Smartwatch technology developed to aid smoking cessation

The researchers tested a smartwatch fitted with a custom app that used the smartwatch's built-in motion sensors to detect typical smoking movements. The results, published in JMIR Formative Research, showed that the technology had the potential to help over two thirds of trial participants quit the habit.

Chris Stone, senior research associate in wearable technology application development in Bristol’s Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group and Integrative Cancer Epidemiology Programme (ICEP), said, “For those who are trying to give up, an initial lapse is a vulnerable moment, and risks leading to a full relapse to smoking. People like smartwatches. They like the idea of it delivering a message at the point that they smoke. Therefore, if we can identify this point of lapse, and deliver an intervention precisely at that point, we have an opportunity to improve the success of the quit attempt.