One of the recurring themes here on Health Tech Insider is that the path for success for wearable devices is to add features and do more. Take sleep sensors as an example. Most of them track your motion while you sleep, and some will also track heart rate. From this data, the supporting app will infer the quality of your sleep and the time you spend in various sleep stages.
A new wearable called EverSleep ups the ante in this market segment. Like many competitors, it tracks pulse rate and body motion, as well as breathing rate. It goes beyond these, however, by also tracking blood oxygen levels and detects snoring (either by you or someone else in the room). The device includes a pulse oxymeter sensor that clips onto a finger tip and is connected to the watch-style device with a wire. In theory, this additional information can provide more detailed data about lung function and sleep stages.
The device is still in the development stage, with an Indiegogo campaign running now. Mass production is scheduled to start in August with products shipping in October. The addition of blood oxygen tracking is a potentially useful feature, though some users may find the fingertip sensor too intrusive. I can see that some other devices may choose to find a way to incorporate this function in a watch device if it turns out to have strong appeal for consumers.
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