Illness ‘warning lights’ could be the next level for wearables

The CEO of Oura, Harpreet Rai, a smart ring firm, frequently recounts a March 2020 Facebook post. The device told an Oura ring owner that his overall health score had dropped below normal, prompting him to get tested for COVID-19, which he did, and the test came back positive. Other users also spoke to the company.

The reports encourage Oura to team up with the researchers to find out how accurate the ring was at predicting ‘who will get COVID-19.’ Their research was part of a growing interest in wearable devices as sickness detectors over the last year. Now that they have a lot of data, academics and wearable companies are planning their next steps.

It’s probably possible to flag when someone is sick according to researchers. But finding out the name of diseases will be much harder. Experts predicting that it might be possible in the near future, to warn the users about illness, while it might be difficult to find out the name of the disease.

Harpreet Rai stated, “It’s just like the warning light for your car — take it into the mechanic, we don’t know what’s wrong, but something looks off.”

“I think that’s where the industry is heading,” he added.

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