-40% OFF Sale on Atlas tests with promo code 'atlas2023'
Shop now

6 Essential Health Monitoring Devices, Health Devices And Health Gadgets

6 Essential Health Monitoring Devices, Health Devices And Health Gadgets

Health gadgets are incredible tools because they help you devise a plan to enhance your body and monitor your progress so you can track your gains and improvements.


From gut health to heart health and blood glucose tracking, home health monitors can provide insight into many bodily functions without needles, appointments, and invasive procedures. All you need is a smartphone, smartwatch, and one or two personal health monitoring devices that sync data with these healthcare gadgets.

Home health monitors for tailored health

1. Health monitoring devices for overall health

If you want to stay ahead of the curve with your body, then you need to understand how it works and how your lifestyle influences your risk for illnesses. It’s the future of medicine, and it’s called “preventive health”. Doctors know that prevention is the best cure, especially since many common, chronic diseases that affect the population can’t be cured, only managed with conventional medicine.

Preventive health device

  • At-home DNA health test
  • Smartphone for access to your recommendations anywhere
  • Personal computer to access your online results
Ushering in this new era of personalised medicine are DNA health tests that you can order online and take at home. All you have to do is spit in a tube, because your saliva contains DNA that can be isolated and checked for health risks, hereditary diseases (that you could pass on to your children), vitamin metabolism, food intolerance risks, and even sports injury risks and athletic performance parameters.

These tests don’t just tell you what’s in your genetic code, which is pretty much set in stone – unless you’re somehow exposed to ionizing radiation and genotoxic chemicals. A good test (like the one we recommend) will include a comprehensive questionnaire to assess your lifestyle risks and give recommendations you can use in daily life. It can even combine your results with a gut health test (see below) for the most targeted health recommendations.

☝️TIP☝️Discover your disease risks, nutrition traits, athletic predispositions and hereditary disease carrier status with the Atlas DNA Test.

2. Personal health monitor for heart health

Health monitoring devices include the Atlas DNA Test for health.
Health monitoring devices include at-home DNA health tests

Your heart pumps blood to your entire body, and blood delivers oxygen and nutrients that ensure your cells have energy and can repair themselves. It’s pretty much a given that you already know this muscle is very important, but most people underestimate their risk of cardiovascular problems, even though heart disease is one of the world’s biggest killers.

Blood sugar monitoring device

  • Wireless blood pressure device
  • Smartphone with heart monitoring
  • Smart watch to track heart function
Ironically, modern diets are particularly bad for the human circulatory system. The large amounts of refined sugar can result in chronically high blood glucose levels that can damage the blood vessels. Cholesterol can also accumulate on the blood vessels, slowing the flow of blood and even breaking off, resulting in blockages that cause heart attacks. Even stress can affect your heart and blood circulation.

Monitoring your heart rate can give you a baseline of your heart function: beats per minute and blood pressure. Apple’s smartwatch also comes with atrial fibrillation warnings, a potentially fatal event that disrupts the rhythm of heart beats. You can use the smart health monitor on your smartphone and combine it with a blood pressure monitor, which is particularly useful if you already have a diagnosed cardiovascular problem.

3. Home health monitoring devices for gut health

Health gadgets can help you make practical changes with personalised recommendations
Health gadgets can help you make practical changes with personalised recommendations

Super smart health is not just about monitoring common bodily functions like heart health, it can even help you with gut health. About one-third of people will experience Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), and with rising rates of chronic diseases like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, intestinal health is especially important nowadays.

Microbiome health device

  • At-home gut microbiome test
  • Smartphone to track your food
  • Personal computer to access your online results
What is little known, however, is that the human gut is home to trillions of bacteria that actually participate in your health, and not just in the digestive tract. In fact, this ecosystem – called the gut microbiome – is linked to brain health, heart health, allergies, and even weight gain.

Now it’s possible to do at-home testing to check in your gut microbial health and design a diet to optimise their functions, of which there are many. Gut bacteria actually break down food in your colon and produce vitamins and short-chain fatty acids that support gut health. A good gut microbiome test also comes with personalised food recommendations and a food tracking app to optimise your health with the food.

☝️TIP☝️Find out what you need to eat to support your gut bacteria and help them thrive with the Atlas Microbiome Test and app.

4. Health monitor device for blood sugar

Many people have issues with their blood sugar levels nowadays, and doctors believe that there are many undiagnosed cases of diabetes type II. This is a serious chronic disease that eventually affects the blood vessels and can result in blindness, very poor wound healing, and in severe cases, amputation of the foot due to a condition called “diabetic foot”.

With so many blood sugar issues in the general population, it was only a matter of time before home health devices caught up with a smart health monitor for blood glucose levels. This new-era bluetooth health device is prick-free (so no blood or pain). Instead, this technology uses arm patches that monitor blood sugar levels with a sensor that can be attached to the skin for up to 2 weeks.

Accuracy is important for blood glucose monitoring

This technology is not as accurate as a prick test, but it can be connected to your phone with bluetooth and is particularly exciting for people who don’t have diabetes, but want to monitor their blood glucose reactions to different foods. Other bluetooth health devices are available with the skin-prick method which is recommended for people with active blood sugar problems, like insulin resistance and diabetes.

5. Body monitoring devices for athletes

The best health monitoring devices sync with your computer for clear health reports by Rohit Reddy for Unsplash
The best health monitoring devices sync with your computer and phone

Smart tech has made it possible to track your activity without spreadsheets, whiteboards, and a personal trainer. By combining GPS tracking and heart rate monitoring, you can now visualise the effects that cardio has on your body. And it’s especially gratifying if you’re just starting out on your athletic journey because you will be able to see vast improvements when you start working out.

Fitness monitoring device

  • Smartphone with activity tracking (we like the Iphone)
  • Smartwatch with tracking designed for specific workouts
  • Heart rate bluetooth monitor for most accurate readings (for pros)

For seasoned exercisers, personal health devices and software embedded on your smart technology can give you fresh insights into your performance. For example, you can monitor changes in your performance after an injury and track your recovery. You can even play detective and look for links between your performance and other factors.

By looking at the day and hour of your workout, you may notice that you don’t perform well on Saturdays (perhaps Friday night always gets a little rowdy), or that you excel at 3pm, but not so much at 5am. In addition, it can help highlight days to long-term changes in your performance by showing trends in your activity.

6. Personal health monitor device for sleep

Health gadgets hack your sleep cycles so you function better during the day by Pim Chu for Unsplash
Health gadgets hack your sleep cycles so you function better during the day

Sleep is essential for your body to repair itself so you can stay healthier for longer. It can be hard to imagine, but when you’re sleeping, your organs and tissues are actually being mended by little helper proteins. If you’re not getting enough sleep, it quickly affects your behaviour and your cognitive function, and over the long-term, your cells and tissues suffer, making you more prone to illness and diseases.

Sleep tracking device

  • Sleep tracking app (paid services offer the best functionalities)
  • Smartwatch with sleep tracking enabled
  • Smartphone to access your sleep reports
However, it’s not just about getting enough sleep – which, by the way, science recommends 6–8 hours per night – it’s about the quality of your sleep and that is measured by the length, duration, and cycles of four separate stages of slumber. Yet, you don’t have to visit a sleep clinic or be hooked up to electrodes to get an idea of your sleep quality.

That’s because each stage has its own set of physiological parameters, like heart rate and body temperature. A sleep-tracking app that relies on a smartwatch (a bluetooth health device) can evaluate your sleep cycles and stages and record sounds during the night, like snoring and outside noises, to provide you with a full report every day so you can see where to make changes and sleep better.

The final word on health gadgets

Overall health DNA health test with app
Heart health Smart monitoring on your phone
Gut health Gut microbiome test with app
Blood sugar Sensors for prick-free glucose monitoring
Sports Optimise workouts with your smartwatch
Sleep Tracking app to monitor your sleep cycles

The best home medical devices use cutting-edge technology and are designed by a team of clinical experts. They should be approved for sale in your country by your government’s medical regulatory board. A good personal health device will be able to show its accreditation, explain how accurate the results are. and have excellent customer service.

If you have a diagnosed condition, or believe that you may have an illness that is, as of yet, undiagnosed, you should always speak to your doctor. These at-home health devices can provide you with useful reports that you can show to your healthcare advisor when you contact them.

And finally, if you’re considering buying a brand-new piece of technology, it’s best to wait a year or two and check customer and expert reviews to make sure it can actually provide the accuracy that is expected of healthcare technology.

Leigh Stewart
Leigh Stewart Head of Atlas Biomed content, trained chef and avid fermenter of edible bacteria.

Featured topics

Microbiome
133 articles
Health
93 articles
Nutrition
91 articles
Lifestyle
75 articles
Digestive Health
73 articles
Guide
47 articles
DNA
44 articles
Food
34 articles
Probiotics
29 articles
News
24 articles
Disease Protection
24 articles
Beat The Bloat
16 articles
Science Bites
8 articles
Sports
7 articles
Love and sex
6 articles