Even before we started to call them “wearable tech,” fitness wristbands and watches that monitored your vital signs weren’t exactly new or particularly noteworthy. But a shirt that monitors your heart and breathing rates? That’s an intriguing piece of technology.
Tech start-up OMsignal revealed four different shirts on May 8th capable of sensing your heart rate and breathing rate due to the electrodes knitted into the fabric. The data is recorded in a small, unobtrusive gadget—a “little black box,” according to the company’s CEO Stephane Marceau on MIT Tech Review—that snaps into the pocket of the shirts, and can be tracked through OMsignal’s accompanying iPhone app. The little black box is capable of running for 30 straight hours without being charged.
Together with the gadget, the start-ups shirts—just for men at the moment, with a version for women expected to follow in the fall—will have a price tag of $240 at the start. Eventually, OMsignal hopes to drop that price down to $100, if fashion or clothing companies agree to add OMsignal technology into their clothing.
“We said, ‘Okay, we’re a technology company, let’s do the technology, and we’ll deal with the fashion element after.’ It was easier to do a good job on fashion for men,” said Marceau.
According to the company, a shirt that monitors your heart rate would be of more worth than a wristband, because it will be capable of recording that data closer to where it occurs in your body, yielding more accurate data. Also, there’s a high chance that you could forget a wristband when you go outside—you can’t really forget a shirt.
Source MIT Tech Review
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