Health Tech Firm Targets Your Unmentionables with New Fitness Tracker

A new fitness tracker will go beyond heartrate to measure breathing data – and it can live inside your underwear.

The Spire Health Tag is based on a theory that the wrist isn’t the most accurate place to get health tracking information. Instead of a wristband, it’s a tag a little bigger than a clothes washing advice label. As well as the usual heartrate and movement data, it lies against the skin and measures respiration. That’s designed to keep an eye on stress levels as well as give more accurate information about sleep patterns.

The tag is best suited to underwear and bras as they lie against the skin of the torso. They can withstand laundry, so the idea is to attach them semi-permanently to the clothing. As we aren’t all filthy animals, they’ll be sold in multi-packs of three for $99, eight for $199 or fifteen for $299. Each tag has a battery life of around 18 months after which it must be returned for a replacement.

As well as the hardware, Spire says its big selling point is more useful software on the associated smartphone app. Rather than put the data front and center, it concentrates on giving useful and actionable advice such as using breathing exercise to relax when the sensors detect the user taking longer than usual to get to sleep.

[The Spire Health Tag]