Oura and Google Fitbit are teaming up to help a project that goes beyond their typical fitness and sleep tracking realms: opioid relapse prevention.
In a new initiative led by the non-profit Digital Medicine Society (DiMe), the smart ring giant has partnered with Duke University, the University of North Carolina, Google Fitbit, and several other players to explore how wearables can detect early warning signs of opioid relapse.
The goal? To create an early detection tool by combining real-time biometric and behavioral data, like changes in sleep patterns, mood shifts, and signs of increased stress, to flag when someone may be at risk of relapsing.
The project is focused on individuals in recovery from opioid use disorder (OUD). This group faces a high risk of overdose, especially in the critical weeks and months after treatment.
A five-month pilot study will test the feasibility of this approach. Participants will wear devices like the Oura Ring and Google Fitbit devices like the Pixel Watch 3 to continuously collect data, which will then be used to train models capable of predicting high-risk periods. If successful, the system could alert caregivers or health professionals when intervention is needed, offering a vital chance to prevent overdose deaths before they happen.
The implications, of course, are enormous—drug-related deaths hovered around 100,000 in the US last year, and the opioid crisis is still deemed a public health emergency by the government.
This project represents a rare instance of wearables helping shape future behavioral health from the frontline. Whether AI can spot relapse before it happens remains to be seen, but we’ll keep an eye on the results of this one.
