and interpreting your data, but the majority use sensors on the underside of the watch.

They usually project small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can observe capillary action, detecting your heartbeat. Higher-end devices analyse changes in the skin conductance that runs through the skin to gauge your recovery state.

A Fine Balance

One expert says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could realistically save lives, "detecting disease before we notice anything", it could also turn us device users into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic electrical activity in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

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 susceptible of a heart problem in the future.

But how to understand these figures is complicated. The expert worries that as more functions are incorporated, people may find it hard to fully understand their data.

"I have some doubts that the ability to monitor so many metrics is such a positive development," he says.

A clinical psychologist studying wearable tech concurs. Research into the effect of wearable tech on a specific group of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "had a higher tendency to use healthcare resources".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate rose. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their anxiety rose further.

"When people are presented with stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, naturally, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We check, we check again - it becomes a feedback loop."