Tag: Olive

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Health and Wellness Smartwatches/Bands

Track your feelings and tap to pay all with Zenta, the smart emotion-tracking wearable

patent-claimedTowards the end of every presidency, before and after photos of the president in question make the rounds and show the toll eight years of high-level stress takes on the body, a sobering reminder of its prevalence in daily life. Left unmanaged, stress can wreak havoc on a person’s long-term health and well-being, but unfortunately isn’t generally handled well in modern society.

The Zenta follows a long line of crowdfunded, mindfulness-centered wearable focused on stress management and emotional well-being, but does so in a far more holistic way. For starters, it’s ceramic and leather construction makes it a fashion accessory anyone could wear comfortably. Inside, Zenta houses a wide range of technology: A Bluetooth radio for connectivity, microphone, temperature sensor, biometric optical sensor, 3-axis accelerometer, and a vibration motor along with multiple capacitive proximity sensors. All together, this allows Zenta to focus on effective management of smartphone notifications, activity tracking, and sleep monitoring.

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Relaxation Smartwatches/Bands

Moodmetric ring wearable measures mood for improved outlook

Heart rate, burned calories, sleep quality: these are the domains most wearable technologies have traditionally focused on. But even if it’s well-known by this point how reflective our physical state is of our emotional well-being, there haven’t been many wearable devices that have focused this, despite how important it is to everyone.

Emotional intelligence is the understanding of a person’s emotions and how best to deal with them, which may not seem like a skill but most certainly is. The Moodmetric is aiming to help empower those who want to better track, share, and improve their emotional intelligence. The product is a stylish, yet understated ring that analyzes a persons mood, assigning it a mood level based on the stresses gleaned from the body’s nervous system through skin conductance. With this information literally at someone’s fingertips, learning about the situations which spike emotional levels along with techniques to calm one’s mind becomes much easier.

The Moodmetric use Bluetooth LE to work in tandem with a companion iOS app that takes that mood level and suggests mindfulness and meditation exercises to improve quality of life. The Moodmetric Black version is made of polycarbonate, high-gloss body with a steel ring for maximum contact, and goes for $179. The shinier, hand-crafted 14k gold version features a black agate stone top and gold plated ring for $3,950. The $50,000 is unclear as to when it is expected to be shipped.

The Moodmetric is a promising tool in the increasingly prominent field of emotionally-based wearables. While the Moodmetric is incredibly stylish, it simply doesn’t do enough when compared with the comparatively more functional Olive wristband. The Moodmetric’s actual metrics are a bit vague when compared to the specific data Olive provides, and Olive’s haptics provide a far more intuitive influence on one’s emotional state than manually checking an app.

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Health and Wellness Wearables

V1bes sensor ring diagnoses stress via heart rate, brainwaves

The monkey on our all our backs all the time is the one known as stress, but despite its ubiquity, most people don’t know much about what in their own lives causes it. Stress is a contributing factor in not only the sicknesses we contract but in our general psychological well being as well. Many would agree how incredibly important it is to be kept informed about the stress levels experienced day in and day out.

The V1bes sensor ring is another wearable piece of technology that also tracks heart rate, but for a good reason. Along with heart rate, it tracks brainwaves with its ability to perform an EEG, and the surrounding electro-magnetic pollution to produce personalized reports available through the companion iOS or Android app. These reports clue users in to what’s going on and offer suggestions as to how to reduce the stress currently being experienced.

One time tested approach to reducing stress is a bit of fun. To that effect, V1bes also offers enjoyable little distractions that can be facilitated with the ring. From analyzing electric activity in your muscles to “tell how strong someone is” to creating abstract looking bio-profiles from data gathered, the product can let its hair down as well. The campaign is looking for $25,000 to get the $199 product out to backers by September 2015.

The V1bes’ form factor hurts its versatility as it cannot be worn everywhere like the much more attractive Olive wristband. What it does is admirable, but there are too many moving parts and isn’t as polished something like an Olive. Look out for further iterations if you’re really interested.

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Health and Wellness Wearables

Stress-detecting Olive wristband coaches more calm from your arm

Contemporary society dictates that life must be led with monkeys of all sorts on our backs, constantly stressing us out. Bills, project deadlines, families, friends, and so many more things increase our stress levels daily, but most of us wouldn’t even know it. Enter Olive, one of the first wearable devices specifically designed to track and help manage stress.

The company’s tagline is ‘Be Stellar,’ and the fashionably forward wristband does just that. It doesn’t help your stress by being a fashion accessory, though. The band is filled with sensors tracking the physical indicators of stress (heart rate, skin reaction, and skin temperature), combining that with information on your daily habits (sleep, physical activity, and exposure to light). With this, Olive gets to know you, nudging you using haptic feedback and LED lights when it detects elevated stress levels. The product guides you through these stressful moments with simple exercises that positively impact your life, like deep breathing or mindfulness exercises.

Call on Olive to guide you at any point with a simple rub, or make note of a particularly pleasant, enjoyable moment with a double tap. The companion iOS apps helps analyze you more fully, tailoring the exercises suggested to your personal life. Those responsible for Olive are looking for $100,000 to get it off the ground and running. For those simply looking to navigate the murky waters of everyday life, grab an Olive for $129 with the option to spruce it up with an elegant charging stand for $29.

Up to this point, wearable bands have concentrated solely on physical health and not much else. Rare is the product that tries to conquer another avenue but Olive is indeed that type of product. The product may not be unique in that in tracks your habits like the Jawbone UP, but what it does with that data is something special. Be on the lookout for it.