Gait metrics, including walking speed, step length, and double support time, are used as biomarkers for assessing overall health, fall risk, and progression of neurological or musculoskeletal conditions. Gait analysis can provide non-invasive insight into well-being, injuries, and other health concerns.
Historically, gait measurement has required expensive, specialized laboratory equipment, making continuous tracking impractical. Smartphones have offered a portable alternative through embedded inertial measurement units (IMUs), but they require precise placement such as a thigh pocket or belt for the most accurate results.
Smartwatches offer a fixed wrist location, which makes them a more practical option for continuous tracking and for situations where a phone is not being carried, such as walking around the house.
The work, “Smartwatch-Based Walking Metrics Estimation“, aimed to address the gap between smartphones and smartwatches in gait metric evaluation. It reported that consumer smartwatches are a highly viable, accurate, and reliable platform for estimating a comprehensive suite of spatio-temporal gait metrics, with performance comparable to smartphone-based methods.
Source: research.google.
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