Digital health is back in a boom market, at least from a funding perspective. Venture capital and investors more generally are eager to spend heavily in the latest technologies, especially with the AI race continuing to heat up. In fact, per a recent report by Rock Health, digital health companies raised nearly $7.4 billion in the first half of 2026 alone, showcasing significant appetite for investment and innovation. Some specific sectors have seen a large portion of that investment; companies that have focused on growing areas in healthcare innovation such as clinical decision making tools, precision medicine, novel care delivery, and ground-breaking therapeutics are raising the most capital. Wearables have especially become an incredibly lucrative industry, capturing a huge percentile of investment as well; the industry is expected to grow to nearly $230 billion in market capitalization by 2033, indicating a massive demand for the technology.
Indeed, wearables have been a large part of the growth that the healthcare industry has experienced in the last few years. This is because patients are increasingly excited to use wearables and other devices to gather more information and metrics regarding their own health. For example, wearable company Whoop recently raised nearly half a billion dollars to triple its original valuation. The wearable detects a variety of factors ranging from sleep and strain to stress and behavioral health. It’s even partaking in the recent interest in longevity medicine and anti-aging; the Healthspan feature “analyzes nine key metrics to calculate your WHOOP Age and assess whether your body is aging faster or slower than your biological age. Backed by longevity research, Healthspan highlights daily actions that affect your long term health most — and shows you exactly where to improve.”
The research examining wearables indicate interesting results. A study in Sensors explains that “While [wearables] were initially popular in sports and fitness contexts, they are increasingly accepted as tools for long-term and remote health monitoring by both clinicians and individuals and their use has expanded to chronic disease management, mental health, and preventive care.” The study aimed to look at the efficacy of heart rate measurement across are a variety of devices, ranging from the chest worn Zephyr device compared to wrist-worn wearables, such as Fitbit, Whoop and others. The results indicated that the Zephyr device showed strong performance during rapidly changing conditions, while the Fitbit was among the most accurate wrist-worn devices. The Garmin device demonstrated the best stability, and Whoop also performed per standard. Interestingly, “Performance notably declined across all wrist-worn devices during transient states, with motion onset and large step changes in heart rate exacerbating measurement errors.”
What’s the overall conclusion? Although there is a lot of innovation in this arena, every device has its pros and cons and context for use matters. A marathon runner may require a completely different device than an older patient who is primarily at home all day; a desk-worker may appreciate different metrics than someone who is on their feet all day for work. In this regard, the number and variety of devices available, and their respective software offerings, is a boon to the wider population, because it promotes healthy competition forcing companies to innovate, and gives patients the choice to elect which is best for their personal needs. This ecosystem is only continuing to grow, and one thing is certain: it will not slow down anytime soon.
