Wearable Technologies to Improve Physical Activity, Sedentary Breaks, Training, Sleep, and Safety: The ECSS‐Wearable Technologies Special Interest Group Calls for Interdisciplinary Collaboration

ABSTRACT Wearable technologies (“wearables”) are lightweight sensor‐based devices that detect, analyze, and transmit physiological, biomechanical or environmental data, and are increasingly used across physical activity, sedentary behavior, athletic training, safety and sleep research. Applications include for example large‐scale physical activity surveillance, ambulatory assessment, and real‐time feedback during athletic training. Despite promising use cases such as heart rate variability‐informed endurance training or gait retraining via biomechanical feedback, critical challenges remain. These include insufficient data quality, inadequately evaluated and inaccessible algorithms, limited interoperability between systems, difficulties translating sensor data into actionable insights, and insufficient wearable technology literacy among users. The Wearable Technologies Special Interest Group of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS‐WT‐SIG) identifies the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to address these challenges. Key priorities include developing regulatory frameworks, promoting standardized and open data infrastructure, improving wearable literacy of users, and conducting rigorous intervention studies under real‐world conditions. The ECSS‐WT‐SIG calls on researchers, industry partners, NGOs, and other stakeholders to collectively advance the scientific and practical application of wearables in physical activity, sedentary behavior, training, sleep, and safety research.

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Publication Details

Journal
European Journal of Sport Science
Published
2026-11-07
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsc.70270
Primary Topic
Context-Aware Activity Recognition Systems
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Wearable Technologies to Improve Physical Activity, Sedentary Breaks, Training, Sleep, and Safety: The ECSS‐Wearable Technologies Special Interest Group Calls for Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Markus Reichert, Marco Giurgiu, René Schilling, Martina K. Kanning et al.
European Journal of Sport Science
Context-Aware Activity Recognition Systems
article

Wearable Technologies to Improve Physical Activity, Sedentary Breaks, Training, Sleep, and Safety: The ECSS‐Wearable Technologies Special Interest Group Calls for Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Markus Reichert, Marco Giurgiu, René Schilling, Martina K. Kanning, Alexander Ferrauti, Shona Leigh Halson, Billy Sperlich, Tomáš Větrovský, Birte von Haaren‐Mack, Peter Düking
article en

Abstract

ABSTRACT Wearable technologies (“wearables”) are lightweight sensor‐based devices that detect, analyze, and transmit physiological, biomechanical or environmental data, and are increasingly used across physical activity, sedentary behavior, athletic training, safety and sleep research. Applications include for example large‐scale physical activity surveillance, ambulatory assessment, and real‐time feedback during athletic training. Despite promising use cases such as heart rate variability‐informed endurance training or gait retraining via biomechanical feedback, critical challenges remain. These include insufficient data quality, inadequately evaluated and inaccessible algorithms, limited interoperability between systems, difficulties translating sensor data into actionable insights, and insufficient wearable technology literacy among users. The Wearable Technologies Special Interest Group of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS‐WT‐SIG) identifies the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to address these challenges. Key priorities include developing regulatory frameworks, promoting standardized and open data infrastructure, improving wearable literacy of users, and conducting rigorous intervention studies under real‐world conditions. The ECSS‐WT‐SIG calls on researchers, industry partners, NGOs, and other stakeholders to collectively advance the scientific and practical application of wearables in physical activity, sedentary behavior, training, sleep, and safety research.

European Journal of Sport ScienceVol. 26(12)
German Sport University Cologne (DE), University of Salzburg (AT), University of Basel (CH), University of Konstanz (DE), Charles University (CZ), University of Würzburg (DE), Australian Catholic University (AU), Ruhr University Bochum (DE), Technische Universität Braunschweig (DE)
Openalex Percentile: Top 22%
Context-Aware Activity Recognition Systems
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