This Clever Sports Bra Tracks Your Fitness Levels – While Keeping You Supported
The brainchild of biometric technology and smart apparel company OMsignal, the genius sports bra will help its wearer keep tabs on her workout success. [Photo: OMsignal]
Wearable technology is nothing new but a sports bra that can track your fitness activity takes smart wristbands to a whole new level – and could be worth splashing your Christmas cash on (if you’ve got any left).
The clever little bra in question, called the OMbra, records your biometrics and streams them to your phone – letting you know exactly how beneficial your workout was by measuring metrics such as distance, heart rate and calories.
Bursting with savvy sensors that monitor exactly how hard you’re pushing yourself, it even lets you know when it’s time to take a breather.
It’s designed to be practical, too. The bra, which was launched at the CES technology fair in Las Vegas this week, lasts approximately 10 workouts before it needs to be charged and is even “splash proof”, which we assume means it can cope with a fair deal of sweat. Although how it can be washed isn’t quite clear…
Available in a number of styles, the sports bra will launch this spring. [Photo: OMsignal]
A gauge also measures cumulative fatigue, by keeping an eye on your state of rest before, during and after a workout using heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV) and breathing.
“Most technologies only use HR to estimate a state of fatigue,” said OMsignal, the company behind the bra. “Few technologies, like OMsignal, can also measure HRV. Only OMsignal adds an additional layer of accuracy by factoring in your breathing, a biometric that can vary (relatively) just as much as your heart rate when exerting yourself.”
The scientists, sports bra designers and engineers who collaborated for the project also took into account typical sports bra complaints to do with sizing, support and comfort.
The end design boasts double-layered sides, removable padding and adjustable straps and is made from a lightweight, stretchable and breathable fabric. Best of all, at a little over £100, it’s not all that expensive considering what it does.
It’s not the first piece of wearable technology OMsignal’s devised. In 2014, the company launched a line of smart shirts for men that also used clever textiles to monitor personal fitness. By plugging the shirt into an OM smart box, wearers could stream the data back to the app to get more out of their workouts.
