How the Apple Watch defined modern health tech
📖 Full Retelling
In my humble opinion, the Series 4 was a watershed moment in wearable tech history. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
This is Optimizer , a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here .
You can trace the state of health tech today to a single gadget: the Apple Watch Series 4.
Back in 2018, smartwatches and fitness bands focused on a handful of things: step count, heart rate, some light sleep monitoring, and activity logging. As a result, they were much more focused on fitness rather than overall health. Handy if you were trying to increase activity levels or lose a few pounds, but not a device th …
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Column Gadgets Tech How the Apple Watch defined modern health tech Digital health screeners weren’t a thing until the Apple Watch. It’s shaped how we think about wearables ever since. by Victoria Song Apr 3, 2026, 2:00 PM UTC In my humble opinion, the Series 4 was a watershed moment in wearable tech history. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Part Of Apple @ 50 see all Victoria Song is a senior reporter and author of the Optimizer newsletter. She has more than 13 years of experience reporting on wearables, health tech, and more. Before coming to The Verge, she worked for Gizmodo and PC Magazine. This is Optimizer , a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they’re going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here . You can trace the state of health tech today to a single gadget: the Apple Watch Series 4. Back in 2018, smartwatches and fitness bands focused on a handful of things: step count, heart rate, some light sleep monitoring, and activity logging. As a result, they were much more focused on fitness rather than overall health. Handy if you were trying to increase activity levels or lose a few pounds, but not a device that could “save your life.” That all changed with the Series 4, which introduced FDA-cleared atrial fibrillation detection — something that had never been done before on any consumer wearable. Not everyone was a fan of the feature . Critics cautioned that it wasn’t as accurate as a traditional 12-lead EKG, and many doctors weren’t sure how to interpret such novel wearable data . Nevertheless, this sort of FDA-cleared digital screening feature is now the hallmark of what’s considered advanced consumer health tech. Every year, there are several stories of how Apple Watches have improved or saved lives — something that spurred rivals to pursue similar features on their own devices. Eight years after the Series 4 debuted, wearable...
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