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You seem out of touch with your emotions, let's get you a 'well-being' wearable

You seem out of touch with your emotions, let's get you a 'well-being' wearable

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Zenta

I wrote about a stress-detecting wearable last week, and now I’m writing about another. Could this be a trend? The Zenta was first covered last month as the world’s first "well-being wearable." The bracelet claims to do literally everything: stress, happiness, and mood tracking; activity and fitness tracking; mindfulness and breathing exercises; sleep tracking; cardless payments; fertility tracking; "city emotion tracking;" Internet of Things gesture controls; and touch control. Wow, alright. Let’s break this down.

None of the features it claims to posses would require new technology, but the Zenta would be the granddaddy of wearables — taking from others to build a beast of a device. I’m skeptical. The device comes with four types of sensors, including one that measures Galvanic Skin Response, which fluctuates as emotions change, and another that takes a wearer’s temperature.

The zenta could be the granddaddy of wearables

In a paper describing how it measures emotion, Zenta wrote that through its sensors, "data relating to heart and skin activity can be examined in the form of heart rate, heart rate variability, electrodermal activity and skin temperature. Measuring the physiological activity of these organs can provide insight into the activity of the ANS [autonomic nervous system]." Basically, your body does funky stuff when you feel a certain way and Zenta thinks it can qualify it.

We won’t know much about the veracity of these claims until we’re able to test the Zenta, which is on Indiegogo now and starts at $179. The bracelet isn’t expected to ship until 2017, so I hope you have a firm grasp on your emotions til then!