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Fitness Wearables

Biometrix wearable aims to help runners avoid injuiries

In any sporting endeavor, it’s widely acknowledged that bad form is the root cause to a majority of injuries sustained during competition. While rehabilitation helps athletes recover and attempts to address this bad form, old habits die hard, especially when constant vigilance is generally needed to ensure athletes are properly learning and implementing better techniques.

The team behind the BioMetrix is hoping to better inform coaches and athletic medical staff about injured athletes under their watch using the thin, flexible device. It can be placed on the heel, hips, or knee to measure stability, rotation, and drift in position in real time with high-resolution captures, with the athlete able to interact with their form as they perform exercise. With this information, everyone involved can consult a web app from any browser to monitor progress and generate reports on that data, all to avoid common injuries.

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Apparel Fitness

The REARM fitness shirt knows when you’re hot, you’re hot

Despite the risk of injury reduced by 90% with a proper, full warm-up, most people don’t truly do so. The biggest reason why being that most don’t know when they’ve reached that point.

For all those in the dark, there’s REARM. The workout shirt is a low-tech solution to an age-old difficulty, using thermochromic color change tech in the shirt’s logo to signify when the wearer is truly warmed up and ready for exercise. In addition, to make working out slightly easier and more comfortable, an inline pocket for smartphones and valuables is present on the shirt’s front bottom right corner along with moisture-wicking AIRTUBE technology in its fibers for a drier shirt more of the time. REARM is going for about $25 and is expected by April 2016. The campaign is looking for $1,500 by January 20th, 2016 to bring their shirt to life.

While an interesting idea, REARM pales in comparison to the hugely popular Radiate shirts. They both feature moisture-wicking technology, but the latter changes color at specific points on the shirt to signify warmed-up sections of the body. In the end, its far more useful to not only know you’ve warmed up, but what part of the body has, too.

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Apparel Fitness Wearables

The Hexoskin Smart is a Bluetooth-enabled second skin for your second wind

More and more, wearables are trending towards clothing with embedded technology versus additional and mostly cumbersome devices that ultimately get in the way of an efficient exercise, for instance. 2013’s Hexoskin, a sensor-embedded shirt able to generate data on heart rate, calories burned, movement, etc., was a sneak peek at the idea. Now, the company is back with their second generation Hexosin Smart.

In addition to the shirt’s ability to analyze exercise intensity, fatigue, recovery, breathing, and sleep quality, it is now outfitted with Bluetooth Smart technology, allowing it to work on a wide array of the most popular exercising apps like Strava, MapMyRun and Argus.

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Fitness Personal Transportation

Keep FIT with a former trike turned citywide full-body trainer

The search for improved methods of exercise is a ceaseless one, every decade full of half-baked fads and products that introduce new ways to do the same things. The fitness potential of Me-Mover’s previously self-titled Kickstarter success was realized only after lots of feedback gave them the idea. Thus, FIT was born.

FIT is the next generation of of the Me-Mover, this time more focused on providing a full-body workout while to rider rather than just another mode of three-wheeled transportation. While using FIT, users can activate and engage six to eight muscle groups quickly while working on balance, stamina and strength at the same time—all with less impact on the body than by running. A setting for variable resistance lets riders match a runner’s pace or turn it up to achieve a higher intensity workout as well, both out in the city or at home with the included training kit in those colder months. A FIT is $1,399 and should ship by June 2016. Me-Mover is looking for $100,000 by December 16th, 2015.

A little engineering and a lot of marketing have transformed the original Me-Mover into the FIT. Based on the enthusiastic response of the original’s fitness capabilities, there’s obviously a large demand for a product that spices up everyday life with a bit of fitness. The product is also great for injured athletes who need low-impact rehabilitation. The Halfbike II offers similar fitness benefits but lacks the comprehensiveness of the FIT.

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Connected Objects Fitness

Skulpt Chisel helps body sculpting by monitoring fat

Having a device that can accurately measure one’s body fat can go a long way towards achieving fitness goals.

Skulpt Chisel is a device about the size of a typical smartphone that has 12 sensors on its back that can be used to measure 24 body muscles just by pressing it up against those muscles. It sends a tiny current past the subcutaneous fat and through the muscle fibers, picking up thousands of data points per second, according to its Indiegogo campaign. The technology then evaluates the flow of that current to accurately measure the fat percentage per muscle, and rate that muscle’s fitness.

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Fitness

U-Liner will make you finer, offers exercise in a small package

People don’t exercise enough. That’s just a fact. Part of the reason is that most think they need expensive gym memberships or complicated fitness devices to get their workout on. That’s just not true.

The U-Liner delivers dynamic workouts in a small tear-shaped package. This device has the ability to work out the arms, legs, abs, back and more. It folds out in unique ways and provides resistance for strength building. Best of all, it doesn’t actually look like a fitness device, and blends in seamlessly with any home’s decor.

U-Liner is a lot like the Tao WellShell. However, Tao provides realtime feedback with the help of an accompanying app. The U-Liner team may want to consider such an addition going forward. Still the device is simple and clever, providing a bit of physical exertion anywhere. One U-Liner will cost backers a donation of $22 by June 2015. This little product has a funding goal of $5,000 on Indiegogo.

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Fitness Wearables

GoMore Stamina Sensor will help you run in record time

Making the right decisions while running — when to slow down, when to speed up — is absolutely crucial to getting an efficient workout in. Such subtle decisions can be the difference between prematurely finishing a run or exceeding a previous record. Even seasoned runners have a difficult time making such decisions.

patent-claimedA solution to this problem comes in the way of the GoMore Stamina Sensor. The GoMore is wearable that wraps around the chest, acting like a fuel gauge for the body so that runners can visualize their stamina as a number. Using electrodes positioned on the wearable, the sensor helps runners make speed det%rminations via real-time vibrations. Additionally, the sensor helps runners understand their theoretical limits after a completed run. Naturally, the product can also log and save running history through a companion iOS or Android app. The GoMore’s patented algorithm finds the relationship between heart rate, lactate build up, and energy burn to make all of this happen, giving runners the right kind of information they need to go even further. $120 gets backers a GoMore Stamina Sensor with an expected ship date of May 2015. The campaign is looking to raise $100,000 by April 11.

The closest product to something like the GoMore is the Zoi, which urges runners on with very specific feedback about variables like pronation and ground contact time. The GoMore’s heavy focus on stamina makes it unique in the wearables segment, something that is increasingly more difficult with every new wearable on the market. Runners of every skill level will surely be interested.

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Fitness Input Virtual Reality

Revisit your virtual stomping grounds and break a sweat with Stompz VR foot sensors

The promise of virtual reality is, at the same time, plagued with a number of real problems which can hinder the entire experience. The biggest problem yet to be solved involves how users can experience unlimited movement within very real, limited spaces. Because omni-directional treadmills and other wonky solutions aren’t ripe for the mainstream, reducing movement to controllers remains a necessary sacrifice.

patent-claimedStompz  is a product which allows VR enthusiasts to use their own two legs and avoid bumping into walls in the process. The product comes in the form of two sensors, each containing a nine-axis motion tracker, that attach to sneakers. Walking in place will map the same experience over to the virtual world, while walking slightly faster will translate into a run, providing a low intensity workout at the same time. The inputs themselves are fully customizable, so users have control over how to walk backwards, jump, sprint, etc. Stompz isn’t limited to the feet, though, as the motion trackers are versatile enough to be used with fitness equipment or as alternative controllers alá the Wii Nunchuks. Interested backers looking for a new way to use their headsets can shell out $125 for the Stompz kit, expected in December 2015. The campaign is looking for $100,000 in funding by April 10.

This product targets an extremely niche market of gamers looking to experiment with alternative forms of input when it comes to VR, something that is both very necessary but still a ways away from being successful. Products like Stompz and 3DRudder are the closest approximations to mainstream solutions currently available — and neither does a great job. Until a truly all-in-one solution comes along, these products will serve as testing beds until a product comes along and does it just right.

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Fitness Wearables

Oli exercise wearable makes sure you can lift, bro

The path to achieving sizable gains through strength training is littered with seemingly insurmountable dead-ends. Accurate information about one’s technique is vital to overcoming these obstacles. Without such information, or an experienced trainer present, the lack of feedback can cause one to fruitlessly spend hours at the gym every week.

The information available to professional athletes is now available anyone who straps the Oli wearable exercise tracker around their arm. The Oli tracker combines a variety of sensors that can ably keep track of completed reps and sets. What’s more, these sensors can monitor the movement of workout bars as to analyze force, velocity, and power metrics. All told, the product provides users with the type of important accurate feedback needed to see discernible gains at the gym. A companion iOS/Android app is capable of syncing workout video of user lifting motions with other data obtained through the Oli for a comprehensive workout picture. An Oli armband will cost $199 and is expected to ship in January 2016. It’s makers are hoping to raise $50,000 by April 26.

The Oli is definitelynot your father’s fitness tracker. While it may eliminate the need for expensive gym memberships for some, its doubtful an armband will completely replace a an actual fitness trainer for some of the more potentially dangerous lifts. For some people, false confidence can lead to serious injuries. This one is aimed squarely at the Crossfit crowd.

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Fitness

Fulfill your wildest fantasies by combining a BMX bike with the joys of a trampoline

Everyone knows BMXers love rock music, energy drinks, heights, extreme trickage, and….trampolines?

patent-claimedWell, you can be forgiven for not knowing the last one because you probably haven’t heard of the Tramp Bike. Who knew this guilty pleasure was a thing? The Tramp Bike is essentially a BMX bike with no attached wheels. Apparently, the burning desire to jump up and down on a trampoline was so strong that someone actually developed a wheel-less BMX bike in order to satiate that want. Appropriately, the bike is advertised as a “bike for Trampolines.”

Simple enough.

On the hand, this product is extremely gimmicky given that pretty much anyone can take the wheels off of their current BMX bike and strap some pillows on in their place. On the other hand, the Tram Bike can arguably provide hours of valuable practice time for tricksters looking to perfect that last rotation on their tail whip.

All things considered, it still seems like a better bet for BMXers to get onto the track themselves as it’s doubtful that a trampoline will help their riding game. In any case, a single Tramp Bike goes for $250. It’s scheduled to ship in January 2016 provided its $10,000 goal is met.