Halo Wearables, a Michigan-based sports technology startup, will launch the first non-invasive hydration monitoring wearable in early 2016, tailored specifically for elite athletes.
Co-founder Trevor Calero spoke to us in a phone interview about the backstory of Halo Wearables.
“Two of our engineers studied non-invasive blood analysis and discovered that even a few percentage drop in hydration will negatively impact physical performance. With those findings, we reached out to sports teams to gauge their interest in the technology and received an outpouring of support, and that started the development of Halo Wearables.”
Although the product, called Halo H1, is still in development, it has already piqued the interest of many professional sports teams.
“We’re in advanced discussions with many NFL and NBA teams,” Calero said. “And we’ve reached out to the college athletic departments at about two dozen schools in the major conferences (Big10, Pac12, Big12, SEC, ACC).”
The overwhelming interest level in the device arises in part from the absence of an efficient and accurate hydration monitoring technology. The current method of measuring hydration is urine analysis, which does not yield the most reliable data and cannot track continuous changes in hydration throughout the day.
“H1 is a non-invasive device that uses optical and electrical sensors to monitor hydration at a cellular level,” said Calero. “These sensors will monitor fluid levels in the blood stream and provide real-time hydration data on a Halo Index scale from 100-1.”
The H1 Halo Index is divided into three zones: Green (100-68), meaning well to fully-hydrated, Yellow (67-35), an early caution to hydrate soon, and Red (34-1), in need of immediate hydration.
With a battery life of over 24 hours, H1 provides you with uninterrupted hydration monitoring through the day. It not only allows athletes to track their hydration level but also sends coaches message alerts if their players wander into the Red Zone.
Although the Halo team will focus only on professional sports for the coming year, Calero said they do plan on expanding the product to the medical and military fields and introducing it to the consumer fitness market, which would require the development of additional features, like email and text message, that appeal to the general public.
“Our goal right now is to have every sports team in the world use Halo, and learn about its strengths and drawbacks through athlete and coach feedback,” Calero explained. “We want to discover the full potential of the product with valuable insight from sports doctors.”