Category: fitness

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Conference fitness Sensors

Google Fit platform aggregates health data

Using a single set of APIs, Google Fit collects and aggregates data from fitness apps and sensors to manage a user’s fitness stream.

The platform will work with wearables and other peripherals.  To protect privacy, permission is required and data can be deleted.  Initally, Adidas,  Nike , Intel, LG and Motorola will participate.  Nike will add its Fuel number to the Fit stream for other apps to utilize.

Apple announced a similar fitness data aggregation platform, Healthkit,  earlier this month. (See ApplySci, June 5 2014.)  Both platforms are expected to go live this fall.

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fitness Heart Sleep Wearables

Biometric shirt monitors astronaut vital signs

Astroskin is a  prototype medical monitoring shirt and headband for astronauts that could be used to continuously monitor patients. Its sensors record and analyze the wearer’s vital signs, sleep quality and activity level. Data is relayed to medical teams on the ground to monitor a crew member’s health, behavior and performance during daily operations and exercise, or to monitor sick or injured astronauts.  It is a refined version of Hexoskin, the commercially available biometric shirt for sports performance, sleep, and health tracking.  

Both shirts contain embedded sensors to measure vital signs and activity. An electrocardiograph measures heart rate and heart rate variability, and plethysmography sensors assess breathing rate and respiration volume by torso shape changes. Calories burned are calculated based on that heart rate and respiration data. An accelerometer tracks steps and the number of steps per minute. A user’s “sleep-efficiency score” is determined by movement, heart rate, and respiration through the night.  A small device in a pocket does preliminary data processing and sends the information to a user’s smartphone and to  Carré Technologies servers for analysis.

Astroskin was recently tested on a one month trek in Antarctica led by Alexandre Byette.

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fitness Wearables

Apple patents more wearable sensors

Apple Insider reports:  “A batch of Apple patent filings published on Thursday describe a system of interconnected sensors — some being wearable devices — that work with an iPhone hub to monitor activity levels, dynamically set or cancel alarms and manage push notification settings, among other automated tasks.”

The patents include: Method and Apparatus For Personal Characterization Data Collection Using Sensors,  Method and Apparatus for Automatically Setting Alarms and Notifications, and an update to a 2010 application describing a heart rate monitor embedded in a future iOS device.  All enable the iPhone to collect data from sensors in wristbands and other wearables to track activity levels and adjust settings based on a user’s behavior.

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fitness Sensors Wearables

Apple patents weightlifting tracker

Apple’s U.S. Patent No. 8,749,380 is a “shoe wear-out sensor, body-bar sensing system, unitless activity assessment and associated methods.”   

The patent describes a system where a sensor-laden device attaches to a weightlifting bar and counts and displays repetitions.  A watch for remote readings is included.  It is widely thought to be a part of an iWatch weightlifting tracker.

The device incorporates sensors, accelerometers, and processors with its display. Data can be sent wirelessly to a watch. Sensor hardware clips to fitness equipment, including bars, dumbbells and machines, and monitors movement and number of repetitions. 

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Apps Data fitness

Apple focuses on digital health

This week, Apple announced its Health app and Healthkit framework in an attempt to standardize and the collection, display, and interpretation of of personal health data.

In a new ad, aired yesterday, the company highlights fitness hardware, including Misfit Shine, Zepp Golf Sensor, Adidas miCoach Smart Ball, Wahoo Fitness Blue and Withings Healthmate, and health apps including Nike+ Running, Strong Lifts, Sprinttimer, Argus and Johnson & Johnson Official 7 Minute Workout App.

“Developers have created a vast array of healthcare devices and accompanying applications – everything from monitoring your activity level, to your heart rate, to your weight, and chronic medical conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes. But up until now the information gathered by those applications has lived in silos,” said Software Engineering SVP Craig Federighi. “You can’t get a single comprehensive picture of your health situation. But now you can with HealthKit.”

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fitness Sensors Wearables

Samsung announces Simband health tracker

Samsung’s forthcoming Simband, pitched as a common platform for wearable health sensor development,  will record and analyze user vital signs in real time.  Data will be uploaded directly to the cloud, with out the need for a smartphone.

Simband has multiple sensors, a thin removable battery and a small motherboard. It is powered by a 1GHz dual-core Arm A7 processor and equipped with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios.

It contains the Simband Sensor Module, which can house optical, electrical and physical sensors. Data collected can be forwarded to SAMI (Samsung Architecture for Multimodal Interactions) and used with third party apps.

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fitness Wearables

Smart glasses track fatigue

JINS MEME glasses track the correlation between eye strain and fatigue, and send mental and physical tiredness data to a user’s smartphone. 

The glasses monitor a user’s eye movements and gaze. They contain small metallic electrooculography sensors in the parts of the frame that touch the bridge of the nose and ears, determining the electrical potential of the eye movement.  Voltage change data is measured for alertness or fatigue.  It also has a motion tracking sensor that calculates body movements, posture and balance and can provide information about calories burned or exercise speed.

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fitness Wearables

Wearable data integration quantifies self and dog

As more wearable devices integrate data, Jawbone and Whistle have partnered to combine self fitness tracking with a dog’s activity. The results are presented together in one graph.  

Through the Jawbone UP app, users can see resting, walking, playing, running, or swimming time with their dogs on their activity stream.

Whistle uses a three-axis accelerometer to track daily exercise and rest cycles.  Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connect the tag to your phone and the cloud. Daily benchmarks and activity graphs are presented on its app, which  generates events in a dog’s timeline.  Users can comment on, customize and share the data.

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fitness Sleep Wearables

Wearables become beautiful (just in time for Mother’s Day)

The Misfit Bloom is a stylish pendant with the same health sensing technology as a fitness band.

A Shine sensor, originally crowdfunded on Indiegogo, is seamlessly integrated into the necklace, providing continuous monitoring of a user’s steps, calories and sleep.

As health monitoring becomes ubiquitous, ApplySci believes that the number of fashion forward wearable devices will steadily increase.

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Children fitness Monitoring Wearables

Gamified wearable activity monitor for kids

LeapFrog has embraced the wearables trend with a gamified fitness band for children aged 4-7.

The Leapband screen displays a personalized virtual pet  which guides a child through a series of activity challenges and games. The more active they are, the more points they win, and the more games they are able to unlock of the 50 offered.  Parents can monitor daily activity,  exporting the information via a companion app.

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fitness Sensors

Crowdfunded insole monitors fitness

SmartMove is an insole that tracks sitting time, standing, walking, running, and cycling.  It is based research that analyzed the gait of stroke patients at University of Colorado Denver, Colorado State University, and Clarkson University.  Sensors track one’s movement and wirelessly send activity and calorie burn information to a smartphone.   The accompanying app provides real-time feedback and personalized coaching throughout the day to help users adopt healthy activity habits.  The product is being crowdfunded on Kickstarter.

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fitness Heart mHealth Monitoring Sleep

Update: Samsung increases health applications with Gear 2 watch, Gear Fit, Galaxy S5

Samsung has updated its devices as it tries to establish dominance in the health and fitness tracking market.

Its Gear 2 watch is now based on Samsung’s Tizen operating system rather than Android. It includes an accelerometer and gyroscope – capable of acting as a pedometer and an optical heart rate monitor. This allows the watch to integrate with Samsung’s health and fitness tracking applications, replacing the need for additional tracking gadgets.  Its various tools will measure exercise, sleep and stress levels.

Apple is expected to release a smartwatch in the near future with a strong focus on fitness and health tracking, as well as a “Healthbook” application for its next iteration of its iOS iPhone and iPad software.

The Gear Fit band tracks movement, heart rate and sleep patterns. It is water-resistant and includes phone notifications, a timer, stopwatch and a curved OLED screen.

The Galaxy S5 smartphone features an enhanced S Health 3.0 app, a comprehensive personal fitness tracker, a pedometer, diet and exercise records, and a built-in heart rate monitor. It will pair seamlessly with the next generation Gear products for real-time fitness coaching.