Project Zero
When CES 2016 was all said and done, Omron Healthcare ended up in a lot of the recaps, and for good reason. Its line of Project Zero blood pressure monitors have simple interactive design, and the accompanying mobile app allows users to send results to family members and medical providers. The upper arm model can store up to 200 readings at once, as well as accommodate at least one other user, while the wristable also functions as a tracker of your steps taken and your hours slept.
My UV Patch
We know that the sun can cause skin damage, but often we don’t know until it’s too late. My UV Patch is a stretchable, ultra-thin sticker that acts as a sensor. It’s packed with dyes that modify the patch’s color depending on length of sun exposure. Taking a picture of the patch with your smartphone and running the sidekick app allows you to see how your skin fares after staying under the sun. The app also offers advices about tanning healthily.
Quell
Much of the health technology unveiled at CES showcased the potential of alternatives to drugs for reaching a better sense of wellness. The Quell leg band from NeuroMetrix is just one example, but a pretty good one at that. It blocks pain signals to the brain by acting on the opioid receptors in the same manner as opiates—but without drugs. Quell is geared towards those suffering from debilitating pain related to diabetes or other ailments.
Halo
Halo is the smart headband from Biotrak Health that monitors tension and provides gentle feedback to help you prevent tension headaches, migraines, and TMJ pain from the comfort of your own home. The smartphone app collects EMG data from your headband via Bluetooth LE to help monitor muscle tension and provide real time coaching/ relaxation training exercises.
ReSound
Resound is working one of the original wearables—hearing aids—but these aren’t the ones you’ve seen your grandparents wear. ReSound LinNX2 allows its users to control their hearing via an iPhone app using Bluetooth technology. Users can adjust volume, treble, and bass, and create specific programs of settings they can access when they’re outside or in a restaurant.
RightEye
This isn’t a product for general consumers, but for medical professionals. These goggles use eye tracking and gaming stimuli to measure vision performance, and are already being used by sports teams and the U.S. military. RightEye showed how its smart goggles interact with a sensor (attached to a PC) in order to measure essential vision and performance vision.
Hexoskin
The creators of Hexoskin also make tech-infused clothing for astronauts, so you know they are serious. Hexoskin is smart clothing, with sensors woven into the fabric that measures your heart rate, pace, breathing rate and volume, steps taken, calories burned, and sleep. There’s an accompanying app to analyze your results, and it works with other fitness apps like Strava and RunKeeper.
Veta
Wearables owned this year at CES, but Veta is a move away from that pack. It’s a smart case for EpiPens that has a fee app that works in conjunction with the case. The patient and their family, friends, or caregivers can download the mobile app. It comes with features like FindMe, which displays the pen’s last known location; separation alerts, which trigger a notification when the case is left behind; and temperature and expiration monitors so a patient knows when their medication is too warm, cold, or old to be effective.
ReliefBand
ReliefBand is good for both morning sickness and motion sickness. The FDA recently cleared the wearable device, which is convenient (you wear it on your wrist), adjustable (there are five different settings), fast (without side effects of drugs), and doctor recommended. A use many CES goers found for the device was the motion sickness attained from experiencing virtual reality consoles for too long.
LumiWave
In 2011, at least 100 million adult Americans suffered from common chronic pain conditions, a conservative estimate because it does not include acute pain in children. LumiWave is hoping to help those people. It provides infrared light therapy that penetrates tissue and causes the body to release natural pain relief. Each therapy session lasts about 20 to 30 minutes, and there are two different models: a four-LED-pod model, and an eight-LED pod model.