Smart Sensors, Smarter Hearts: The Wearable Revolution in Cardiology

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) continues to claim more lives than any other condition worldwide. Traditional clinic visits capture only brief snapshots of health, leaving many opportunities for prevention and early intervention unmet. Wearable technologies now extend cardiovascular care into daily life, delivering continuous physiologic and behavioral data that could transform how we detect, treat, and ultimately prevent CVD. This review highlights how wearable devices, ranging from consumer-grade wristbands to advanced sensor-embedded textiles, are reshaping cardiovascular medicine. We discuss mechanical, optical, and electrochemical sensing modalities and their applications across the spectrum of care: risk assessment, arrhythmia and ischemia detection, heart failure monitoring, and cardiac rehabilitation. When paired with artificial intelligence, these devices generate predictive insights that anticipate clinical deterioration before symptoms appear. Landmark studies demonstrate real-world potential, but persistent challenges, including measurement accuracy, patient adherence, data overload, and limited integration into health systems, temper their current impact. Equally important, gaps in affordability and digital literacy risk widening disparities in cardiovascular outcomes if not urgently addressed. Wearables are moving cardiovascular medicine beyond the hospital and into the home, offering an unprecedented opportunity to shift from reactive treatment to proactive, personalized, and equitable care. Advances in multimodal sensing, artificial intelligence, and seamless health system integration could position wearables as cornerstone tools in the fight against CVD, provided that innovation is matched with rigorous validation, thoughtful regulation, and a commitment to health equity.