Athletes will alter the way they fuel for sport by using real-time data to understand the impact of nutrition on performance.

Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) are being used by elite athletes and fitness enthusiasts to better understand the impact of blood sugar on performance. A recent study on blood sugar shows diet and exercise must be considered together to improve performance and health, and that chronic high blood sugar negates the impact of exercise.

Read more How Wearables are Helping Athletes Enhance Their Performance

Rethinking How To Fuel for Exercise

CGMs are exposing the weaknesses of fast-acting sugary sports nutrition products, which can send an athlete's blood sugar soaring above, then crashing below, the ideal range.

An athlete training for a marathon or triathlon typically consumes between 100-200g of sugar during a multi-hour training session when following product usage recommendations from popular sports nutrition companies. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 24g of added sugar per day for adult women and 36g of added sugar per day for adult men, says a press release.

"We've always thought of energy as needing sugar rapidly, but that can actually disrupt your metabolism and your ability to burn fat," says Dr. Cathy Yeckel, human metabolism researcher at Yale University. "What you actually want is little bits of energy over time to keep blood sugar stable."

"The bottom line is that traditional sports fuels are not the most effective way to enhance performance and promote health," says Dr. Jeff Volek, leading nutrition researcher and Assistant Professor of Kinesiology at Ohio State University. "A more optimal carbohydrate would provide a slower release and use of carbohydrate as fuel while simultaneously permitting increased breakdown and utilization of fat."

CGMs Showcase The Relationship Between Blood Sugar Control and Peak Performance

• There are many advantages in keeping blood sugar stable and avoiding excess glucose in the body:
• Steady energy throughout the day
• Sustained exercise endurance
• Sharp focus and cognition
• Improved fat-burning ability and better body composition
• Better hunger control & reduced cravings
• Lowered risk for metabolic diseases

"It doesn't matter the age, athlete or sport - regulating your blood sugar is critical for any athletic or health-conscious individual," says Bob Seebohar, registered dietitian and former sports dietitian for the U.S. Olympic Team.

A Game-Changing Innovation in Sports Nutrition

The UCAN Company stands apart from traditional sports nutrition products with an extraordinary innovation in sports fueling with UCAN Edge, the first and only energy source designed to maintain stable blood sugar levels.

SuperStarch®, the unique underlying ingredient in UCAN's products, was originally created to provide energy for a child with a rare condition that prohibits the body from producing its own blood sugar, resulting in frequent and dangerous episodes of hypoglycemia. Out of this need came a one-of-a-kind, slow-releasing complex carbohydrate that delivers steady, long-lasting energy without causing spikes and crashes in blood sugar.

"Despite the creation of a multi-billion-dollar sports nutrition market, there's been little innovation with respect to formulation until SuperStarch." says Dr. Volek. "SuperStarch represents a major advancement and is legitimately the most exciting development in sports nutrition this century,"

Elite and recreational athletes alike have been taking their performances to the next level by fueling with UCAN, including the 2nd fastest women marathoner in U.S. history Sara Hall, Olympic triathlete Katie Zaferes, CrossFit star Scott Panchik, 4x Olympian Meb Keflezighi, top American pro triathlete Tim O'Donnell, Olympic water polo player Maggie Steffens, and hundreds of pro and college teams.

Read more Sam Wearable Ultrasound Helps Accelerate Natural Healing In Injured Athletes

"I love that UCAN can provide fuel without spiking blood sugar & insulin," says Sara Hall. "As a human biology major and someone always looking to optimize my nutrition for performance, I really appreciate, at a cellular level, how this product works."

As the way we evaluate performance changes, the understanding of performance enhancement through nutrition will also evolve. UCAN is uniquely positioned as an innovator in sports nutrition with a patented, breakthrough ingredient that is trusted by elite athletes and scientifically proven to maintain blood sugar levels.

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Life360, a popular family tracking app, is acquiring Jiobit, a Chicago-based provider of wearable location devices for young children, pets, and seniors, for $37 million. The deal could be worth up to $54.5 million if Jiobit hits certain performance metrics. The deal is expected to close in the coming months, Jiobit CEO John Renaldi said.

Read more Peloton Expands Portfolio, Buys Wearables, AI, Hardware Startups

Jiobit’s wearable devices would be incorporated into Life360’s family safety membership, which provides holistic protection for driving, physical, and digital safety. Premium Life360 members would get discounted access to Jiobit devices, and post-integration, family members and pets wearing Jiobit devices would appear on a single unified family map interface, reports BusinessWire.

“We’ve long wanted to expand beyond the smartphone into wearable devices, and Jiobit offers the market-leading device for pets, younger children, and seniors,” said Chris Hulls, CEO and co-founder of Life360. “With Jiobit, Life360 would be the market leader in both hardware and software products for families once the deal closes. We will continue to seek out additional opportunities that could further cement our position as the leading digital safety brand for families.”

“Life360, as the leading smartphone platform for families, is the natural home for Jiobit. We have the same shared long-term vision around the future of the digitally native family, and this rollup is a natural accelerator,” said John Renaldi, CEO and co-founder of Jiobit. “We’re excited to gain access to Life360’s large user base and have access to new resources that will let us ramp up our growth, new product development, and expansion into additional verticals.”

The final transaction is subject to the approval of the Board of Directors of both Life360 and Jio, Inc., as well as the stockholders of Jio, Inc. The Life360 app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play.

About Life360

Life360 operates a platform for today’s busy families, bringing them closer together by helping them better know, communicate with, and protect the people they care about most. The Company’s core offering, the Life360 mobile app, is a market-leading app for families, with features that range from communications to driving safety and location sharing. Life360 is based in San Francisco and had more than 26 million monthly active users (MAU) as at December 2020, located in 195 countries.

Read more Best Smartwatches And Fitness Trackers For Kids

About Jiobit

Jiobit was founded in 2015 by Renaldi, a former Motorola executive who created the device after briefly losing track of his own child in Maggie Daley Park. The company’s primary product is a tracking device that attaches to a child's clothes and sends alerts to a parent's smartphone when they've left their side. It uses a combination of GPS and beacon technology to track where the child is, and it can also measure heights — like if the child is on the top of a slide or on the third floor of a shopping mall.

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Buying habits of shoppers across the globe have triggered an evolution in the watch industry, and as a result, demand for smartwatches is growing by the day. Smartwatches offer the convenience of customization, health tracking, movement tracking, and a horde of other benefits.

E. Gluck Corporation, a New York City-based watch manufacturer is venturing into the wearable technology market. The company announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with WITHit, a Las Vegas-based wearable technology accessories designer and manufacturer.

Read more Biogen Partnering with Apple for Cognitive Health Study Using Apple Watch and iPhone

“In WITHit, E. Gluck Corporation has found a younger version of itself. A company driven and guided by its core values and a relentless dedication to customer satisfaction,” said Bobbie Weichselbaum, CEO of E. Gluck Corporation. “We are excited on a corporate level to be joining forces and even more so, to having these incredible individuals joining our EGC family.”

“On the surface, this deal is simply about two companies forging a bond to build a great business together,” said Adam Gelnick, CFO E. Gluck Corporation. “In actuality, it is a group of incredible individuals with complementary expertise, joining together to create a sum that is greater than its individual parts. This is an ideal that both groups aspire to and together we will hopefully achieve.”

Founded in 2004, WITHit has amassed a loyal following of consumers attracted to the brand’s style, comfort, performance, and durability — particularly when it comes to wearable technology device bands and protection. WITHit has become one of the largest wearable tech accessory manufacturers in the U.S.  WITHit is also a leading supplier of reading accessories, with a complete line of reading lights and magnifiers.  Its products are sold in over 8,500 U.S. retail stores, E. Gluck said in a press release.

With over 500 million wearable devices in use globally, the acquisition provides international and domestic growth opportunities for both E. Gluck and WITHit and will enable E. Gluck to expand its addressable market, offering both traditional timepieces and fashionable wearable tech accessories.

Anticipating tremendous future growth in the global smartwatch market, E. Gluck’s acquisition positions the WITHit brand for expansion by providing access to untapped distribution channels, international expansion opportunities, as well as operational synergies, scale, and marketing.

“We are extremely excited to have this opportunity to continue our growth trajectory with E. Gluck,” said David Nelson, CEO of WITHit.  “Not only are our companies complementary from a pure business perspective, but E. Gluck and WITHit share core values and culture that make this combination special.”

“We could not have imagined a better strategic partner than E. Gluck,” said Phil Grandinetti, CCO of WITHit. “Together, we are in an even stronger position to provide our customers around the world with innovative products.”

WITHit’s COO Bill Devaney echoed these sentiments: “Bobbie, Adam Gelnick and the entire team at E. Gluck have been amazing throughout this process and we are thrilled to become part of the family.”

Abot E. Gluck Corporation

Founded over 65 years ago, E. Gluck Corporation is a major force in the watch industry — manufacturing, bringing to market and shipping timepieces worldwide. Brands include Armitron, Anne Klein, Torgoen, Badgley Mischka, Juicy Couture, Nine West and Vince Camuto. E.Gluck’s design and production acumen, global distribution capabilities and strategic retail experience allow for ultimate efficiency in a fluid marketplace.

Read more Wahoo Enters Wearables Market with the Launch of Elemnt Rival Multi-Sport GPS Smartwatch

About WITHit

WITHit designs, manufactures, and curates accessories that make wearable tech and reading experiences better. WITHit specializes in the rapid development of creative product designs using a wide variety of techniques and materials allowing it to keep pace with quickly evolving technological advancements and customer trends.  WITHit currently holds more than 30 patents and makes products under license for Star Wars, Disney, French Bull, Dabney Lee, and Peanuts.

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With the Luxe, Fitbit has introduced a new wearable that looks like a piece of jewelry. The $150 wearable combines health-and-wellness features of traditional Fitbit devices with stylized finishes. Fitbit Luxe comes with a focus on relaxation and stress management and offers a range of bracelet options.

This focus away from purely sporting use towards coping with everyday life is also reflected in the design of the Luxe. The tracker is made of stainless steel and is available in black, silver, and gold. In addition to the usual silicone straps, there are also a number of bracelets that make the device look more like a piece of jewelry than a fitness tracker.

Read more Fitbit Wearables May Soon Start Measuring Your Blood Pressure

In addition to matching metal mesh bracelets, double-wrapped leather bracelets from Horween are also available. There is also a chain bracelet in silver or gold, with which the Luxe actually hardly looks like a conventional fitness tracker.

Through a partnership with the Laguna Beach-based jewelry brand gorjana, users can switch out their Luxe band for a chain-link bracelet inspired by gorjana’s Parker collection.

Unlike other trackers, fitness is not the main purpose of the Luxe. Instead, Fitbit is positioning it more as a holistic wellness tracker than a dedicated fitness band. The two main factors that it's looking at are stress and sleep.

The wearable has an OLED screen. A heart rate monitor and sensors for measuring blood oxygen are installed on the back. This is not yet available for the planned start of the wearable in May 2021 and should be submitted later via an update.

With the purchase of the Luxe, users can start a free six-month trial subscription for Fitbit's premium account. This enables you to carry out more detailed sleep and stress analyses. A number of relaxation exercises are then also available to them.

According to Fitbit, Luxe provides five days of battery life, which includes a sleep record. The heart rate is measured every five seconds by default, and every second for sports recordings. In the Fitbit app, values ​​such as heart and breathing rate, resting heart rate, and skin temperature are combined into a health value.

The Fitbit Luxe with a silicone bracelet costs 150 euros in Germany. With the chain bracelet, the wearable costs 200 euros. The Horween leather bracelet costs an additional 50 euros, the mesh bracelet 90 euros. The fabric bracelet can be ordered for 40 euros. Like the Luxe itself, the accessories are to be delivered from May 2021.

Read more Fitbit to Equip NASA Employees with Wearables to Protect Them from COVID-19

So, why should you wear a fitness tracker that looks like a piece of jewelry?

A study suggests that clothes systematically influence wearers' psychological processes. Researchers of the study coined the term “enclothed cognition” to demonstrate the cognitive influences that fashion has on its wearers, reports MobiHealthNews. Their study examined how wearing a white lab coat influenced the participants’ performance on attention-related tasks – a characteristic that is often associated with lab coats. Those who were outfitted in lab coats demonstrated significantly better results than those wearing plain clothes.

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NeoRhythm, a wellness wearable that hacks your brain, has made it to the finals for the World Healthcare Innovation Award as part of the 12th annual IoT/WT Innovation World Cup. To reach there, NeoRhythm beat out more than 600 top competitors.

Read more Interview with NeoRhythm: Next-gen brain stimulation headband to sleep better, relieve stress and boost your energy

Launched by one of the most successful campaigns in the history of Indiegogo, and with over 8000 happy users and counting, this wellness wearable is making quite a stir in the wearables space.

NeoRhythm was developed by MDCN technology Inc. It’s a neurostimulation headband that will help you to de-stress, focus, sleep & meditate better, and more. The headband uses a safe magnetic method of neuromodulation to target specific areas of the brain with the purpose of helping the user reach a desired state of mind such as relaxation, focus, or sleep.

NeoRhythm's Quantum Leap Forward

NeoRhythm is already a fully functioning platform, so advanced and engaged that it is the focus of the world's largest laboratory study of the effects of PEMF home therapy, providing data from over 7000 volunteers. But NeoRhythm is in the process of upgrading from wellness wearable to medical device, developing advanced protocols for the treatment of pain, depression, Parkinson's disease, some types of cancer and more.

Leaning from Wellness to Medical

Although NeoRhythm's initial goal was to become an affordable wellness tool, combining the all-around benefits of PEMF therapy with the effectiveness of brainwave entrainment, the company quickly expanded their scientific research and began to develop their further plans for the device. The scientific work, undertaken alongside leading independent European experts on depression, seeks to constantly optimize NeoRhythm's programs to allow the PEMF wearable to help treatments of pain, depression, Parkinson's disease, and even cancer, in addition to its basic, proven functions of easing moderate pain, assisting with sleep, promoting concentration and encouraging deeper meditation.

Read more OmniPEMF Announces Worldwide Availability Of Its NeoRhythm Neurostimulation Headband

From Wellness Wearable to Medical Device

Now, thanks to the success of NeoRhythm and independent research projects supporting and expanding its efficacy, the future looks bright. NeoRhythm plans to register in the near future as an official medical device. It will remain just as safe, non-invasive and affordable. But it will become even more effective.

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Researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Freiburg have proposed that wearable devices could be used to develop a network of health data about a patient, allowing for early diagnosis of COVID-19, even when the patient is asymptomatic.

Read more Imperial College London: New Silicon-Based Lab-On-Chip Could Deliver Accurate Results Within Minutes

An increasing number of people are using wearable devices to better understand their health, also known as “quantified self-movement”. There are a variety of exciting new devices being developed, including tattoos, contact lenses, and clothing, which can monitor a range of different health signals and provide us with real-time data about our bodies. Now, researchers have suggested that this data could help to diagnose and treat COVID-19. The article has been published in Nature Electronics.

Positive correlation

Smartphones, fitness trackers, and smartwatches have drastically changed the way we understand our personal health and fitness. These devices allow us to monitor our wellbeing through measurements of heart rate, movement, and even blood oxygen levels, reports Lily Shepherd in Imperial College London.

“The key advantage of wearables is that they are able to collect real-time information. This could transform the way we collect medical data by allowing measurements of trends and abrupt metabolic changes between check-ups,” says Dr Ali Yetisen from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London.

Researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Freiburg have reviewed the literature on wearable devices and argue that their potential has become increasingly apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They note that previous studies in this field have shown promising data but were limited for several reasons. They were unable to distinguish between COVID-19 and other, similar viral infections, and the data was likely to show bias as smartwatches are generally more accessible to higher-income communities. There was also a need for large amounts of data in order to carry out accurate analysis, which would make the diagnosis of novel pathogens difficult.

In their article, the researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Freiburg proposed that the use of wearable devices to detect COVID-19 could be significantly increased by employing a network of devices.

Smart network

"The use of intelligent facemasks could allow us to continuously access medically relevant physiological data in a non-invasive way."

Dr Firat Güder Department of Bioengineering

There are a wide range of new low-cost wearables that measure various physical quantities currently in development. These include clothing that can detect when certain molecules or “biomarkers” are present in sweat; face masks that can analyze breath and detect airborne diseases; and contact lenses that can measure the pressure of fluid inside the eye.

Using several of these devices together would help to build a clearer picture of a patient’s health, without requiring large amounts of data.

Dr. Ali Yetisen from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London said: “By using a combination of different wearable devices, we could collect data on various patient signals, such as movement, respiratory rate or concentration of biomarkers in sweat. These could be used for pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic diagnosis, monitoring of the health of COVID-19 patients, or assessment of treatments.”

Intelligent face masks, in particular, would be very useful for detecting COVID-19. Face masks have already become a part of our everyday life, so it would not be challenging to encourage large numbers of people to wear them.

Dr Firat Güder from the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London said: “The use of intelligent facemasks could allow us to continuously access medically relevant physiological data in a non-invasive way. In the past, this data would have only been accessible if a patient was assessed at a clinic by healthcare professionals.”

The face masks could also monitor the air around the wearer, perhaps even alerting them to the presence of harmful airborne molecules. Spyras LTD, a start-up from the laboratory of Dr Güder, is already in the final phase of releasing their intelligent face mask for analyzing respiration in real-time.

Wearables of the future

This research does not stop at COVID-19. In collaboration with researchers from the University of California Davis, Dr. Ali Yetisen’s research group has developed tattoos that change color in the presence of certain biomarkers. These tattoos could keep a diabetic person informed about glucose levels in their blood or tell a person with a hormonal or metabolic disease if the pH of their body has changed.

Researchers have developed tattoos that change color when there is a certain amount of glucose or albumin in the blood, or when the pH level of the blood changes to a certain level. (Source: Dr Ali Kemal Yetisen)

This is just one example of an exciting new wearable device. There are a seemingly infinite number of uses for wearable technologies in medicine, which could really transform the way we assess and treat our health.

Read more New Zealand Border Officials Begin Trialing of App to Detect COVID-19 Early

Dr Yetisen explained: “The key advantage of wearables is that they are able to collect real-time information. This could transform the way we collect medical data by allowing measurements of trends and abrupt metabolic changes between check-ups."

As these devices get smaller and cheaper, they will become more accessible to the average person. It may not be too long before we can all monitor every aspect of our health through our clothing, tattoos, and face masks.

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Researchers at the ETH spin-off Mithras Technology have developed wearable thermoelectric generator (TEG) sensors that can harvest energy from the wearer’s own body.

Wearable devices like hearing aids are extremely practical. But elderly wearers, who have to replace the tiny little batteries every two weeks, often find them quite fiddly to handle. Not only does changing the batteries make demands on their fine motor skills, but it’s also a task that tends to get forgotten every now and then. The two founders of ETH spin-off Mithras Technology decided to change all that. Franco Membrini and Moritz Thielen, want devices to run on environmentally friendly, decentralized power. Their approach is simple – use the human body as an energy source, writes Angelika Bühler in ETHZ.

On average, human bodies continuously radiate about 100 watts of thermal energy, most of which gets absorbed by the immediate environment. It is precisely this “wasted” energy that Mithras now proposes to harness. The company wants to convert heat into electricity via thermoelectric generators, or TEGs. One side of the TEG is in contact with the body, the other with the environment. The device converts the temperature difference between its two sides into electricity that can be stored in a battery. TEGs can produce emission-free electricity even when the temperature difference is as small as one degree.

Read more Energy Harvesting Nanogenerators Offer New Option For Monitoring Health

Harvesting energy from body heat

Currently, the founders of Mithras Technology are still in the prototyping phase. Their work builds on Thielen’s doctoral thesis; he earned a doctorate in micro-and nanosystems at ETH Zurich and is one of only a handful of specialists in this field.

The Mithras team has developed two concepts for how to wear TEG sensors on the body: as a standalone wearable worn like a wristwatch, or as a solution integrated into a mobile device. The only prerequisite for electricity generation is that the device is worn directly on the body. One possible application of their technology in the consumer sector is in fitness trackers that function completely autonomously with an integrated TEG system. “It doesn’t matter if you’re drinking coffee, exercising, or sleeping – as long as the TEGs can ‘tap into your body heat, the battery will charge on its own,” Membrini explains.

The ties between Mithras Technology and ETH

Working entirely alone, however, Membrini and Thielen were unable to commercialize the technology, so they turned to various coaches and advisory boards for support. Without the advice they received, they could never have implemented the Mithras vision. They also brought Michele Magno, a research associate at the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, onboard as a third partner. “Gaining the label of ‘ETH spin-off’ from ETH Transfer was a technological accolade for us,” Membrini says. ETH certification led investors to take the project seriously; the founders gained access to important infrastructure and were able to tap into a large network. “A project like ours would be hard to undertake without the support of ETH,” Membrini says.

The Mithras team had to overcome many technical hurdles during the development phase. The devices need to be not only as compact as possible and easy to use, but also waterproof so that they work even when people sweat. Only TEGs that meet all these criteria can be installed in smaller devices such as a biosensor without any problems.

From history to technology

Thermoelectric effects were first described by Thomas Johann Seebeck in 1822. He found that a compass needle will move as soon as it is placed close to two metal compounds at different temperatures. The conversion of heat into electricity later became known as the “Seebeck effect” and describes one aspect of the physical processes we know today as the thermoelectric effect.

The question is, how does a historian like Membrini end up founding a tech startup and developing new ways to harness energy? “It’s the result of a long-drawn-out process of development. You don’t just get up one morning and think: today I’ll found a startup,” Membrini says. Even as a child in Graubünden, he wanted to start his own business someday. His curiosity served him well when one day while searching around for a business idea, he came across the topic of human body energy harvesting. “From the beginning, I saw a lot of potential in this form of decentralized power generation,” Membrini says.

Read more Researchers Develop Stretchable Thermoelectric Coils for Energy Harvesting in Flexible Wearable Devices

Gazing into a crystal ball

After successfully concluding their seed investor round, the Mithras team is now ready to really get down to business. They aim to launch their first product in the fourth quarter of 2021. Their sights are on the medtech sector: in the future, they want to incorporate Mithras technology into hearing aids, insulin pumps, and other medical devices. “Our technology has dozens of possible applications,” Membrini says. The team’s initial focus is on biosensors for monitoring bodily functions. This will work via what are known as smart patches, which are applied to the body. “They would be the first devices of their kind to run purely on body heat,” Membrini explains.

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GPS smartwatches with fitness trackers are becoming more and more popular with those who do sports, as the targeted training can be better coordinated and understood using the practical wearables and their functions. One of the big players in this segment is the Chinese manufacturer Amazfit, which has currently not only launched the new "T-Rex Pro", an extremely robust and potent device, but also elegant models such as the "GTR 2e" in leads his portfolio. We took a closer look at the two smartwatches.

Related Amazfit Plans to Launch Smartwatches with ECG and Blood Pressure Monitoring in the U.S.

T-Rex Pro

After the popularity of its previous version, Amazfit is pushing the second generation of its outdoor series with the “T-Rex Pro” smartwatch, primarily expanding the functional scope.

T-Rex Pro proudly roars to the world “Let's get out into nature” and in this respect also keeps what it promises.

Like the first T-Rex, the Pro version with the metal-sprayed plastic outer bezel makes a comparatively bulky impression, but it also conveys the robustness that one expects from an outdoor smartwatch. Despite its low weight of just 600 grams, the T-Rex Pro has passed a total of 15 endurance tests according to military standards. That’s three more than the previous model.

According to Amazfit, the T-Rex Pro can withstand extreme temperatures of +70 to -40 degrees Celsius, ice, and freezing rain. Even 240 hours in moisture or 96 hours in salt fog cannot harm the watch. Thanks to the 10 ATM water resistance, you can even dive 100 meters deep with it and it is shockproof anyway. In short: You can take the T-Rex Pro with you into the jungle, the desert, the sea or on climbing tours with a clear conscience.

The high-contrast 1.3-inch HD AMOLED screen is able to regulate the brightness using a sensor, which works quite well in practice. If you activate the always-on function, dials or the time in numbers (depending on the dial design selected) always remain darkened until you activate the display by lifting your arm or pressing one of the four buttons. Tapping the screen is not enough, reports MANN.tv.

Other functions include a step counter, calculation of calorie consumption, regular heart tracking, sleep monitoring, stress measurement, the company's own PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence), which summarizes your sports activities and the daily measured data in a numerical value, and of course sports tracking.

Amazfit has properly upgraded the T-Rex Pro. While the old T-Rex had only 14 sports to be recorded, the Pro now has over 100. The Pro is able to automatically recognize eight of the sport modes based on your activity. However, this function significantly reduces battery consumption and is therefore initially deactivated at the factory.

The T-Rex Pro now uses four, instead of just two, global navigation satellite systems, which enables a high level of accuracy in terms of positioning in any terrain. In addition, there is the new barometric altitude sensor, from which you can read air pressure and altitude, as well as a SpO2 sensor, which measures the oxygen saturation in your blood but is expressly not to be understood as medical expertise.

The compass, the pleasantly vibrating alarm clock, and the extremely useful "phone search function" should not go unmentioned, with which your misplaced smartphone makes a sound that can hardly be ignored.

Now, the battery life. According to the company, the battery gives you "18 days of activities and progress with typical use or up to 9 days with heavy use". In practice, we actually just barely reached the 18 days, but only when it was not used for several days. From a purely mathematical point of view, nine days under constant stress seem somewhat utopian to us.

The Amazfit T-Rex Pro is available in the colors Meteorite Black, Desert Gray, and Steel Blue either under this link from the manufacturer itself or from Amazon at a price of 169.90 euros.

GTR 2e

GTR 2e is for those who prefer a more discreet watch. This is a slightly slimmed-down version of the GTR 2, which is also a bit slimmer in terms of price and promises a considerable battery life.

At first glance, the slim and elegant design is convincing, which dispenses with a border around the 1.39-inch AMOLED HD screen and ends with curved glass. In terms of quality, the display leaves a similarly valuable impression as the T-Rex, but even comes with a better resolution and significantly more dials to choose from. It is even possible to include your own images as a background.

The battery should last up to 24 days and with intensive use, it’ll last 12 days. If you only use the clock to check the time from time to time, it should even last a full 45 days. As with the T-Rex Pro, it is charged via a USB cable with a magnetic end that you simply attach to the back of the watch.

The watch has a 24-hour heart rate monitoring with an optional warning in the event of deviations, blood oxygen, and stress level measurement, sleep analysis, and the PAI health assessment system. It also has an alarm clock, stopwatch, step and calorie counter, and a relatively pointless temperature sensor. In connection with the smartphone, you can also check the weather and incoming messages, control the music, and display all the data collected in the Zepp app.

All in all, the range of functions is, as expected, less than with the T-Rex Pro, the water resistance is only half of 5 ATM (which is still as tough as the first T-Rex) and the GTR also has to be used in terms of operation 2E can manage with two fewer buttons, which, however, has not shown any significant disadvantage in practice. The still high, but still slightly smaller selection of sport modes, which we personally missed rowing, for example, weighs a little more heavily.

According to Amazfit, the operating repertoire also includes an offline voice control function that works even without a connection to the smartphone, but currently only works in English. The integration of Alexa should follow via update.

Related Huami Amazfit Ranked No. 1 by Shipments in Spain, Indonesia and India

Nevertheless, the GTR 2e presents itself as a high-quality and stylish smartwatch, which, in contrast to the GTR 2, looks amazingly good on the diet. The advantages in terms of battery life and price make up for the lower range of functions. At a comparatively moderate price, the GTR 2e is definitely a reliable and extremely durable companion.

The Amazfit GTR 2e is available in the colors Obsidian Black, Slate Gray, and Matcha Green either under this link from the manufacturer itself or on Amazon for 129.90 euros.

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Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) affect the muscles, nerves, tendons, joints, cartilage, and spinal discs. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSD) are conditions in which the work environment and performance of work contribute significantly to the condition; and/or the condition is made worse or persists longer due to work conditions.

Read more PepsiCo’s Use of Kinetic Reflex Wearable Bolstering Worker Safety

KINETIC, a New York-based wearable technology company that fosters safe environments for the industrial workforce, is addressing how ergonomic risks can impact both worker safety and the bottom line in a new white paper. The paper, titled “Good to Great: Enhancing Workplace Safety with Wearables,” examines how the deployment of wearable technology can help organizations safeguard their employees from the damaging effects of musculoskeletal injuries.

Every move essential workers make while on the job is critical to their safety, and high-risk postures - like bending, overreaching, and twisting - can lead to costly injuries. The KINETIC Reflex device can maximize a safety program and fortify an organization’s safety culture by mitigating costly ergonomic risks, reports Globe Newswire.

The KINETIC white paper explains how its Reflex wearable delivers the following benefits:

• Insights and Improvements -- Through data analytics, organizations gain the ability to know who is performing high-risk postures and to uncover why. Accumulated data can be leveraged for actionable insights and behavior-changing technology for continuous improvement that reduces injuries and maximizes operational efficiencies.
• Worker-Driven Change -- Employee participation is key to improving workplace ergonomics. With an unobtrusive form, a state-of-the-art algorithm, and unique gamification features, the KINETIC Reflex is a wearable solution that workers want to wear.
• Proven Results -- The direct and indirect costs of workplace injuries are substantial. Companies that invest in their workforce now, augmenting them with wearable tech, gain a competitive advantage with a 50-60% reduction in injury frequency and a 72% reduction in lost workdays.

“Companies that invest in innovative technologies, like wearables, will rise to the top with a safer, more productive, and more engaged workforce,” said KINETIC CEO and Cofounder Haytham Elhawary.

The KINETIC Reflex is a discrete smart wearable that is worn on belts or waistbands of industrial workers. It automatically detects unsafe work postures and provides users with real-time feedback to reduce injuries and create better work habits. The technology was recently updated with features to enhance the contact tracing process and help keep essential employees safe during the pandemic. To learn more about KINETIC or to deploy the Reflex in your facility, please visit wearkinetic.com.

Read more KINETIC-JLG Partnership To Deploy COVID-19 Safety Wearables For Industrial Workers

KINETIC was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in New York. The company provides wearable technology and a software analytics platform that helps reduce workplace injuries and protects workers from COVID-19. To date, tens of thousands of workers have worn KINETIC’s Reflex product at hundreds of facilities around the world, with a 50-60% reduction in injury frequency. Customers include companies in the retail, logistics, and manufacturing industries, including 6 of the Fortune 50.

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No matter where you work, there is a chance that you will get injured on the job. In the United States, workplace accidents are a huge problem. A total of 5,333 workers died from a work-related injury in the U.S. in 2019, up 2 percent from 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Costs from these injuries, illnesses, and fatalities have exceeded $250 billion annually.

Read more Intel Develops Neuromorphic Chip that Can Sniff Out Hazardous Chemicals

Technology can play a vital role in reducing workplace injuries. Flexible sensors that alert workers and managers to danger at the earliest opportunity, may become a useful weapon in the fight against workplace accidents.

The U.S. military performed a trial run of this technology. Aptima, a Woburn, MA-based company whose mission has been to optimize and improve human performance in mission-critical, technology-intensive settings, developed an IoT approach to worker wearable technology by fusing a combination of environmental, human, and locational data from the worker, analyzing it in the cloud, and providing real-time detection and alerting through its SafeGuard software platform, reports ZDNet. Aptima developed this technology through partnerships with NextFlex, the U.S. Air Force, and Lockheed Martin.

SafeGuard fuses a combination of environmental, human, and locational data from a worker’s sensors, analyzing it in the cloud and at the edge to provide real-time detection and alerting.  For a mechanic welding inside a ship compartment, for example, algorithms assess their physiological, atmospheric, and other indicators, including heart rate, breathing, air quality, and motion, detecting risks such as dangerous levels of fuel vapors or low oxygen, and their health status.

Unlike current safety protocols that rely on one-to-one observers to check in with confined space workers at intervals, SafeGuard’s cloud-based monitoring enables a single safety manager to oversee the real-time health and safety of 15-20 workers simultaneously, even tracking their precise locations in GPS denied environments, Aptima said in a blog post.

Predictive alerts and intuitive at-a-glance “green-yellow-red status indicators provide continuous, comprehensive monitoring for proactive injury prevention. In the case of high-risk or man-down situations, SafeGuard’s built-in decision support capabilities facilitate the appropriate intervention, including emergency or medical response when seconds and minutes are crucial.

For lone and remote workers, such as utility and power grid personnel at risk from falls or electrical shock while far from others, SafeGuard’s motion- and fall-detection, and man-down alerts are uniquely suited to providing these vital monitoring and response needs.

The SafeGuard platform is sensor agnostic. The patented fusion engine technology and big data modeling can integrate and correlate nearly any sensor and data type to provide monitoring and predictive alerting for specific jobs and occupational safety requirements.

Because SafeGuard’s underlying technology was initially developed for stringent military application, its algorithms have been validated to prevent false positives. The Safety-as-a-Service platform employs encryption and other data security measures for transmission, cloud storage, and privacy requirements.

Read more Vuzix-Eaton Partnership to Develop Smartglasses for Hazardous Workplaces

In January, President Biden signed an executive order protecting worker health and safety and pushing for additional resources to help employers protect employees. Technological advancements like this may save millions of workers’ lives.

With over $10M in investments from the Department of Defense, and private sectors, Aptima is applying its solution to any multi-domain organizations requiring personnel to operate in risk-laden environments.

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A team of researchers at Stanford University has found that the Apple Watch in combination with an iPhone can be used to monitor frailty in cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients. As the heart becomes unable to keep with increased demands, people with CVD often lose physical abilities.

Read more Apple Joins Forces with Researchers to Conduct Health Studies Using Apple Watch

The study showed that data generated passively through the VascTrac app on an iPhone and Apple Watch predicted patient performance on a 6-minute walk test as accurately as a home-based 6-minute walk test, according to a longitudinal observational study. Generally conducted in a clinical setting, the 6-minute walk test is used as a standard means of assessing the health of CVD patients.

For their study, Neil Rens, a medical student at Stanford University, and Oliver O. Aalami, MD, a clinical associate professor of surgery-vascular surgery at the university, and colleagues, enrolled 110 participants who were scheduled for vascular or cardiac procedures at a Veterans Affairs hospital. Among the participants, 99% were men and their average age was 68.9. Also, 11% of the participants never smoked.

Each participant was supplied with an iPhone and an Apple Watch running the VascTrac research app and was followed for 6 months. Supervised 6MWTs were performed during clinic visits at scheduled intervals. Weekly at-home 6MWTs were performed via the VascTrac app. The app passively collected activity data such as daily step counts. Logistic regression with forward feature selection was used to assess at-home 6MWT and passive data as predictors for "frailty" as measured by the gold-standard supervised 6MWT. Frailty was defined as walking <300m on an in-clinic 6MWT.

The researchers found that in a supervised in-clinic setting, the smartphone and Apple Watch with the VascTrac app were able to accurately assess 'frailty' with a sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 85%. Outside the clinic in an unsupervised setting, the home-based 6MWT is 83% sensitive and 60% specific in assessing "frailty." Passive data collected at home were nearly as accurate at predicting frailty on a clinic-based 6MWT as was a home-based 6MWT, with an area under curve (AUC) of 0.643 and 0.704, respectively.

Read more Apple Watch’s New Health Feature Monitors and Notifies You About Your Cardio Fitness

“The VascTrac app uses smartphones and wearables to collect activity data. These data include passive steps walked, distance walked, cadence, pace, heart rate and stairs climbed. During a 6MWT, the app also collects accelerometer data. Importantly, in our study we had study coordinators physically count the steps and distance walked during a 6MWT to establish ground truth, Rens and Aalami told Healio Primary Care.”

“These data provide physicians with similar information to an in-clinic 6MWT. This means that some aspects of cardiovascular fitness can be tracked without the patient needing to come into the clinic. The VascTrac app was able to assess a patient’s frailty using remote data, which could serve as an indicator for when the patients need to come into the clinic.”

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Border officials in New Zealand have begun to trial an app, called ëlarm, designed to detect Covid-19 before the first symptoms of the disease arise. The platform has been developed by artificial intelligence (AI) company Datamine, and links with smartwatches and other wearable devices to measure metrics like heart rate, temperature, or oxygen saturation.

Related Stanford University Study Shows Wearable Devices Could Detect COVID-19 Earlier

The Ministry of Health has organized a month-long trial of the ëlarm app, which connects to wearable devices such as Fitbit, Apple Watch, and other smartwatches or fitness trackers. The app uses artificial intelligence technology to inform users of early physiological changes that might indicate they are becoming unwell, several days before they experience symptoms.

Up to 500 border workers can volunteer to take part in the trial, which runs until early May. After installing the app on a smart device, they will receive regular email reminders, and alerts throughout the day and can securely view their own health information on the app or by going online to view a dashboard.

The app establishes a personalized health baseline for each user, based on their wearable data history. All data used by the app is entirely private to the individual participants, which is a fundamental part of ëlarm’s privacy-by-design principles, the New Zealand Ministry of Health said in a Media Release.

“Contact tracing is at the heart of our COVID-19 response and it’s essential we find and treat people who might have been exposed to this difficult virus before it has a chance to take hold in our communities,” says Shayne Hunter.

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“There’s no single fix for COVID-19 so it’s important we use the tools and technologies at our disposal to give contact tracers and health workers a good head start. We already have good tools such as the NZ COVID Tracer app and QR code posters, and the Ministry of Health is investigating other technologies that might provide further support for our contact tracing.

“If the ëlarm app lives up to its potential, it might provide early notification to our critical border workforce if they’re becoming unwell. That means they can take appropriate action such as self-isolating and being tested for COVID-19.

Related Innovosens’ Diabetes Monitoring Technology May Help In Early Detection Of COVID-19

“Even though our border workers are vaccinated, the reality is that some people will still feel unsure about the increased risk of exposure to COVID-19 from working on the border. We want to really support this essential work by giving people good tools to monitor their own health to keep themselves, their whānau and all of New Zealand safe and healthy.”

Early research of similar technology supports the use of wearable devices to detect COVID-19 and other transmissible diseases, including studies undertaken by Stanford University, Scripps Institute and UCSF.

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The rising popularity of wearables is making these devices evolve into different forms. From fitness trackers, smartwatches, and smart glasses, a new form of wearables is emerging, and it is called IoT fabrics or smart fabrics. These fabrics can be used to create clothing to monitor our vital signs.

As the Internet of Things, or IoT, continues to expand exponentially, wearables have emerged as the latest IoT frontier because of their enticing potential applications, reports EET India.

Benefits of IoT fabrics

Sensor-embedded smart fabrics make wearables least intrusive. These smart fabrics can be used to make shirts, jackets, pants, socks, or even shoes. These smart clothes can be folded and stretched to fit the body. Data collected from the wearer’s body include heart rate, blood oxygen level, blood glucose level, blood pressure, body temperature, and activity.

Read more Hexoskin Smart Shirt Accurately Measures Breathing, Could be Useful for Monitoring COPD

Smart fabrics can also be used to track the elderly, hospital patients, and kids. People suffering from dementia can wear sensor-embedded clothes, where a GPS tracker can send an alert to their loved ones when the patient has wandered off. The same technology can be used by teens to have their parents monitor their moves. Wearables like these can also be used in high-risk settings, such as construction sites or mountaineering expeditions, where everyone’s whereabouts must be accounted for.

Shunt system to monitor Hydrocephalus

Medtech startup Rhaeos has made developed a wearable for noninvasive monitoring of patients suffering from an accumulation of brain fluids, known as hydrocephalus. Arising from a collaboration between materials scientists and neurological surgeons at Northwestern University, the company has developed a noninvasive thermal sensor for use in the monitoring of ventricular shunt function. The Band-Aid-like sensor measures a characteristic heat signature if the shunt is working and the excess cerebral spinal fluid is draining properly. On the other hand, if the shunt malfunctions and there’s no flow, the sensor is able to quickly indicate that via heat flow measurements.

The Nanit Plus camera sees everything happening in and around the crib, with stunning clarity. And with Breathing Wear, that same camera can monitor your baby's breathing motion, simply by reading the customized paterns on the fabric. (Image: )[/caption]

Preventing sudden infant death syndrome

Sudden infant death syndrome is a new parent’s nightmare. The CDC reported 3,600 sudden unexpected infant deaths in 2017. It’s helpful to learn about newborn breathing to keep you informed and take the best care of your little one.

Nanit, an American tech start-up that develops baby monitor devices connected through its mobile app, released new infant clothing that do not need sensors or other forms of embedded electronics. Dubbed Breathing Wear, the infant outfit works with Nanit’s smart camera to monitor the baby’s breathing. The system provides insights into the baby’s breathing by allowing the camera to read the clothing’s patterns. An unobtrusive camera, placed above the crib, interprets the customized pattern on the baby’s clothing item and translates that into a breathing pattern. This information is then sent to the parent's smartphone or tablet.

Designing challenges

In addition to being flexible and easy-to-use, smart fabrics need to be hardy, accurate, and self-sufficient.

• To endure everyday wear and tear experienced by the user, the smart fabric needs to be toughened to stay intact and functional as well as machine-washable.
• As the wear and tear may affect the accuracy of the data collected, installing different types of sensors or multiple sensors will help ensure data accuracy.
• Small and unobtrusive sensors. Sensors must be small and unobtrusive so that they do not affect the fabric’s texture. However, the sensors must be able to collect and transfer data continuously.
• Energy harvesting. The continuous power supply is crucial for smart clothes to perform properly. Flexible batteries used in smart clothes need constant charging. To eliminate the need for charging, much research is going into energy harvesting from body heat and motion or vibration.

Read more Smart Clothes to Contribute Over $11 Bn to Fitness Wearable Revenue by 2025, Says Juniper Research

The future of wearables

The future of smart fabrics is brighter than ever. Smart clothes are headed to the forefront of wearable technology. Smart clothes will continue to evolve and eliminate the need for smartwatches, smart rings, and other types of health-monitoring wearables.

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Wearables for pets are here. Now, your dog or cat can be fitted up with GPS collars and even fancy fitness tracking collars.

The Pet Wearable Market is expected to reach USD 1,718 million by 2024 from USD 703 million in 2019 at a 19.6% CAGR. The growth of the market is attributed to the increasing concerns toward pet health and wellbeing, rising pet population & pet humanization, surging demand for IoT in pet tracking devices, and growing expenditure on pets due to high disposal income, according to Markets and Markets.

Read more These Wearables for Animals Will Keep Your Pets Happy and Engaged in Social Media

Whistle, a San Francisco-based pet device maker, has become a leader in the fast-growing pet wearables industry by rapidly improving its pet monitoring technology. The company’s flagship product line of Whistle Go devices used to simply report a pet's location and number of miles walked per day. Now, that data gets crunched in real-time to notify you through a smartphone app when subtle changes, like decreased activity or increased scratching, could indicate a health problem.

Whistle FIT serves as a preventative healthcare tool and utilizes its wellness program for dogs. It provides customers with a simple and fully personalized experience to manage pet care through monitoring of a pet's key health behaviors, food intake management, and activity. A service company at its core, Whistle Labs provides users with valuable insights that enable them to better care for their dogs.

For health and fitness monitoring, Whistle GO Explore and Whistle FIT are pet wearables that clip or attach to your dog’s collar.

Whistle Go Explore is smart pet device that monitors your pet’s location, health and fitness, which you can clip or attach on any collar.  Built for the outdoors and every adventure, this GPS-enabled smart tracker is packed with health and fitness monitoring features that give you the best pet parent peace of mind possible. Great for dogs 20 lbs and up.

Whistle trackers help owners stay on top of their dog's fitness with recommended daily activity goals based on breed, age, and weight. See calories burned, distance traveled, minutes active & more. Whistle trackers help owners get ahead of potential health problems with alerts, notifications and weekly wellness reports that monitor behaviors like licking, scratching, and sleeping. Owners can also get a 30-day view of health behavior that can easily be shared with a veterinarian.

"Our mission is to improve the lives of pets by empowering the people who love them," said Collette Bunton, CEO of Whistle Labs. "Introducing Whistle FIT to our product portfolio is a direct response to our customers' needs for insights into their pet's health and fitness. Through our Pet Insight Project, where we've enlisted over 50,000 citizen scientists and collected data from 60,000 dogs across 900 breeds and mixes, we're able to provide an in-depth look into pet behavior and provide Whistle FIT users with actionable solutions. These insights help give our pets a voice and enable pet parents to deliver the right care when they need it — leading to happier and healthier pets."

A recent survey conducted by Whistle of 1,000 U.S. pet owners revealed their biggest concern is understanding and managing their pets' behavior, as well as providing them with proper nutrition and healthcare.

"Whistle FIT collects over 50 samples of your pet's movements every second, enabling our research team to look for hidden insights and discover never-before-seen patterns," said Jordan Meyer, Whistle's VP of Product. "As we uncover new connections between pet behavior, health and nutrition, we'll update the Whistle app to provide new capabilities and features, and offer greater insight into your pet's well-being."

Read more Wearable Pet Technology Company Link AKC Acquired by Smart Tracking Technologies

Whistle is the only brand in pet wearables to offer personalized nutrition recommendations. With over 3,000 types of dog food, across all major brands, in its database, Whistle calculates the total daily amount an owner should be feeding their dog based on age, breed, weight, activity level/calories burned, and type of dog food. Activity levels are pulled directly from the Whistle tracker to make it easy to calculate precise average calories burned per day as input into portion recommendations. Once a pet owner enters their dog food, the Whistle app evaluates activity levels to determine the portion of food suggested specifically for that dog. Similar to humans, fitness in dogs is based not only on activity but also the amount of calories consumed.

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Drones have become a fixture of our modern lives. From taking pictures and delivering packages to monitoring crops and spraying pesticides, drones can perform various tasks. However, there’s one space where drones haven’t yet made their marks yet and that is healthcare.

Read more How Fitness Wearables Will Evolve In The Future

Researchers say that the recreational drone market — valued at $2.33 billion in 2020, according to data from Research and Markets — could come together with the $30 billion wearables market to produce what may one day be a fixture in personal health and wellness: fitness drones, reports Washington Post.

Jaggobot

In 2012, Jaggobot, created by the Exertion Games Laboratory at RMIT University in Melbourne, became one of the earliest examples of the potential application of a drone in the fitness industry. The Joggobot was designed to fly about 10 feet from a visual marker located on a jogger’s T-shirt.

Traverse Drone concept

In a recent development, students at Hongik University in South Korea, unveiled their Traverse drone concept in 2020. The project which hasn’t yet been built, is intended to serve as a personal trainer for recreational runners.

A wearable, called Pod, accompanies the Traverse drone. The drone uses the Pod, which sits around your neck, as a tracking tag, while the Pod itself works as your personal coach, giving you audio feedback to improve your form and performance.

The Traverse drone is accompanied by the Pod, a wearable that sits around your neck. The drone uses the wearable as a tracking tag, while the Pod itself works as your personal coach, giving you audio feedback to improve your form and performance. A simple button-based interface on the Pod lets you toggle between various functions without having to look at your smartphone screen. After you are finished with your workout, the drone sends detailed stats to the companion app on your smartphone.

Drone Chi

The Exertion Games Lab believes it has come up with a prime example: meditative drones that can be used for “Drone Chi,” a 21st-century answer to the ancient Chinese martial art of tai chi, the Washington Post report said.

Researchers used a small micro-drone, complete with a faux flower. Using motion capture technology, they were able to tie the movements of the drone to hand movement, allowing participants to practice the slow and smooth hand movements that characterize tai chi. The lab has already created prototypes of these micro-drones and used them successfully in experiments.

Read more Walmart Begins Testing Drone Deliveries For Groceries, Household Items

“We found that it has something meditative about it,” said Florian “Floyd” Mueller, director of the Exertion Games Lab, now at Monash University in Melbourne. “There’s this rubber band relationship. If I move one way, it moves a bit further, or if I move back, it speeds up. You can’t be abrupt. You need to be smooth. There’s a value to that.”

“It could be a complementary companion in the future,” he said. “If you don’t have a sibling or dog to go jogging with, maybe a quadcopter is the next best thing.”

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Plastic Logic, a leader in the design and manufacture of flexible, glass-free electrophoretic displays (EPDs), has announced a new flexible 5.4in color display that is set to revolutionize smart wearable devices.

Read more Flexible Color E Ink Displays for Wearables Could Soon Become a Reality

Smart wearables, such as jewelry, have become increasingly popular among consumers over the last decade. The problem is most wearable displays are black and white - Plastic Logic is changing all that with its new full-color display technology. For further information see the IDTechEx report on Wearable Sensors 2021-2031.

"Wearable device designers can now source innovative flexible color display technology to incorporate into applications including smart jewelry, smart clothing, and even smart health-tracking devices," said Tim Burne, CEO, Plastic Logic. "Color really enhances the functionality and look-and-feel of any smart wearable - in fact, it makes smart wearables even smarter."

As well as flexibility, which is key to wearables' design, Plastic Logic's displays are extremely robust as well as ultrathin, lightweight and flexible, making them ideally suited for integration into wearables that need to withstand the wear-and-tear of daily usage, Plastic Logic said in a press release.

"When it comes to wearable products, we've proved that you don't have to trade visual appeal for functionality," added Tim Burne. "We have already worked with several smart jewelry manufacturers, developing wearable display solutions for their innovative products. There are many more wearable applications that this technology is perfect for."

Plastic Logic's displays are available as engineering samples as well as in volume and can be ordered on request.

Read more Nubia Launches Futuristic Flexible Display Smartwatch at Kickstarter

About Plastic Logic

Plastic Logic designed the world's first truly flexible, glass-free electrophoretic displays (EPDs)—Lectum. Originally made in Dresden, Germany, production is today carried out in industry-leading manufacturing facilities globally. Founded in 2000, the company is supported by major investors including the Rusnano Corporation, the EINK Corporation, and DKE Displays, underlining its market and technology leadership position.

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Biometric wearables like Whoop bracelets, Oura rings, BioStrap and BioStickers, are all showing promise for health and fitness monitoring. These wearables can track heart rate, sleep, detect transmissible diseases early, track cancer patient recovery, and more.

Related Cyberlink, Tevano, Tiger Tech Implement Biometric Wearables to Prevent COVID-19 Spread

Oura Rings provide health monitoring for firefighters

The Duxbury Fire Department became the first fire department in the country to offer biometric rings to all of its firefighters and staff. Firefighters will sport Oura biometric rings, which will track their vital signs, including pulse, temperature, and sleep cycles, in order to indicate when they are run down or susceptible to illness.

“I wanted to give the men and women another tool to keep them healthy,” said Duxbury Fire Chief Kevin Nord.

The Oura rings can track the wearer’s temperature, which means that they will be able to tell whether or not a firefighter has a fever and could be infected with COVID-19. However, the rings also measure other vital signs like pulse and sleep cycles, giving them ongoing utility as a general health tracker once the coronavirus has passed.

WHOOP the official wearable of Crossfit

WHOOP and CrossFit announced a multi-year partnership naming WHOOP the Official Wearable of CrossFit. The partnership will help CrossFit athletes at all levels benefit from WHOOP data around training, sleep, and recovery. CrossFit also plans to share data from the world’s fittest athletes via integrations into its broadcast programming and other digital and on-site channels.

“CrossFit athletes were some of the earliest WHOOP adopters and have continued to be an integral part of our growing global membership,” said Will Ahmed, WHOOP Founder and CEO. “WHOOP is the ideal partner for CrossFit training as it provides the information that athletes and fitness enthusiasts alike need to understand their bodies, prioritize recovery, and ultimately optimize performance. We are incredibly excited to become an official partner of CrossFit and bring our communities even closer together.”

BioIntelliSense Partners with Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

BioIntelliSense, Inc., a continuous health monitoring and clinical intelligence company has entered into a strategic partnership with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) to incorporate the use of the BioSticker™ medical wearable device and data services in clinical trials of hematological cancer patients.

The BioSticker is the first FDA-cleared single-use medical device that enables 30 days of continuous vital signs monitoring. The BioIntelliSense medical-grade Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) platform and FDA 510(k) Class II medical wearable device provide a new standard for Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM), by combining an effortless patient experience with medical-grade clinical accuracy, for cost-effective virtual trials, the company said.

Related Xyntek, Nymi Partner Up to Add Wearable Biometric Devices to their Platform

BioStrap detected COVID-19 of its CEO

BioStrap CEO Sameer Sontakey was alerted by his BioStrap wearable that he may have COVID-19, prompting him to schedule a test, which confirmed the early diagnosis.

People with even asymptomatic COVID-19 show significant biometric changes, including their resting heart rate, heart rate variability, oxygen saturation, respiration rate and arterial properties. A risk assessment system developed by BioStrap with a modified Early Warning Score (EWS) can detect potential respiratory infections based on these signals, the company says. The biometric monitoring showed Sontakey’s sleep quality declined, with disruptions and their durations increasing, and his heart rate variability plummeted. After recovery, the BioStrap-EWS detected his return to normal values and reclassified him as low-risk. The same pattern was also noted in other users who tested positive for COVID-19 during the company’s internal testing in 2020, reports Biometric Update.

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Huawei is launching two new wearables in Austria. In addition to a new fitness band, there is an elegant, but an inexpensive smartwatch.

Read more Huawei Now Allows Third-Party Apps On Its Wearables

The Chinese tech giant will be releasing the sixth generation of its fitness bracelet – Huawei Band 6 – in Austria at the end of April. The Band 6 comes in two colors: Black and Pink and the price is 59 Euros.

“With a local increase in deliveries of 214 percent in Austria and 36 percent on a global level, the success and popularity of smart wearables is also evident on the market," said Huawei. Tracking one's own fitness is still very much in vogue, reports Heute.

With a 1.47-inch AMOLED Full View display, the Huawei Band 6 offers a display area that is 148 percent larger. The display has a resolution of 194 x 368 pixels. Compared to its predecessor, the display was more colorful, and the screen now shows more information such as larger photos, more in-depth training statistics, and continuous heart rate measurements. Four intuitive touchscreen controls are also new.

Huawei Watch Fit Elegant

The Huawei Watch Fit Elegant is an elegant-looking smartwatch with an affordable price tag. It is already available in white and black for 109 Euros. The Huawei Watch Fit Elegant is a design upgrade of the already sold Huawei Watch Fit with a polished stainless-steel case and plastic band. The Elegant has a 1.64-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 280 x 456 pixels. The watch automatically adjusts the brightness based on the ambient conditions. The battery should last around ten days.

The watch can track your blood oxygen with the simple touch of a finger. There are twelve animated workouts and 44 standard movement demonstrations. Heart rate, calories burned and the duration of exercise are also measured. There are also 96 different training modes. Also included: GPS sensor, waterproof housing, and quick charge. Only five minutes of charging time should take the watch over a whole day.

Read more Huawei Focuses On Health Care Wearables As It Pushes Into New Growth Areas

Huawei presented in Austria recently alongside the new wearables also the first monitor of the company (Huawei Display 28.3 "), and the headphones Huawei FreeBuds 4i and the new notebooks Huawei Mate Book X Pro 2021 and Huawei Mate Book D14.

Huawei also confirmed that it will Open a Huawei Experience Store on Kärntner Strasse in Vienna in summer 2021.

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During the COVID-19 lockdown, people remained home and the streets emptied of cars. But the streets didn’t remain empty for long, they got filled up with bicycles. Across the world, the quarantine brought about a dramatic increase in bicycle sales in response to the pandemic.

Whether you’re an athlete with cycling at the core of your fitness journey, or you are just an amateur who enjoys cycling, it’s important to have a smartwatch with all the tracking features.

Below is our pick of the best cycling smartwatches in 2021.

Read more Hit the Road with these 5 High-Tech Wearables for Motorcyclists

Garmin Fenix 6

Garmin Fenix 6 has some of the best sports features. The heart rate sensor is so precise it can double up as a triathlon watch or running watch. One of the reasons this watch is ideal for cycling is that it has long battery life. This is really great if you are a long-distance cyclist, touring cyclist, or just someone who doesn’t like charging your watch every day. The other reason why this is my pick for cycling watch is its offline maps. When you’re commuting on a bike, it’s really nice to have a map on your wrist.

Apple Watch Series 6

The Apple Watch Series is a fantastic cross between having a healthy lifestyle and keeping your cycling act in check! The most significant advantage of using the Apple Watch over anything else for cycling is the software options. Apple Watch Series 6 offers a hardware pulse oximeter and altimeter, which means the native fitness tracker from Apple will have more information on your oxygen absorption level and accurate elevation tracking. The Series 6 also offers GPS tracking, optical heart rate monitoring, and an ECG app. To be safe and extremely accurate, Apple Maps Cycling Mode is being built from the ground up. Apple is releasing it city by city so the company can get it right the first time without endangering the lives of cyclists. The interchangeable bands come in different colors and sizes.

Polar M430

Europe’s top-selling running watch, the Polar M430 is for those who prefer a fuss-free yet affordable cycling watch. The Polar M430 combines all the best bits for cycling, running, and any goal-oriented outdoor activity. It provides a better GPS, has powerful wrist-based heart rate tracking, sleep tracking, and smartphone notifications. The M430 is particularly designed as a sports watch, where it retained its monochrome style similar to that of M400. This design allows bicyclists to glance at the screen easily while biking. When the surroundings become dark, it has an option to invert the display and tap on a backlight. The softer silicone strap with holes makes it more breathable and ergonomic to better fit the wrist.

Suunto 9 Baro

Suunto 9’s massive 320 x 320px touch screen is easy to use while cycling. The watch doesn’t have a bum on the strap-like other watches, because Suunto has integrated the GPS antenna into the bezel. In addition to GPS, it has GLONASS, Galileo, and QZZS satellite networks. The smartwatch also features a built-in optical heart rate sensor, altimeter, accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass. The best thing about Suunto 9 is its battery superiority; the company claims up to 120 hours of tracking in the power-saving Ultra mode. The disadvantages: you can’t sync your workouts from third-party apps, no music control and there are no Strava live segments, reports CyclingNews.

Polar Vantage V2

Polar Vantage V2 is a lightweight premium multisport watch that helps you train smarter and recover fully. Thanks to its built-in GPS, wrist-based heart rate monitoring, and extremely long battery life, this sleek, lightweight smartwatch is an excellent option for cyclists. When you buy the cycling bundle, you get the Polar H10 armband for heart rate, a bike mount for the watch, and an exclusive saddlebag. The best training features are the built-in Cycling Performance FTP tests (when paired to a power meter) and new Running Performance tests, which enable you to more quickly and easily determine heart rate, speed & power zones within submaximal & maximal test options. The smartwatch also provides route guidance to make sure you never get lost. It connects easily to Strava, the running, and cycling tracking app.

Read more How Wearables are Helping Athletes Enhance Their Performance

Conclusion

So, that’s it for our top picks of the best smartwatches for cycling in 2021. With all the different types of smartwatches and fitness trackers out there, hopefully, this article has given you an idea about the options available and helped you in your quest to find the best smartwatch for cycling this year.

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Encouraging more contactless payment as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, leading radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology company ISBC has announced the intention to launch ISBC Pay, its first flagship Mastercard-certified contactless key fobs for payments. The company has also announced the establishment of its global headquarters in Singapore as part of its regional expansion plans.

ISBC wearables are currently used by over seven million customers worldwide across fintech, transport, and access control applications.

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Customers are able to upload their bank cards to the ISBC Pay wearables, providing a more convenient and personalized method for consumers to make contactless payments as an alternative to credit cards or smartphones. The wearables are protected by Mastercard’s security systems, built on the latest NXP microcontroller, and offer consumers data security akin to contactless payments with a physical or virtual bank card, reports ISBC.

ISBC’s expansion into Singapore attests to the country’s digitally-savvy population, where the ratio of cash withdrawals to payments has fallen from 47% in 2016 to 17% in 2020. Furthermore, according to a 2020 report by Visa, 84% of consumers in Singapore use contactless payments, indicating an increased demand for fast, secure, and digitized transactions, which ISBC plans to capitalize on.

Through its hub in Singapore, ISBC aims to connect with market leaders across Southeast Asia, with future plans to expand to Malaysia and Indonesia, and to partner with 50 banks globally by the end of this year. In preparation for future launches, ISBC is also designing prototypes of Singapore-themed key fobs to appeal to the local market.

The key fob was invented in 2015, where it was initially developed for access control, transport ticketing and bonus cards. In 2018, the product was certified by Mastercard and Visa, and rolled out in Europe as a payment wearable. Following that, 2019 saw the launch of pilot projects with banks and banking consumers, and a rebrand of the product to ISBC Key. Significant improvements were made in 2021 and ISBC Key 2 was released to provide greater security and convenience for everyday use.

“The establishment of our headquarters in Singapore underscores the importance of Asia which is seeing rapid growth and innovation in RFID technology. More consumers are embracing revolutionary solutions that are convenient, secure yet trendy all at once, and we look forward to becoming the contactless payment device of choice in Southeast Asia. Partnering with semiconductor market leader NXP and Fidesmo is a huge step in this direction,” says Ivan Demidov, founder and CEO of ISBC.

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“Enabling seamless contactless experiences is a key part of our mission at NXP,” said Alasdair Ross, Director of Secure Payment and NFC Infrastructure at NXP Semiconductors. “We’re excited to work with ISBC and Fidesmo on this project that helps ensure secure and convenient contactless payments through new, innovative form factors.”

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