Nobo introduced its flagship wearable device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Jan. 5. Called B60, the device is worn on the calf and non-invasively measures hydration levels in real time to provide the wearer with quantitative data on their fluid status.
The B60, which is currently in the prototype phase and is being catered towards athletic teams, works in conjunction with a mobile application. “An athlete can use their own mobile phone to review hydration data so that they know and the data is also relayed to athletic trainers and medical staff for the team so they can triage the entire team and see who needs additional water and who needs to be restricted,” said Nobo founder and CEO Russ Rymut to iDigitalTimes.
Information is relayed to the mobile app from the wearable device, which uses light to gather information. “B60 shines light of several different colors into the body’s tissues,” said Rymut. “And it measures how much of that light is absorbed. Turns out that water absorbs light in well known ways so by measuring that absorption in the tissue, we can actually tell how much water is in the body”
While Nobo will preliminarily be focusing on athletes, they see a broader application for the device. For instance, it can help doctors monitor hydration in critical care patients and help those working in fields that require physical activity (say, firefighters) stay on top of their health.
Current hydration assessment methods are invasive: it requires blood tests, urine samples, or measuring body weight changes. What’s more, existing equipment does not have scientific evidence suggesting that they work accurately. In this environment, the B60 offers a convenient alternative for measuring hydration.
“We can assess, in real time, if you need more fluid or if there is already too much in your body,” said Rymut at the press conference. “And that’s the basis of B60.”
