Paper

Wearable AI in the Era of Large Sensor Models

Yize Cai, Baoshen Guo, Guobin Shen, Zhiqing Hong
arXiv preprint2026multimodal
PreprintFirst posted: Apr 11, 2026Added to atlas: Oct 11, 2026Source
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This position paper argues for Large Sensor Models: foundation models trained on large, multimodal wearable data. The authors say current sensor models are siloed by modality and task, and that LSMs could give wearable AI a more general and scalable base.

  • Type: position paper
  • Proposal: Large Sensor Models trained on multimodal wearable data
At a glance
Venue
arXiv preprint
Published
2026
DOI
Not reported
PMID
Not reported
Licence
Not reported
Signals
multimodal
Form factor
Not reported
Subjects
Not reported
Code
Not reported
Added
Oct 11, 2026

Abstract

As an effective approach to understanding the human-centric physical world, Wearable Artificial Intelligence (AI), which leverages multimodal wearable sensors to understand human physiology and behavior, has attracted increasing attention in recent years. However, existing sensor models remain largely siloed by modality and task, lacking a unified paradigm for integrating diverse wearable modalities, training strategies, and achieving robust generalization in real-world applications. Motivated by the success of multimodal foundation models, which learn transferable representations from massive multimodal data, we argue that Large Sensor Models (LSMs), defined as foundation models trained on large-scale and multimodal wearable data, offer a promising pathway toward a more general and scalable framework for wearable AI. In this position paper, we formalize the data substrate underlying LSMs, analyze the unique challenges of large-scale wearable sensing, and articulate two directions: (i) LSMs without language capability and (ii) LSMs with language capability. We further discuss representative application areas that can be unlocked by such models. Through this paper, we encourage the community to explore LSMs as a foundational approach for the next generation of human-centric AI systems.

Verbatim fromarXiv· arXiv metadata (abstracts are released under CC0)

Wearable AI in the Era of Large Sensor Models: ChatPPG research summary card

How it works

How Method works: Setup → Method → TargetSetup: multimodal. Method: Method.SetupmultimodalmultimodalMethodMethod

Cite

@article{largesensormodelswearabl2026,
  title = {{Wearable AI in the Era of Large Sensor Models}},
  author = {Yize Cai and Baoshen Guo and Guobin Shen and Zhiqing Hong},
  year = {2026},
  journal = {arXiv preprint},
  eprint = {2604.10172},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.10172}
}

History

  1. Added to the ChatPPG research hub