A new wearable by Sweetzpot seeks to measure breathing and heart rate using a chest band called FLOW that eliminates the need for a clunky face mask and helps athletes find their stamina sweet spot.
The device, which can be used inside or outdoors, offers athletes metrics about the air flowing into their body by litres per minute, providing users data about the breathing patterns they can then tweak to maximize athletic performance. Ventilation can spike to as high as 160 liters/min during high intensity workouts from six to eight liters/min at rest, according to the data provided by the company.
FLOW measures the expansion and contraction of athletes’ inspiratory muscles to automatically detect their ventilatory thresholds (VT), the point during exercise when breathing becomes too labored, leading to a decline in performance. It then sends that data in real-time via bluetooth to a companion app that will provide a visual, detailed view of how athletes inhale, hold, and exhale their breath.
Athletes will be able to adjust their effort to stay just under their VTs, a sweet spot of performance, to prevent their muscles from tiring too quickly.
“Until FLOW, only professional athletes in a lab wearing a mask attached to a long hose were able to collect information about their ventilation and oxygen uptake,” Håvard K. Bjor, co-founder and CEO of Sweetzpot, said in a statement. “With FLOW, we have created a revolutionary and far less intrusive device that will enable anyone who uses it to capture that same valuable information at a fraction of the cost and visualize their ventilation and oxygen uptake in real time.”
The combination of a breathing and heart rate sensor enables athletes to get a more accurate read on their stamina than if they were just to measure heart rate alone, Bjor said.
After winning first prize in the wearable technology category at the Sports Tech World Cup – Nordic edition last summer, Sweetzpot launched a Kickstarter campaign in February with the goal of raising $30,000 to complete development of the device before it begins shipping in August.
FLOW is set to retail for $299, though early Kickstarter backers can get it at a discounted price, with support for both Garmin Connect and STRAVA. The accompanying app will also be released at the end of the summer on iOS and Android and be compatible with an array of smartwatches and mobile devices.
Developers can purchase an open source API and development kit that’s shipping in June to build upon FLOW’s existing features.