I'm genuinely excited about the future of health, thanks to all the apps and gadgets we buy to better inform ourselves about our wellbeing. The more we get comfortable tracking our food, exercise, sleep, weight, blood pressure, and other data, the more conscious of our health we'll be, and the more our doctors and healthcare providers can anticipate problems before they occur.

Big changes are coming to healthcare as we know it, and the bigger the role that everyday consumers play in it, the better.

A number of excellent home health devices are already on the market or are coming out soon. These are technologies that go beyond the typical pedometers and sleep-trackers you wear on your wrist to measure other important aspects of your body that affect the health of you and your entire family.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Sproutling Baby Monitor
$299 (expected in 2015)
Sproutling Baby Monitor may be the home health device I'm most excited to see debut this year. It's a soft cuff with sensors that you strap around your baby's ankle to monitor his or her heart rate, skin temperature, motion, and position, all of which can help identify when baby is sleeping or about to wake up. A smart mobile app will parse those data and start to make guesses about how long baby will nap and when, which gives new moms and dads a much better way to plan out the really important things in life, like bathroom breaks and showers.

Scanadu Scout
$199 (pending FDA approval)
Dubbed the real-life tricorder, the Scanadu Scout is a multipurpose device that reads heart rate, temperature, oxygen levels, blood pressure, and EKG, all from your forehead and finger. It takes only a few seconds to capture all that information about you or your family members. Being able to see those vital signs and track them over time might help you distinguish between when your kid's illness might be a simple fever and when it might be something worse.

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Skulpt Aim
$199.99
Skulpt Aim looks deep into your body to gauge your fitness level by measuring your muscles. You put the device on different areas of your body, and it uses electrical impedance myography to send pulses through your skin, muscle, and fat to read how strong your muscles are. It rates each muscle group, everything from your triceps to your calves, based on muscle quality and fat percentage, and then it gives you an overall assessment of your physique. The Skulpt Aim is really interesting if you're training to gain muscle and lose fat, as it can tell you if your program is actually working before you might be able to see the results. It's expensive, but the Skulpt Aim can be used for multiple people, making it a great health device for families who want to keep their muscles in good shape.

QardioArm
$99£82 at Amazon UK
For someone who simply does not understand blood pressure numbers (that would be me), QardioArm is the best blood pressure cuff for home use. You slip it on your arm, tighten it, and press a single button in a connected smartphone app. The rest is magic, including your results, which appear plotted on a diagram that couldn't make more sense. The device also measures and records your heart rate, including whether it was irregular, and it saves all this information to your personal profile in the app. For families that need to keep an eye on blood pressure and heart rate, QardioArm is aces.

Breezing
$499 (available to pre-order)
Okay, yes, you will look a little crazy when you use Breezing. But if you need to know your resting metabolic rate or watch for changes in it, this device could be handier than going to see a dietician every time you need to take a measurement. Breezing is a breathalyzer that calculates how many calories your body burns at rest. Each reading takes only about 30 to 45 seconds, which you should do first thing in the morning, before eating breakfast. It's expensive, but Breezing works for multiple family members, so it may be worthwhile if more than one person will be using it.

Withings Smart Body Analyzer (WS-50)
$149.95£104.97 at Amazon UK
Of all the Wi-Fi-connected bathroom scales I've seen, Withings Smart Body Analyzer does the best job of saving very detailed information into a format that makes it easy for you to explore. Step on the scale, and it reads your weight, lean mass, and fat mass, and it calculates your BMI based on other data you input about yourself, such as height, age, and sex. All those bits of information are sent automatically to your Withings account so you can explore the details online. If you need a little social pressure to keep yourself in check, this scale can also tweet your weight!