The GoBe Could Revolutionize Wearable Health Tracking

Many modern wearables claim to track your well-being. They keep a constant log of your pulse and the steps you take each day. Some even try to record your sleep patterns. But key factors contributing to a human’s overall health have been inaccessible to these intelligent accessories. The food we consume and the daily emotions we cope with have a huge impact on how good we feel, but technology has found it impossible to sense these variables. The introduction of Healbe’s GoBe changes all of that for good — it is a standalone bracelet that is able to chart all of the body systems mentioned above.

Of all the breakthroughs required to make this possible, the energy-counter is the most impressive. Despite some claims to the contrary, it seems that GoBe really can tell how many kilocalories you’ve taken in, and how many you’ve burned throughout the day, without any manual input. The key to this is an impedance sensor, which zaps your wrist to measure the water content in your cells. By doing so, the bracelet is able to calculate your glucose level, and when this figure is combined with the basic data you input during setup (weight, height, etc.), GoBe can actually work out the rise and fall of your energy levels.

Knowledge about the amount of H2O in your tissues allows GoBe to make an estimation of how much you need to drink during the day to be ideally hydrated. In addition, your pulse and level of activity is noted (via a step counter), and this data is used to detect stress — a quickly beating heart while at rest probably means you’re worked up about something. The bracelet even claims to watch over your sleep, although early reviews of this feature are mixed, to say the least. All the collected data is then made available in the accompanying smartphone app, which also has its critics.

At $299.99, this first version is mid-range in terms of price, but the real excitement is about what this technology can become in the future. To read more about GoBe, see Healbe’s website.