US Air Force Base Utilizes Smart Watches to Train Better Leaders

The Ellington Airman Leadership School (ALS) is pioneering the use of smart watches in an effort to train tomorrow’s US Air Force leaders to be more efficient, effective and ready in a realm of ever-escalating demands. The school, located in Edwards Air Force Base, California, introduced smart watches and plans to implement smart rings in the near future to infuse biofeedback and personal management technology into the curriculum.

This will help students improve their physical exercise, their sleep, their timing of when to tackle which tasks and other benefits that will help them be better leaders and accomplish more professionally and personally, said Master Sgt. Chad Hardesty, ALS commandant.

The school received help from SparkEd, the 412th Test Wing’s innovation team, which provided the funds that paid for the Garmin Fenix 6S watches. The school is also coordinating closely with the Air Force’s enlisted professional military education offices and the Defense Innovation Unit at the Pentagon.

The first class that received the watches just graduated this July. The watches gave them biofeedback that was collected, interpreted by software and provided to them through a useful interface that helped them understand how to use the data to improve performance in several ways through their paces at the ALS.

As part of that interface the students are introduced to a few new concepts. One of these is the term, body battery. Body battery is used to describe – based on the wearer’s own biometric measurements – an estimation of how up-to-the-challenge he or she might be, at a given moment, to perform well doing physically or mentally demanding tasks. The device measures heart rate variability, activity levels, stress levels, and sleep data to estimate the device wearer’s body battery, which is represented by a number between 1 and 100.

“Typically their body batteries are high in the morning, said Tech. Sgt. Carmen Turcios Munoz, ALS instructor. “They’d come in with levels in the low 90s and high 80s. Then later in the day, especially after lunch, some of them would be in the low 30s.”

One strong benefit of using these wearable devices, Hardesty said, is that they provide data points that students can look at to help them have a better understanding of why they did well in one circumstance and not in another. Also, when data from the whole class is analyzed, it can be an indicator the instructors can use to help ensure their classroom activities are designed to have the most benefit for the students. Additionally, as group data is passed on to Air Force level it could have an impact on future curriculum, Hardesty said.

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The school is also ready to use Oura rings, in addition to the watches, just as soon as approval is given by the Air Force. The rings also capture a person’s biometric measurements but take different variables that will complement what the watch does, Hardesty said.

Hardesty pitched the idea of using smart watches twice to the SparkEd team – the official AFWERX-recognized Spark Cell for Edwards – after which the team agreed to fund purchasing the watches.

AFWERX’s core mission is to improve Air Force capabilities by connecting innovators, simplifying technology transfer, and accelerating results by connecting diverse, innovative members from industry, academia, and government; creating capabilities options and prototype opportunities for the Air Force; facilitating streamlined acquisition processes; and fostering a culture of innovation in Airmen.