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Biostrap — Dual-device platform: measure biometrics & record activities
Biostrap is a wearable platform dedicated in health insights and activity tracking
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Replies
@sameerkat I have the oura ring which is very popular within health crowd. I like the idea of not wearing a ring and getting data on oxygen saturation. One of the things that made oura really popular was the ability to fully turn off bluetooth (i.e. put ring in airplane mode). I like not having bluetooth on me all night while I sleep. I don't mean just disconnecting bluetooth from the phone, but shutting it off on the device. Is this a feature you currently have?
@nycortex Hey Yaniv!
I haven't personally tested the Oura Ring, but looks great!
We currently do not have that feature. But, if it's something people really value, I don't see a reason why we shouldn't add it.
@sameerkat Yes if you listen to Ben Greenfield podcast on Oura you will hear that the ability to put it in airplane mode is a major selling point to his listeners. Same with Dave Asprey. Both have large followings.
@nycortex Thanks, Yaniv! This is really helpful. We have put it on our roadmap.
@sameerkat At first, I thought this was Amiigo reincarnated, but just checked and Amiigo is still around. So, how does Biostrap differ from Amiigo (https://amiigo.com/)? I had the first-gen Amiigo and it was awful from a materials/quality perspective. The Shoe clip fell apart, the wrist device would stop charging after a few weeks (I had three total, then just gave up). Was a good concept, just really poor execution.
@scottwwilliams Hey Scott, great catch! We purchased rights to the underlying technology that powered Amiigo a few years back.
Biostrap picks up where Amiigo left off. We built everything from the ground up -- both software and hardware. You'll appreciate that our hardware materials are much higher quality and won't fall apart on you. We also believed Amiigo was a good concept - we sought out to make it way better from product and customer experience perspective.
Fyi, Wavelet Health (formerly Amiigo) is now 100% focused on utilizing wearable, mobile and cloud technologies for research organizations who conduct and sponsor health research initiatives.
What type of improvement have you seen after using your own Biostrap compared to other tracking methods before? Did the extra data turn into results (e.g. hitting a goal, setting a new PR, etc.)?
As far as workouts go, with a start-up and a baby, my goals have mainly been to just trying to stay active as much as possible.
Here are a few improvements I've seen in my experience:
1. I've never logged my workouts via pen and paper (because it's just so much effort and tedious). But, you can't improve what you don't track. I'm able to hold myself accountable by having a system keep track of it for me.
2. One of the top level metrics that's helped me be more efficient in the gym is "Active time." That's the amount of time spent exercising vs. resting. Previously, I found myself somewhere around 30%. Imagine being in the gym for 2 hours, and only 36 min of that was spent lifting!
I found that reducing my rest to about 1 min after each exercise helped me keep my heart rate up and leave the gym earlier and be in the range of 50-70% active.
The multi-point data approach is good, though use of both sensors over time by the average person will likely drop sharply. The auto-recognition and learning of movements is clearly the advantage of the product until the "other guys" figure it out.
My biggest hang-up is in claiming oxygen saturation–to my understanding it is not really doable with a high level of accuracy at the wrist–needing the thin skin access to arteries from the fingers. Even the one wrist wearable claiming oxygen from Withthings, requires you to hold your finger tip to the sensor.
@airjoshb Thanks! The multi-device framework we have is definitely unique :) The shoeclip is only required for those that want to track their workouts.
SpO2 measurements from wrist are known to be error-prone due to relatively lower signal strength captured from the vascular bed over the wrist. However, our ability to quantify the signal quality before returning a SpO2 value allow us to assure the quality of estimations. Our SpO2 readings are even more reliable when measured at night where light and motion artifacts are at a minimum.
@sameerkat thanks for the response. Even with that approach I would be hesitant to rely on the data for oxygen personally. The marketing material for the device leans pretty confidently on the oxygen readings, which I would be careful of and qualify more so people's expectations are clear. No matter what you do, it is not going to be as accurate as a finger based device. It is a dangerous place when people start relying on device data for health and things don't match up.
@airjoshb Thanks for sharing this valuable insight on setting expectations with our userbase as our goal is to provide high quality health data to help them make healthier lifestyle decisions. After 3 product iterations (almost over 3 years) we tuned both our hardware and software technology to capture high resolution photoplethysmography (PPG) data from the wrist, and extract SpO2 estimates from a relatively lower strength signal compared to finger. Today it's clear to us that our device can collect accurate SpO2 readings from the wrist as long as the signal quality is above our standard threshold. Our validation studies show that under adequate perfusion and light transmission, and also in the absence of motion, our advance algorithm can estimate SpO2 similar to an off-the-shelf spo2 finger probe. It's yet to be answered whether this technology can provide accurate readings at low perfusion or severe hypoxia states, which we haven't addressed yet, and will consider placing a warning to our website for not to use this device in clinical settings.
Slick looking product! I hope it also delivers on the promise. Nice work @Sameer & team!
@ovinegrean Thanks so much, Ovi! We're confident we will deliver. But, we're also open to listening to customer feedback. :D
@jjstidd We had a small group of about 50 people. Most of them were close friends and family and some individuals that reached out to us early this year.
All the feedback we received from our from our initial beta testers was crucial. We want to continue this feedback loop with all our customers to keep improving as a product.
@sameerkat Got it. How many of the updates going forward will be crowd sourced? Is there a clear vision for where you want to take it next? More devices, API, Ect.
@jjstidd API access is definitely on the roadmap as we see lots of interest in accessing this data. We'll also be looking at add more devices to our platform in the future. :)
A few questions:
1) Is there / will there be API access?
2) Your website says "Clinical Quality Heart Analysis" - can you provide any links to studies/validation on the accuracy of the data you are collecting/analyzing?
3) Can bluetooth be turned off on the device overnight while sleeping?
Thanks.
@bobtroia Hi Bob! 👋🏻
1) There is not currently, but we plan on having it available in the future.
2) Our PPG technology and pulse wave analysis algorithm has been developed in partnership with Wavelet Health. Wavelet Health provides wearable technologies for clinical researchers including UCSD/Scripp and University of UoU/CARMA Center, and works with them to validate the accuracy of their algorithms against the gold standard measures. A current study with UoU (in review) shows that Biostrap wristband estimates heart rate at the accuracy of the gold standard cardiac monitors (+/- 3bpm). We are happy to connect you with Wavelet Health team if you have further questions.
3) Not available currently. If it's an ask from our community, I don't see why we wouldn't add it. 👍🏻
Happy to answer any more questions!
@sameerkat Ok, great please let us know when you will be providing API access as there are many in the quantified self community who would then consider purchasing your device.
@bobtroia Definitely. Please do let me know of any more features you and the quantified-self community would appreciate and we'll see if we can add them to our roadmap.
After having tested this device for a week, I have requested a refund and am waiting for feedback from the team. So far, nothing, and it all reeks of a scam. Here's why: https://www.reddit.com/r/Biostra...
If you somehow end up here, please do not buy this product. It is a ripoff, and performs well below the minimum bar set by almost every other device out there.
Hello, ProductHunters! 😻
Thank you so much for hunting and helping us beta test our product, @hnshah!
Biostrap was born out of a desire to deliver a consumer wearable dedicated to providing insights geared towards total health.
Some of our clear differentiators include:
1. Full-body tracking.
By placing sensors on both your wrist and shoe, we're able to get a complete picture of your exercises and provide meaningful metrics (such as reps, duration, consistency).
We auto-recognize cardio movements, and you can train any repetitive exercise that isn't in our library once, and we'll automatically recognize it whenever you perform it.
Let's say you want to work your glutes and you're doing Side-Lying Leg Lifts. You can train it once and we'll auto-recognize and it for you in the future.
We like to think about it like Shazam for your body movements.
2. Deep biometric insights.
When it comes to biometrics, most trackers today only do heart beat counting. We take an entirely different approach -- We use a clinical quality pulse oximeter to capture raw high-fidelity waveforms. This allows us to extract even more meaningful data from your pulse, like HRV, Oxygen Saturation, and Respiratory Rate.
We're extremely excited to be a part of this community! We are offering all Product Hunters worldwide free shipping! Just put the code "HappyHunting" at checkout to get it.
Let us know what you think, and what features you would like to see from us.
We like to think about it like Shazam for your body movements.
2. Deep biometric insights.
When it comes to biometrics, most trackers today only do heart beat counting. We take an entirely different approach -- We use a clinical quality pulse oximeter to capture raw high-fidelity waveforms. This allows us to extract even more meaningful data from your pulse, like HRV, Oxygen Saturation, and Respiratory Rate.
We're extremely excited to be a part of this community! We are offering all Product Hunters worldwide free shipping! Just put the code "HappyHunting" at checkout to get it.
Let us know what you think, and what features you would like to see from us.
@thuy_larry Great question! As you can imagine, we get that question a lot.
We believe Fitbit (and most wearables today) got it all wrong.
It’s not about steps -- or even just heart rate. There’s so much rich data embedded in your pulse waveform than what the current market is taking advantage of.
Biostrap differs by:
Deep biometric insights. That’s a fancy word for recording your raw pulse wave and capturing it to extract interesting features from it. Btw, Fitbit (and 99% other wearables) simply count beats.
Activity classification. That means recognizing and give you metrics about your exercises: bench press, squats, pulldowns, you name it. We use two devices to make that detection even more precise. One for your wristband to measure hand movement and one on your shoe to measure feet movement.
Our ultimate goal is to help people understand their health at a 30,000ft view and make decisions that truly impact their health.
Just counting steps doesn't cut it. 🙃
@sameerkat Wow- thanks for the response Sameer. Seems like you put a lot into this. Looking forward to trying a unit and sharing my feedback.
@pixelfires It's a feature we're commonly asked for (especially amongst the quantified-self crowd).
I'm a developer myself, so I'm definitely getting it on our roadmap sooner than later. :)
@kevinosuna1989 Hey Kevin! The multi-device nature of our system is very unique and allows us to track multiple body parts simultaneously. This, coupled with machine learning, allows us to know what movements are being performed.
We also look at health from a top-down perspective -- total health, so to speak. It's beyond heart rate and steps. Biometrics we focus on are Resting Heart Rate, HRV, Spo2 and more.
Be wary....even when they have a defective product they still will charge you the 25.00 restocking fee. I received a defective sensor and was not credited back my restocking fee even though it was their issue.
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