Now Bras Are Smart Too | TechTree.com

Now Bras Are Smart Too

Is a piece of high-tech lingerie the coolest thing at CES 2016? And will it meet the fate of the Microsoft Bra?

 
Now Bras Are Smart Too

So much for all the fancy smartwatches and bracelets and bands. Guess who wants to track your health? Your bra.

Canadian startup OMsignal has launched a biometric "smart" bra or OMBra at CES 2016, the Consumer Electronics Association's International Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas. It's done this kind of thing before with clothes in general but now wants to move into bras. Well, why not: it's closer to the core, you might say.

The OMBra monitors activity level, measures heart rate and breathing rhythm, sending all the info and stats to an app on iOS. This is a very flexible bra, adapting to your shape, allowing for different levels of support, and of course it has adjustable straps. Because a woman's body can change shape during different times of the month, the bra has been made to account for that and adapt. There are sensors inside it that are also flexible. Just don't dump the lot into the washing machine.

The company's blog says: "After much applause, and a plethora of requests from eager women who wanted in on the action too, the day has finally come for us to reveal the OMbra -- the ultimate smart bra. They add that they worked hard for four years and with 1,633 prototypes to perfect the bra, which is essentially sports apparel.

Customers speaking on the company's video seem to like the OMBra a lot. They like the feedback they get on breathing, specifically, helping to recover better and more efficiently from workouts. They say they are finally in a "deep relationship" with their fitness tracker, "like a personal trainer you can wear". Through the tracker bra and the app, a woman can get encouragement on meeting fitness goals.

It is made with a four-way stretchable fabric that conforms to the shape of the wearer's body while in movement, and can track breathing rate, heart rate, and the number of calories burned during exercise. A black box with sensors is located near the wearer's ribcage on the bra's lower band, recording this biometric data. This information is shared with the OMsignal mobile app, and a feature called OMrun designed to help people manage their running performance.

Would I buy it? Why not? Even if it costs $140. But one can safely bet it won't be anywhere to be had.

Question: how is one to keep this whole bosom gizmo clean? It has a little black box built-in for all the tracking etc. And is it that adaptable that I could buy it online and hope for it to fit? It might have been better if OMSignal had developed a tracker that could fit into bras that are already around, letting one stay with favorite tried and trusted bras. After all, some like underwired bras, some want them made of soft material, some want them hardly there. Sports bras, of course, aren't that different from each other, but I must say that even with those, I'd have wanted to choose my straps and whether they're the criss-cross type or not.

A smart bra isn't a new idea. But I suspect it's one that will find it difficult to see the light of day.

In 2013, none other than Microsoft made the prototype for a smart bra. I can just see it -- Microsoft Bra. Compatible with Windows 7! This bra was supposed to track a woman's emotional state in cases where it leads to overeating. So the bra would alert the wearer to guard against that when stress was likely to trigger off overeating. Great. Like wearing your mother.

But then Microsoft didn't seem to have planned this bra to be actually be available in the market as a consumer product.

I hope OMBra doesn't meet the same fate.

(Lila Ray is a corporate consultant who likes her gadgets almost more than her shoes. Write to her at [email protected]


Tags : CES 2016