Polar Loop Activity Monitor
Fitness technology company, Polar, has finally joined the sexy biometrics band craze. They’ve made reliable and quality fitness tracking products for years, creating heart rate monitors since 1977. The Polar Loop is the culmination of more than 3 decades of experience put into a tracking band that truly gives you a holistic idea of what your physical activity looks like.
The company touts that it tracks 5 levels of activity ranging from gentle walking to running. More importantly it allows you to specify your age and gender, which it then uses to compare your activity levels with the standards set by the WHO (World Health Organization).
Now, I know what you’re thinking, and yes, it totally does look like a less cool Nike Fuel Band. I say less cool because Polar hasn’t figured out that people want more colors than just black. That said, this is a highly functional band with great web and mobile integration. In a lot of ways it is a more robust tracker than the leading products on the market. (Price: $99.90)
PUSH: The First Fitness Tracking Device that Measures Strength
Push is a great twist on the fitness band trend. It not only measures you’re activity but your strength! This is a fully funded project on Indiegogo, and has really turned some heads. They have incorporated technology used by elite athletes and packed it into an armband device that can be used by all, giving you access to high level analytics about your performance through their mobile and web applications.
You can track your workouts and measure your performance over time. One of my favorite features though, is the functionality that allows trainers to use the analytics from your armband to tailor a workout just for you and make adjustments in real-time. (Price: $149.00)
Angel – The First Open Sensor for Health and Fitness
Now we are starting to get to the really cool stuff. Angel is a biometric band that is taking health tracking to a new level and has received its fair share of notice on Indiegogo for doing so. Unlike most of the bands previously discussed that exclusively track activity, Angel also has the added technology that allows it to track heart rate, skin temperature, and blood oxygen! These added data sensors allow for a whole world of applications outside of just fitness.
The Angel is also open source, which means developers can truly explore the range of applications that this type of device might have. Angel already has a number of fantastic applications that could really change the way we approach our health, ranging from “tele-health” to a “fertility calendar”! (Price: $135.00)
Nymi – Uses Your Unique Heart Beat to Unlock Your World
This biometric band is a completely different animal. Nymi is actually pitched as using your ”unique cardiac rhythm to authenticate your identity.” Apparently (and this was news to me) your heart rate is unique to you, much like your finger print. The idea behind Nymi, is that it reads your pulse and integrates via bluetooth to your devices, thereby enabling you to access those devices without using a manually inputed passcode. Watch the video to learn more.
Basically the examples they use are picking up a smart phone and your Nymi letting you bypass the security input, or using the Nymi to unlock your car. The Nymi is also open API, so developers can get their hands on it and create whatever their heart desires (see what I did there). (Price: $79.00)
Myo- Jedi Gesture Control
Now my personal favorite, the Myo! Inspired my Jedi powers this awesome armband allows you to actually control devices using gesture control. Unlike other gesture control gimmicks that use cameras to sense your motion, the Myo actually reads electrical impulses given off by muscle movement and communicates those through low frequency bluetooth into various commands.
Again, Myo is opened their API so developers can explore the seemingly endless ways to apply this type of technology. I foresee some Tony Stark moments in my life with this on my arm. (Price: $149.00)
Now, I’m sure I overlooked someones favorite bio-band, so please leave comments or tweet @mynextgadget and I’ll update this post.
This was a guest post by Max Jallifer from My Next Gadget.