Using wearable smartwatches, smartrings, and smartscales could be life-threatening to patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices. In our Featured publication at Heart Rhythm journal (impact factor 6.343), we performed a safety evaluation of wearable smartwatches, smartrings, and at-home smartscales with bioimpedance sensing technology following Food and Drug Administration guidelines, in terms of their ability to interfere with the correct functioning of cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs).
These devices apply an electrical current to the body, which is imperceptible to the patient, but it has the potential to confuse CIEDs. The translation of these findings could have disastrous consequences to patients with pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) if these devices stopped working or delivered unnecessary electrical shocks to the heart.
Stay tuned. The media coverage from Heart Rhythm, press release from the University of Utah College of Engineering, full Article and accompanying Editorial article will be soon published.
