Three Secrets to Building Powerful Habits with Wearable Tech
Plus, essential advice for wearables makers looking to create behavioural change
Forming healthy habits and changing behaviors - it’s one of the key recurring themes I’ve heard from wearables giants over the last few years during briefings for new products and features.
It’s been part of an industry-wide progression from the first wave of wearables, which too often focused on deluging users with information or arbitrary goals. Now, we’re all finally discovering which insights are pertinent and separating them from those that don’t tell us much about anything.
After testing pretty much every major wearable over the last decade, the shift from contextless data to the beginning of proactive insights has been refreshing. For example, we’ve been using features like Whoop’s Insights to more effectively tackle our New Year’s Resolutions and other behaviors for a couple of years now.
This evolution appears in academic studies and surveys conducted by the biggest brands, as well.
A 2022 meta-analysis of 20 wearables studies discovered the technology is effective as a driver for behavioral change, while Oura CEO Tom Hale recently told PULSE that reduced alcohol intake is the number one change reported by users of its smart ring.
It’s why a new book co-authored by University College London neuroscientist Tali Sharot caught my eye, one that centers around the idea of challenging our daily habits to avoid a sense of dissatisfaction.
It’s not necessarily a takedown of habits; it's more of a probe into our inability to balance habits and adventure.
But two questions have been rattling in my head since: how do you know if you’re forming habits the ‘correct’ way, and what can wearable makers do to ensure they don’t enlist an army of habit bores?
To answer them, I asked the advice of habits and behavior change expert Dr. Heather McKee, who gave us three practical tips on using wearables to instill different routines, plus essential pointers for manufacturers developing wearables with behavioral change in mind.
Included in this article:
What a habit is - and why we form them
Using wearables to form more helpful habits
Creating new habits vs. breaking old habits
Using your wearable to become a ‘habits detective’
How to build wearables that match our habits
