Remember Pavlok – the crowdfunded wearable that zaps you into breaking bad habits? After a couple of years of research, the company is back on Indiegogo raising funds for a new and improved device.

Pavlok 3 comes with a fresh design that provides two distinct ways of wearing it. One, as before, is as a standalone wrist wearable. The alternative is to wear it as an Apple Watch band.

Other things that are new include improved Bluetooth pairing, the wearable has additional programmable buttons, the app has undergone a redesign and waterproofing has been added. This last one topped the list of many Pavlok customers.

As before, the wearable vibrates, beeps, and releases electric impulses to reward good behaviors and stop bad ones. It’s dubbed as a behavior change platform. The wearable is perhaps most famously known for its electric stimulus technology. It releases a zap, ranging from 50-450V, that quickly gets your attention and triggers the brain out of automatic mode.

The wristband automatically track behaviors throughout the day, alerting you along the way when you’re about to do a bad habit. Pavlok 3 can auto-detect nail biting, smoking, chewing/eating, hair picking, scratching or touching your face. If your bad habit is not listed, train the wearable and program in your own. There is also a social aspect to the app, which adds peer pressure to overcoming bad habits and encouraging good ones.

Pavlok doubles up as a pedometer. It will count your steps and nudge you to move with a warning beep if you’ve been sitting for 30 minutes. If you’re still on the sofa after 60 minutes, the electric zap should get you up and about.

Essential reading: Review – Pavlok, zap yourself into breaking bad habits

Pavlok also helps to wake you up when you are in the lightest stage of sleep, and more importantly, prevents you from snoozing. You’ll get notifications when it’s time for bed for an optimal night’s sleep, and your sleep statistics will be displayed in detail in the accompanying smartphone app.

Finally, lets not forget the Pavlok Unlocked feature. This gives you remote control access so you can zap people around you whenever you want.

Price:$99 and up

Funding open:
$106,027 pledged of $500 goal
12 days left

Estimated delivery: December 2020

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Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets

Google Glass was an ultimately failed attempt at giving us glasses that do more. Publicly announced in April 2012, most of us had high expectations. But after a few months public sentiment turned. The specs were rather odd looking and also ended up receiving criticism and legislative action due to privacy and safety concerns.

But don’t make the mistake of writing the smart glasses concept off.

Apple is reportedly working on a pair of smart specs. The augmented reality device will connect to iPhones for processing, show images and other information in the wearer’s field of vision. Talk is that the year 2022 will be when the Apple glasses will launch. Apparently suppliers are slowly ramping up development.

While you’re waiting for that, another product might pique your interest.

Vue Glasses

Vue Glasses were originally announced via a Kickstarter campaign back in 2016. The project raised over $2 million in funding so was very successful. Most of the backers have received their product by now and the glasses have been made available for purchase to all on the company’s website.

These are specs that are designed for everyday use. At a basic level, Vue function as normal glasses, meaning you are able to order the lenses you depend on, whether they are prescription, non-corrective or sunglasses.

In terms of smart features, the specs do not try to do as much as Google Glass which is a good thing. For one, there is no display. Built into the specs is a little microphone so you can issue voice commands. Also there are no earbuds. Instead, the glasses use bone conduction technology to send sound waves as vibrations through your skull. This frees your ears so you can still listen to your surroundings.

Vue’s smart features include: listening to music, calls, navigation and notifications via bone conduction speakers; basic activity monitoring functions (tracks your steps, calories, distance – and sends reminders to move); notifications about incoming texts and emails via a subtle LED; and more.

In addition to using voice commands, there is a little touch interface embedded into the arm of the frame. The touch surface fits seamlessly into the design and is indistinguishable from the rest of the frame. Vue has no ports or buttons, ensuring that the experience is as least intrusive as possible.

There are various styles and colors to choose from, and the glasses will keep going 2-3 days on a single charge. Charging time is around 2 hours and it is done wirelessly via the charging case.

The glasses start at $225 and can be purchased on vueglasses.com. User reviews have been mixed so far – so you might want to check them out on the Kickstarter campaign page.

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Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets

The two campaigns were launched back in 2016. They generated a lot of interest and managed to pull in a combined total of almost $500,000 from 3,500 backers. Delivery was originally set for March 2017 but ran into delays.

This is a smartwatch that not only helps you stay fit, but also monitors your heart health. The company has worked with cardiologists and sport doctors to integrate algorithms able to record the sound of your heart and draw your cardiovascular activity. To this end the device keeps tabs on blood pressure, heart rate, heart rate variability, core temperature, oxygen level in blood, physical activity, sleep status, sound of your heart and EKG cardiogram.

The vitals data can be captured manually by resting your finger on the front of the device. There are also sensors in the back for automatic capture. The data in raw form (.csv, pdf and .xls) is accessible to you, your doctor or anyone that you authorize.

We’ve seen many of these metrics already but on in one device. And we’ve not yet seen a smartwatch that can keep tabs on your blood pressure from the wrist with any reasonable degree of accuracy. Certainly not one that sells for $99!

Outside of cardiovascular health tracking, the gizmo tracks your activity throughout the day so you can stay on top of your fitness with easy to understand metrics. It has built-in GPS and accelerometer to track your sport activity, motivate you to do more exercices, and help you compare your performances with your friends.

The combination of the oxygen saturation level in the blood, sleep status and the volume of your training program, is used by their algorithms to can help you avoid overtraining and muscular/tendon injuries and optimize recovery. You can also set up notifications to alert your family, friends, and physician if anything happens.

This was certainly a very ambitious project. If the SoWatch manages to deliver accurate cardiovascular data, it will give the likes of Fitbit, Garmin and Apple something to think about.

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Originally, the SenceTech team assembled not to build a hardware device but to collect high quality ECG screening data. With this data, they hoped to built a huge database they could sell to others. The 28 strong team ultimately found that wearables either didn’t use rigorous enough ECG measurements to make use of the data or that they did not provide enough readings for the data to be useable. So they set out to create a health and fitness tracker of their own.

SenceBand is a rather chunky looking device that uses the electrical activity of your heart to do its magic. Heart rate data is collected passively at a frequency of the user’s choosing so they can collect readings without having to stop their activities.

Essential reading: Ten stress busting wearables to help you chill

The wearable measures ECG using proprietary technology that allows it to cancel out the electromagnetic “noise” from your body. This mechanism filters out things like electrical signals from muscle contractions and leaves only the electromagnetic feed from your heart (ECG). In fact, SenceBand is the only smart bracelet capable of measuring ECG just from one wrist. The result is apparently 250 times more precise than traditional fitness trackers which use optical sensors that measure blood flow.

Algorithms then turn this raw data into actionable analytics. By analyzing Heart Rate Variability (HRV) the device is able to measure over 64 different emotions and simultaneously monitor the events that may trigger specific feelings.

The wearable promises to give you and understanding exactly when and where you felt sad or stressed and when you were the most vital. You can even get notifications when something interesting recently happened with your own emotional states or to those of someone in your network.

“We set out to create the first consumer wearable that tracks emotions with medical-grade technology,” said Co-Founder Eugene Nayshtetik.

“Sence uses patent-pending R-Peak Tracking technology to measure heart activity. Sence gives wearers a dashboard of their physical and emotional health at a level of detail unmatched by existing wearables.”

The device syncs with calendars, allowing users to track events, meetings, workouts and their emotional reactions at the time, to pinpoint stressors and identify patterns. Just tell Sence how often to take a scan, and you’re good to go. Sence also functions as a fitness tracker, recording steps, daily physical activity and physical recovery.

While its safe to say the wearable is not exactly a looker, it is definitely a fascinating one to watch. We hope to get our hands on a unit in the near future and put it through its paces. In the meantime, the early reviews from the 1,000+ backers should make interesting reading.

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Battery life can often be a deciding factor when it comes to buying a fitness tracker or smartwatch. But what if you never had to worry about battery life again?

Launched on Kickstarter earlier this month, Sequent is a hybrid smartwatch with a self-charging battery system which provides infinite power supply. Yes, this means no more plugging into socket-outlets or purchasing cell coin battery replacements. The watch actually transforms kinetic energy into electrical energy, i.e. it charges as you move around!

“We are the first ones who mastered the transformation of kinetic “100% clean” energy into infinite electrical energy to power a smart watch,” said Petra Guhl, the Swiss company’s CEO.

“Some already say that we will become the TESLA of the smart watches and wearable industry as we share the same vision.”

Three years in the making, the modern looking device comes with some pretty decent specs as well. It packs an accelerometer, heart rate sensor and even built-in GPS. The watch will keep tabs on your activity around the clock and dish out notifications from your smartphone. It also comes with a proprietary Biofeedback health and sport app for deeper analysis of your activity.

As you would expect from a Swiss design, the timepiece is made from high grade materials to guarantee quality and durability. Finally, there are a variety of interesting strap designs to choose from, and everything comes stamped with a 50 metre water resistant rating.

Price:189 CHF and up

Funding open:
415,016 CHF pledged of 80,000 CHF goal
22 days left

Estimated delivery: December 2017

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Mobvoi has taken to Kickstarter once again to fund two new Ticwatch editions. This time around the company has decided to ditch their Ticwear operating system in favor of Android Wear 2.0.

Aimed at a younger audience than their previous models, the devices are jam packed with features and should offer some solid competition to the more well known brands. Especially when you take into consideration their ridiculously low early bird price.

Both watches sport a 1.4-inch screen with an impressive 400×400 resolution. Ticwatch S (Sport) benefits from the addition of a bezel, a breathable band design and GPS integrated into the watchband, while Ticwatch E (Express) has a translucent watch case, interchangeable watch band and GPS integrated into the casing. Other features are pretty much the same.

Under the hood of the IP67 certified watches you’ll find a heart-rate monitor, proximity sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, built in GPS and e-Compass. Other hardware specs include a MediaTek chip (MT2601), 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage for music, microphone and speaker and WiFi 802.11 b/g/n and BLE 4.1 connectivity. There is also a vibration motor which springs to life for smart notifications and alarms.

And of course you’ll get the full Android 2.0 experience. So that means Google Play Store, fitness apps like Google Fit, music playback, more watchface features, multi-language support, handwriting recognition and more.

The battery life is not that great which is not a surprise considering the specs. The 300mAh battery is good for six hours of music or phone calls, 48 hours of standard battery life or 120 hours on standby.

The campaign has hit the ground running on Kickstarter and just a day in its raised more than $800,000. Delivery to backers is expected in October.

Price:$119 and up

Funding open:
$866,022 pledged of $100,000 goal
36 days left

Estimated delivery: October 2017

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Posture is important for good health but many of us do not give it nearly enough attention. Being aware of any potential issues is the first step to breaking bad postural habits.

A new wearable that has just hit Kickstarter wants to help you eliminate any such issues. Mevics is minimalist and inconspicuous and also doubles up as a basic activity tracker monitoring physical activity throughout the day.

Essential reading: Wearables that help you with your posture

The capsule-like device adheres to your clothing via a magnetic fastener. When it determines you have begun to slouch, it will alert you with a gentle vibration thereby nagging you to sit up straight. Because its hardly noticeable, Mevics is a perfect fit for those who work in a professional setting. The company says the wearable is also great for children, allowing parents to keep an eye on their development.

The main novelty for a posture tracking device is, however, its ability to monitor your activity. Mevics will keep tabs on your steps, distance and calories burned throughout the day. The small wearable also dishes up notifications along the way to prompt you to move when you have been sitting for too long.

The Kickstarter campaign opened earlier this week and is about 10% nearer to meeting its goal. With nearly a month to go, there is still plenty of time to reach the $35,000 necesary to make Mevics a reality.

Price: $49 and up

Funding open:
$3,755 pledged of $35,000 goal
28 days to go

Estimated delivery: December 2017

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As technology becomes smaller and smarter, its becoming easier to integrate it into every day objects.

A new project just launched on Kickstarter uses miniaturized high tech to convert any standard watch into a smartwatch. It does this by squeezing activity tracking sensors (3-axis gyro, angular velocity, and motion sensors), and latest smartwatch technology into a traditional watch strap.

Essential reading: Top hybrid watches of 2017, the best of both worlds

The Smart Buckle is designed with high grade stainless steel finish and fits seamlessly with most standard 20mm watch bands. Its as easy as removing your old watch buckle and replacing it with the intelligent one. With the right tools, it can be done in less than 30 seconds.

Going for only $39 on the crowdfunding platform, the smart clasp keeps tabs on steps, pace, distance, calories burned, and sleep patterns (Light sleep, Deep sleep and total sleep). The data is communicated via Bluetooth to the accompanying iOS or Android app, which shows in detail your daily, weekly and monthly trends.

The data syncs with Apple Health and Google Fit so you can keep all you health and fitness information in one place. Smart Buckle has an internal memory that can keep a record of health data for up to two weeks, so if you don’t have your smartphone around you can rest assured you will still get credit for your fitness activity.

Sporting a 19mAh Li-Po battery, the buckle lasts up to a week on a single 60 minute charge. Its also water-resistant (IP57 rating, ie. splash-proof) and dust proof.

If you want to rejuvenate your existing traditional timepiece and transform it into a smart health and fitness device, you have another 30 days before the campaign ends. Just a few days in, its already half way to meeting its $25,000 goal. Delivery is scheduled for August.

Price:$39 and up

Funding open:
$14,940 pledged of $25,000 goal
30 days left

Estimated delivery: August 2017

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The Roxford is a minimalistic hybrid timepiece with fitness tracking smarts built into the strap.

Not everyone wants a fully featured smartwatch. Analogue or hybrid timepieces are classic looking wearables that combine the look and functionality of a traditional watch with abilities that are evident in today’s smartwatches. In a sense, they give the user the best of both worlds.

Essential reading: Top hybrid watches of 2017, the best of both worlds

The Roxford smartwatch looks equally good in the boardroom or gym thanks to its modular design. With the quick-release snap technology users can alter the look in a matter of seconds. The package comes with four quick-release straps including 316L Stainless steel, premium leather, a sporty silicone version and silicone air, which converts the smartwatch into a traditional fitness band by removing the watch face altogether!

The main novelty for a hybrid type device, though, is in the intelligent strap. While most smartwatches on the market house the brains in the watch face, Cardiff Design has decided to opt for the watch buckle instead. The clever design helps distribute weight evenly around your wrist to ensure balance and comfort. The stylish look means no-one will even know you are wearing a fitness tracker.

The Roxford automatically collects activity data as you go about your daily life. During the day it will keep tabs on your steps, calories and distance, and at night it will monitor your sleep patterns. You can review your daily activity in detail in the accompanying mobile app. The data can also be synched to Apple Health, Google Fit, Fitbit and a number of additional platforms.

In terms of other specs, the battery lasts an impressive 12 days, and has a magnetic charging system. The main watch unit is water resistant down to 100 meters, while the fitness tracking element will survive dunks to 50 meters. There are two sizes to choose from — 44mm and 38mm.

Price:$169 and up

Funding open:
$34,042 pledged of $50,000 goal
25 days left

Estimated delivery: November 2017

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Walking in nature is a popular recreational activity which draws millions of Americans into the outdoors each year. Latest statistics show that about a half of those living in the US participated in some sort of hiking activity in 2016.

UWear is a new device that has pretty much everything you would wish for from a hikers watch. It sports an integrated navigation system, 45 days battery life, wrist based heart rate monitor, always on display, real time location monitoring, and various sports modes. You will also find a compass, barometer, altimeter, as well as a thermometer and hygrometer.

Probably the most important feature for hikers is the navigation system. UWear supports three major navigation systems (GPS, GLONASS and BDS), so you can rest assured you will always find your way back, even if your smartphone is not around. The watch marks your starting point and tracks you along your trail loging your distance, speed and pace. It also makes sure you don’t take the same trail over and over again.

As a preventive safety measure, the smart timepiece allows you to share your location with your family and friends in real-time. All they need to do is install the UWear app on their smartphone. This also has a social element to it, as it allows you to share your latest adventure with your loved ones. If something unfortunate does happen, the watch has a built in SOS function which, at the press of a button, sends a distress signal to your chosen contacts.

So you get credit for your efforts, UWear also functions as a standard activity monitor. In addition to your heart rate, it will keep tabs on your steps and calories. Furthermore, you can select from one of ten different sports modes and UWear will measure useful data based on your chosen sport.

And lets not forget the more standard smartphone features. When connected to your smartphone, UWear will dish out notifications on incoming calls, texts and push notifications.

Made from high-performance materials, this hikers’ watch is durable and strong, but at the same time lightweight. It has a water rating of 10 ATM or 100 meters, so you can definitely leave it on when you are on those water trails.

Price: HK$968 and up (equates to around $120 USD)

Funding open:
HK$163,584 pledged of HK$100,000 goal
27 days to go

Estimated delivery: August 2017

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