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An atmosphere of feeling of anticipation. I can see the chilled vapour exhaled by my fellow runners as they do the "about to run" jiggle on the beginning point.

A quick flick of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local Saturday morning race and I'm focused. Three, two, one...

Oh, hang on. I must start my device. As does the runner next to me.

The person in the line sighs. I won't start until… there! Connection established, I'm off.

Amidst the crowd, it's difficult to see a wrist without a smartwatch on it. And this isn't only us runners who use them.

It's a thriving, multi-billion pound market. Brands like Garmin dominate, each with an broad selection of various models to cater to a spectrum of lifestyles. According to how advanced the model you go for, price tags can vary between a hundred pounds to a significant investment.

"It makes me crazy, I can't relax."

"It provides solace… It's like a companion guiding me."

"I wish it wouldn't say about a bad night's sleep."

A handful of the responses I've had from other smartwatch wearers when I inquire what they think of theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My feelings on my own device? Right now, irritating. It's telling me I'm not hitting my target, causing me to question whether the foliage along my route are disrupting my location tracking.

A vast number of us strap these small devices onto our wrists and wear them 24/7, ostensibly unconcerned with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we relied on them exclusively to give us an idea of our pedometer reading. Currently, they can analyse our sleep patterns, stress levels, oxygen saturation, our recovery score.

It's tricky to find a physical metric they don't track.

But do they do what they say they do? And are the statistics we scrutinise a faithful picture of the truth? Do they boost our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of metrics and motivational messages just increase our sense of overwhelm?

A Complicated Bond

"I become a bit obsessed with mine," an individual admits.

While she loves how her device tracks her exercise, she finds some of its other capabilities "excessive" at times - a feeling first discovered during a major life event.

Before she realised she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was being insufficiently energetic enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I am caring for a infant, there's no point to be told I'm tired," she says. "That fact is only too well."

Is it not possible to just stop wearing it?

"I suppose I could, I suppose, but I've got this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I love it for its exercise data, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is possibly too much for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Each model of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your vitals and interpreting your data, but the most use sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They typically shine minute LED lights onto your arm which can detect blood flow, recording your pulse rate. Sophisticated devices measure changes in the bioimpedance that passes over the skin to get an idea of your stress levels.

A Fine Balance

One expert says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the continuously improving tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "detecting disease before we feel unwell", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that newer wearables can conduct tests like heart rhythm analysis, which regularly monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not mean someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an early warning they might be more vulnerable of a heart problem in the future.

But how to make sense of these figures is complex. The expert fears that as further capabilities are added, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

"I have some doubts that being able to monitor so many metrics is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A health researcher studying cardiology echoes this sentiment. Research into the effect of wearable tech on a specific group of individuals with health issues suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She identified a vicious circle with her patients - they saw a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate went up. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their reading increased again.

"If we see data about ourselves that we lack context for then, naturally, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We check, we re-check - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."