Withings Pulse: A Small Wearable With Heart Rate Monitoring

The much anticipated Withings Pulse activity and sleep tracker is now taking pre-orders. Much like the Fitbit One, the Pulse has new additional functions including elevation climbed data, running duration information and heart rate measuring capabilities. The Pulse can be worn as a clip or in a sleep wristband. The Pulse is slightly wider (but less long) than the Fitbit One and currently comes in black. For me the deal breaker is not having a daily wrist wearable / bracelet option. Having almost washed the Fitbit One twice and often forgetting it at home in the morning, I know this sleek piece of wearable tech doesn’t fit my style. In time, I hope the Pulse will be more compact and wrist wearable, but for now if you are looking for a small, easily hidden health and activity tracker, this is definitely the one to get.

OMsignal: Making body monitoring clothing a reality

OMsignal is entering the wearables space by creating a form flattering compression shirt that uses sensors embedded into the shirt to measure vital signals and daily physical activity. The data is transmitted to a smartphone app where users can track anything from their activity, heart rate, respiratory rate, breathing balance, calories burned, emotive state and more. Users can link together to monitor each other and set alerts. Prototypes of the shirt are now being distributed to interested third-party developers who are looking for ways to use the data collected to create apps on the OMsignal platform. When the shirts are finally rolled out, I suspect a string of interesting apps will also be released.