In a small Alberta town, an eclectic group of engineers and athletes are helping to fuel the explosive growth of fitness watches and wearables.

Just off the highway en route to the Rocky Mountains, the Cochrane headquarters of Garmin Canada is where the company develops the technology that pulls biometric data out of a person’s wrist and plunks it into their watch.

These days, there’s plenty of demand for that. Sales of fitness tracking devices are up , and south of the border, U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has floated a vision of the future where every American is using a wearable within the next four years .

Garmin makes everything from bike computers to GPS devices for boats and airplanes, but has carved out a niche for itself among athletes and runners with a w

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