< Back to all articles Share this article Tuesday December 16th, 2025 Wearables are hitting a ceiling. Healthcare is breaking it. Why medical-grade ECG is becoming the gateway to the most valuable growth market in the industry. The wearables market is entering a new era. The wellness category that has defined the past decade is reaching saturation, while the most powerful forces shaping the next decade are emerging from healthcare. Devices that can deliver clinical-grade insights are rapidly separating themselves from those limited to lifestyle metrics, and in cardiovascular health, ECG is becoming a key differentiator that moves a wearable from a discretionary consumer product into a trusted health asset. This shift is taking place fastest in the United States, the largest economy in the world, worth over USD 27 trillion. It’s also an economy where wealth is concentrated heavily in older age groups, particularly people aged 55 and above. For wearable companies, this creates a simple commercial question. Why optimise for audiences with limited disposable income when the demographic with the highest spending power, growing health needs and rising digital engagement is expanding rapidly? This is not a short-term trend, but a structural demographic change. The consumers with the most money to spend are entering a stage of life where preventive insight is not an optional feature but a necessity. The Opportunity: Wealth, Motivation and Rising Adoption in the 55+ Market Baby Boomers, now between 61 and 79, remain one of the wealthiest cohorts in the United States. Their motivation for using wearables is, however, fundamentally different from that of younger users. They are not chasing marginal gains in performance but instead are trying to maintain independence, detect early risk and stay well for as long as possible. Adoption data supports this. A national survey of older Americans (65+) found wearable device use rising from 13.3% in 2019 to 17.4% in 2020. A separate longitudinal study showed strong real-world adherence, with older adults wearing a tracker on 95% of study days and syncing data daily 85% of the time. The growth potential is significant. A recent industry forecast suggests that within the next decade, up to half of Americans aged over 55 could be using wearables capable of forecasting major health risks. For manufacturers, this gap between current adoption and future penetration represents a substantial commercial opportunity: repositioning wearables from lifestyle accessories to essential health tools for the demographic that needs them most. WHOOP: A case study in expanding beyond the obvious market WHOOP built its early position around performance analytics for elite athletes, focusing on strain, sleep, and recovery. Over time, the company recognised that physiological monitoring has much broader relevance, especially in populations where changes in cardiovascular variability, inflammatory response and autonomic balance have far greater implications for long-term health. This insight led to the development of the WHOOP MG, a medical-grade device built to meet clinical accuracy standards. The broadening of its customer base, and products to suit this new demographic, reflects the simple reality that for older adults, trust depends on whether a device can detect and interpret early physiological changes, not on how many activity metrics it can display. That tension between performance and real-world health is articulated clearly by Dr Kenneth Civello, an electrophysiologist and digital health innovator, who notes that while athlete-led marketing sells a compelling story, the true impact of wearables lies in helping clinicians diagnose and manage everyday conditions such as hypertension, atrial fibrillation, sleep apnea, diabetes, and early cognitive decline. He highlights the scale disparity as follows. There are a few hundred PGA Tour golfers, but an estimated 120 million Americans with high blood pressure. There are hundreds of elite fighters, and tens of millions living with obstructive sleep apnoea or dementia. From a clinical and commercial perspective, the real work for wearables sits with patients, not podiums. In Civello’s words, wearables need to move “from medals to medicine.” The performance story is useful as a foundation, but it is not where the long-term value sits. That is fully aligned with WHOOP’s trajectory. Scientific credibility became the route to growth. And WHOOP is not the exception. As the core wearable user base ages, demand is shifting towards devices that provide clinically trustworthy data rather than broad lifestyle summaries. Older consumers, clinicians, and reimbursement frameworks increasingly expect physiological accuracy, not approximation. Clinical trust is becoming the entry ticket to the 55+ market Ageing increases the likelihood of arrhythmias, atrial fibrillation, autonomic dysfunction, and cardiopulmonary instability. These issues often emerge gradually, with intermittent or silent episodes that do not appear during short medical visits. This is one of the reasons why the US health system is moving away from episodic care and towards continuous monitoring. CMS reimbursement changes now support remote physiological monitoring, reflecting the recognition that early detection and patient engagement can reduce admissions and improves outcomes. Policy momentum is accelerating consumer adoption of wearable technology to manage health, and federal agencies are reshaping the system to support that behaviour. Julie Barnes, CEO of Maverick Health Policy, observes, “HHS and CMS leadership are enacting policies that will push the healthcare system towards a more consumer and patient-centric model. It is going to be a very interesting few years.” For the 55+ demographic, this type of monitoring aligns with what they want: reliable early insight rather than reactive care. Wearables that cannot provide clinically robust signals will not meet that expectation. Those that can stand to become integral to personalised, preventive care. Why ECG unlocks commercial value and resets the valuation trajectory The commercial significance of medical-grade ECG becomes clear when you look at what happens to a wearable company once it enters healthcare. WHOOP once again is a good example. By moving beyond performance analytics and into clinically validated monitoring, the company did more than expand its feature set. It expanded its entire business model. The MG device opened access to older users with far greater spending power, unlocked regulated revenue streams, and positioned the platform for healthcare partnerships that would not have been possible in the wellness category. This shift rewrites valuation fundamentals. A device supported by credible ECG is no longer competing with fitness trackers for younger consumers. It becomes a candidate for reimbursement, chronic condition pathways and clinical integration. These markets are larger, more defensible, and significantly stickier than wellness. They reward companies that can demonstrate clinical trust, because clinical trust is what unlocks the demographic with the highest spending power and the highest health need. This is why ECG matters. It’s not just a physiological signal. It’s the capability that turns a wearable from a discretionary lifestyle accessory into a clinically relevant health asset with materially higher commercial potential. Medical-grade ECG is becoming the dividing line between devices that plateau in the wellness economy and those that scale in healthcare, where long term enterprise value is created and where the next phase of wearable market growth will occur. The evidence is already emerging in real clinical deployments The commercial value of entering healthcare is grounded in real activity. The current Orlando Health pilot with WHOOP, Sensr and B-Secur demonstrates how scientifically meaningful monitoring is being embedded in care pathways. Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were discharged with WHOOP devices capable of capturing on demand biometrics, including clinical-grade ECG analysis powered by B-Secur. COPD recovery involves dynamic cardiopulmonary interactions. Remote ECG and respiratory metrics allow care teams to detect deviations indicating stress load, oxygenation compromise or cardiac instability long before symptoms escalate. For the ageing population, this is a scientific advantage with direct practical value. HeartKey: The bridge into the healthcare market HeartKey® Core is an FDA-cleared ECG analysis solution that allows wearable devices to deliver clinical-grade ECG in everyday conditions, where motion, noise and inconsistent skin contact can challenge signal quality. For wearable manufacturers, HeartKey Core provides three strategic advantages: Clinical credibility. An FDA-cleared ECG solution allows a device to be taken seriously by clinicians and by older consumers who value validated health insights. Faster healthcare entry. Building medical-grade ECG from the ground up is slow, costly, and uncertain. HeartKey® Core provides a proven pathway into regulated health markets. Expansion into a larger, higher-value markets. Products that support clinically relevant ECG open doors to reimbursement models, health system partnerships, and chronic condition management pathways. By integrating HeartKey Core, device makers can widen their reach into an ageing population that is set to become the largest consumer of health technology worldwide. Why ignoring this market is a strategic risk Failing to target the 55+ demographic is not simply a missed branding opportunity. It is a strategic blind spot that can close doors on: a market with the highest disposable income users who are motivated to invest in health improvement rapidly expanding healthcare partnership opportunities reimbursement routes that reward clinical-grade monitoring a demographic that is growing faster than any other Wearables that stay in the wellness category will compete on price. Wearables that deliver clinical credibility will compete on value. The path forward For wearable companies evaluating their next phase of growth, the direction is clear. The most powerful opportunity lies at the intersection of three forces, the world’s largest economy, the wealthiest demographic within it and a healthcare system moving rapidly towards proactive, home centred care. To capture that opportunity, devices need to cross the trust threshold. They must deliver data that clinicians can use, and older users can rely on. HeartKey Core provides a direct route to that capability, already proven in deployments such as the Orlando Health pilot. The shift that clinicians like Dr Kenneth Civello describe is already under way. Wearables that invest early in clinical-grade functionality and design explicitly for the needs of patients, not just athletes, will define the market. Those that ignore the 55-plus demographic will compete for shrinking margins while others scale into a much larger and more meaningful healthcare opportunity.