Study finds mixed results for wearable heart rate, SpO2 monitoring in dogs
Bottom line
A study in the Journal of Small Animal Practice evaluated the Owlet Smart Sock, a consumer wearable designed for infants, as a heart rate and oxygen saturation monitor in awake dogs. The authors found strong agreement between the device’s heart rate readings and a veterinary patient monitor, but poor correlation for peripheral oxygen saturation, suggesting the device may be useful for pulse tracking but not reliable enough for SpO2 assessment in clinical decision-making. The work adds to a growing veterinary literature on wearables, where researchers are testing whether human or pet-facing consumer devices can deliver clinically meaningful data in real-world canine patients. (businesswire.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the takeaway is practical: wearable monitoring in awake dogs remains promising for low-friction heart rate surveillance, especially outside the hospital, but oxygen saturation is a different standard. Pulse oximetry in dogs is highly site- and signal-dependent, and prior veterinary literature has long shown that probe placement and tissue contact can affect accuracy in awake animals. That means clinics should be cautious about treating consumer wearables as interchangeable with veterinary-grade SpO2 monitoring, even as interest grows in remote monitoring tools for cardiology, recovery, and chronic disease management. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
What to watch: Expect follow-up work on whether canine wearables can hold up in larger, more diverse populations, in dogs with cardiopulmonary disease, and in home-monitoring settings where heart rate trends may be more useful than spot oxygen readings. (sciencedirect.com)
Key facts
- Study
- Accuracy and agreement of a wearable device for heart rate and oxygen saturation monitoring in awake dogs
- Journal
- Journal of Small Animal Practice
- Device
- Owlet Smart Sock
- Population
- Awake dogs
- Comparator
- Veterinary patient monitor
- Heart rate finding
- Strong agreement with the veterinary monitor
- SpO2 finding
- Poor correlation with peripheral oxygen saturation
- Clinical takeaway
- May be useful for pulse tracking, but not reliable enough for SpO2 decision-making
A new study in the Journal of Small Animal Practice tested the Owlet Smart Sock in awake dogs and landed on a split verdict: heart rate readings tracked well against a veterinary patient monitor, while oxygen saturation readings did not. In other words, the device showed promise for one vital sign, but not the other, underscoring both the appeal and the limits of adapting consumer wearables for veterinary use. (businesswire.com)
That question has become more relevant as veterinary medicine explores less invasive, more continuous monitoring tools. Wearables are already being studied in dogs for heart rate, respiratory rate, activity, sleep, and longitudinal physiologic tracking, with the hope that they could support earlier detection of change, lower-stress monitoring in awake patients, and better at-home follow-up for pet parents. But validation has been uneven. A 2025 Journal of Veterinary Cardiology study found a smart collar gave a potentially useful estimate of 24-hour mean heart rate in healthy dogs, yet performed poorly for short-interval readings and failed to report heart rate during a substantial portion of recording time. (sciencedirect.com)
The new JSAP paper fits squarely into that validation phase. Based on the study abstract, the authors compared the Owlet Smart Sock with a veterinary patient monitor in awake dogs and found strong agreement for heart rate, but poor correlation for peripheral oxygen saturation. That distinction matters because the two measurements depend on different technical demands. Heart rate may be easier to derive consistently from a wearable photoplethysmography signal, while SpO2 accuracy depends heavily on stable perfusion, motion control, sensor fit, and species-specific anatomy. (businesswire.com)
That broader technical challenge is well recognized in veterinary medicine. Review literature describes pulse oximetry as standard, noninvasive monitoring for oxygenation, but also emphasizes that performance depends on obtaining a reliable signal from appropriate tissue beds. Earlier work in healthy dogs found the lip and tongue were among the best sites for clip probes, while ear, tail, and toe placement could be acceptable in awake dogs when contact is maintained. Those caveats help explain why a sock-style device designed for human infants may translate imperfectly to canine patients, particularly for SpO2. (bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
Industry and research interest in canine wearables is still moving forward despite those limits. Recent studies have evaluated ballistocardiography devices, wireless harnesses, and smart collars for different combinations of heart rate, respiratory rate, and activity monitoring. The pattern across studies is consistent: some metrics, especially averaged or trend-based heart rate measures, may be clinically useful sooner than others, while oxygen saturation and high-resolution short-interval monitoring remain harder to validate in awake, moving dogs. That makes this JSAP paper less a setback than a reminder that “wearable monitoring” is not one category with one level of evidence. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Why it matters: For veterinary teams, the immediate implication is not that consumer wearables are ready to replace in-clinic monitors, but that selective use cases are starting to emerge. A device that can capture heart rate reasonably well in awake dogs could eventually support outpatient cardiology follow-up, stress-reduced monitoring, or trend tracking at home by pet parents. But if SpO2 agreement is poor, clinicians should be careful not to over-interpret oxygen data from nonvalidated consumer tools, especially in anesthesia, emergency, respiratory, or critical care contexts where small errors can change decisions. (businesswire.com)
There’s also a workflow angle. Veterinary professionals are increasingly asked to interpret data generated outside the clinic, whether from collars, apps, cameras, or consumer biosensors. Studies like this help define what kinds of incoming data deserve confidence, and what belongs in the “interesting but not actionable” category. For practices building remote monitoring protocols, the stronger opportunity may be in trend surveillance and triage support rather than diagnostic substitution. (sciencedirect.com)
What to watch: The next step is broader validation, ideally in larger cohorts, across breeds and coat types, and in dogs with real cardiopulmonary disease, not just apparently healthy animals. It’ll also be worth watching whether veterinary-specific devices outperform adapted human consumer wearables for SpO2, and whether future studies focus more on longitudinal home trends than on one-to-one replacement of hospital-grade monitors. (sciencedirect.com)