How Wellness Wearables Can Be Used to Personalize Spa Treatments

The world of wellness tech is booming! Whether it’s touchless spa treatments or super streamlined software, it seems that there’s a techy opportunity in almost every corner of the spa and wellness industry. One area that has been trending for years—and is still considered a huge health trend in 2024—is wearable wellness technology. While wearable wellness tech makes it easy for people to take more control over their health, bridging the gap between the device and spa treatments may not be as intuitive. Luckily, you don’t need to provide the actual devices to make use of the data to help guide clients.

Wearables can track and gather important health data, like heart rate, sleep quality, fitness and stress levels, and they come in a range of options, like smart watches and rings, fitness trackers, heart and sleep monitors—the list goes on. Here, we’ll look at how you can incorporate this trending technology into your programming.

Which Wearables Work in the Spa?

Again, you don’t have to offer wearables in your retail area or otherwise to leverage them in treatments. But you should consider what each option is tracking and whether that works within your offerings.

Different trackers focus on different metrics, so we asked Tessa Lippmann, director of partnerships at Nowatch, to break it down.

“The types of wearables suitable for the spa environment include:

• Nowatch: focused on stress measurement and overall wellness,
• Fitbit, Whoop and Garmin: focused on physical performance,
• Oura Ring: focused on sleep tracking,
• Apple Watch: a wide range of health tracking features (but has many notifications that can be counterproductive if you’re trying to lower stress).”

There are plenty of other brands and options available, but the idea is to consider the type of data that would work best for your spa. If your clientele is on the active side, physical health trackers are ideal; if your programming is primarily centered around relaxation, sleep- and stress-related data are much more helpful.

Lippmann suggests looking at these types of metrics:

• “Heart Rate Variability (HRV), which indicates stress levels and overall autonomic nervous system balance;
• Sleep quality, such as sleep stages and disturbances;
• Physical activity, including steps, exercise and sedentary behavior.”

Some products may even be able to track things like long-term stress trends, moods and breathing.

Using Data for Spa Treatments

Spas and wellness centers can create customized treatment plans based on data collected by a client’s wearable in connection to their overall goals. This is the fun part—and you can make it as simple or intensive as you like!

What’s more, you can personalize a range of standard spa treatments and wellness initiatives, i.e., you don't necessarily need to come up with completely new services. “You can use the data to tailor massages, aromatherapy or meditation sessions based on individual stress levels and needs,” says Lippmann. “Or, develop wellness programs that address specific client needs, such as sleep improvement or stress reduction.”

She adds that you can also monitor clients’ progress over time (and multiple appointments), which will not only allow you to change or update their treatment plan as needed, but you'll be able to provide concrete metrics when their concerns improve.

As part of this, you end up creating a “feedback loop,” notes Lippmann: “Use the wearable’s data to provide clients with feedback on how spa treatments are positively impacting their stress and wellness.”

Educating Clients

If guests are already wearing their smart watch, ring or fitness tracker, it won’t be difficult to get them on board. Share with them how their wearable can be tied into a tailored wellness program; you can even look at real-time data together before and after a treatment.

“Provide detailed reports on their health metrics with recommendations for lifestyle changes and spa treatments,” says Lippmann. “If the spa has a mobile app, integrate wearable data to create a seamless experience where clients can track their progress and book appropriate services.”

If you’re not ready or able to tie wearables into your offerings in such a comprehensive way, you still have options! When you are discussing guests’ goals during consultations, suggest using their wearables on their own as a way to gauge their progress or as a complement to achieving their outcomes.

“If a guest has high stress levels and they are looking to relax and unwind while they are with us, a suggestion we may make for them is to bring awareness to what the technology they are wearing can help them with,” explains Kelly Gasspari-Fleming, director of spa and wellness at Waldorf Astoria Chicago. “I recently spoke to one of our guests who was having a high level of anxiety and was looking forward to joining us for a day of rest and relaxation. I shared with her how I always have my Apple Watch set to remind me to breathe three times a day. As silly as that sounds, mindful breathing and a reminder to do it is incredibly helpful in high stress days.

“It is also incredibly helpful in low stress days when you just want to recenter,” continues Gasspari-Fleming. “One of the best features of wearable technology is the ability to set reminders and do a literal pulse check on your day. We encourage all our guests to leave their smart watches and phones in their lockers, but highly recommend using the wellness features to track mindful progress.”

Whichever route you choose, leveraging the wearables’ data to tailor treatments will not only enhance the holistic spa experience, but empower your guests to continue healthy habits between appointments. Speaking of which, once they can see concrete metrics around how your services work, they'll be more likely to continue returning to your spa as part of their own self-care.