Tag: fitness tracker

Wearable technology has now been designed to track stress

| November 28, 2015

While fitness trackers and bio monitors remain popular, mental health has become a new wearables focus.

Until now, physical activity has been leading the way in the wearable technology ecosystem, as many people use health and fitness trackers to be able to measure their activity and their progress on that level.

Now, a new product is changing the direction of wearables by looking into tracking stress levels every day.

The goal is not only to allow people to be able to see how their stress levels are occurring with each passing day, but also to provide them with a wearable technology based tool that will let them better manage those daily stresses. The device in question is called Spire. It consists of a small clip-on device that can be attached to a bra strap or to the waist of a wearer’s pants. This allows the device to track breathing patterns in order to determine whether the wearer is tense, focused, or calm.

If the wearable technology detects too much stress, it sends an alert to the user’s smartphone.

Wearable Technology - Stress TrackingMoreover, if the wearer’s breathing speeds up too much, the Spire wearables, themselves, will buzz. The alert sent to the smartphone reminds the wearer to take a deep breath. According to the co-founder of the wearable device, Neema Moraveji, “That simplicity of the feedback is what makes it so applicable and what makes it so actionable in daily life.” Moraveji also added that it is something that is very easy to work into a busy schedule. It is realistic and practical because “You can take a deep breath without stopping what you’re doing, without distracting from what you’re doing.”

Moraveji explained that while tech as a whole may help to contribute to the typical stress levels, these days, wearables may help to provide a solution as there really isn’t any practical escape from technology as a whole. She said that this is one of the driving concepts that helped to develop Spire, as they asked themselves “how could technology change and improve our state of mind?”

The app to which the wearable technology is linked allows a user to track and compare their stress levels and activity levels from one day to the next as well as overall.

Jawbone and BaubleBar plan to make new wearables together

| November 5, 2015

The device will be in the form of a bracelet that will come in three different styles for the Up Move tracker.

Jawbone and BaubleBar have announced that they will be partnering up in the launch of a collection of bracelet wearables that will be adding three new styles to this sector of the technology marketplace.

Jewelry design and tech companies are joining forces on an increasing basis to make wearable technology device.

The two were initially brought together for an introduction through a mutual investor, Chris Burch. As a result, BaubleBar’s design team created three different bracelet styles in which to house the Up Move tracker from Jawbone. That device has been designed to track the calorie burning, overall activity and sleep patterns of the wearer. The bracelets all have a watch-like look with a square face in order to make it possible for them to actually contain the wearables. That said, they are decked out with crystals or studs.

The three different wearables are called the “Salsa”, the “Disco” and the “Tango and come in two colors.

wearable technology - partnershipAccording to Daniella Yacobovsky, the co-founder of BaubleBar, “The bracelets are made with metals and crystals and are infused with colors that act as really beautiful neutrals. You can mix and match depending on what your needs are.”

Jawbone will be selling the results of its collaboration with BaubleBar, online. The price of the wearable technology bracelets ranges from $45 (for the bracelet itself without the actual Jawbone Up Move gadget), to $85 which includes both the bracelet and the fitness tracker.

While BaubleBar has made it clear that wearables are making their way into the brand’s collections and that they will be a part of the life of the brand’s customers, “we do not making wearable technology,” said Yacobovsky. She explained that their design team “makes beautiful accessories” and that is at the very heart of what they do, but that they are not a tech development company and that is not a direction that they intend to take, for the moment. Instead, they are seeing an opportunity in working in partnerships with Jawbone to extend the type of product that they already provide.