The Computer is in Your Socks–Sensors and Monitoring Discreetly at Your Feet…Beyond the Accelerator With Mobile Health Monitoring

The company is called Heapsylon and they manufacture sensors that are in the clothing.  You can watch the videos and learn more about how this works.  There’s both a diabetes monitoring benefit as well as a fitness benefit to the sensors and the software.  This is the first company out of the Flextronics accelerator program from Flextronics and they are big all over the world.  FlexLabs is the name of the accelerator who is funding.  In addition some crowd funding is on the way as I understand in talking with Davide Vigano, the CEO.  Davide worked at Microsoft in the past and as a matter of fact the entire founding group has roots there.  I asked if the sensors and software will connect to PHRs and Davide stated they would be releasing an API at some point and of course I would expect HealthVault to be on that map. 

Sensoria - How it works from Heapsylon on Vimeo.

What is really nice though to me is their privacy policy…they are yet another emerging company that won’t sell your data, they want to sell socks with sensors instead and that’s their model.  The sensors currently in the socks can be placed in almost any fabric, and thus so could be worn out of public view if one desired.  Here’s some additional information discussing how the sensors compare with accelerators in the video below.   You have both here with sensors in the socks and the accelerator in the phone and hear from some actual users on what they think. 

Sensoria Fitness Smart Sock Tracker from Heapsylon on Vimeo.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s another review recently on the web:

The company, called Heapslyon, is making completely normal, washable socks that are embedded with sensors that users can't even feel.
"We had to invent everything from scratch," said Mario Esposito, the company's chief technology officer.
The socks feel like any other sock until you attach a magnetic anklet that feeds back information, via Bluetooth, to a computer that can not only display waveforms of impacts on the foot, but a smartphone app will eventually give a user audio cues in their ear bud when their running technique is poor.
The free app will also display east to understand graphics on how to improve their stride.

"Not just telling them how far and how fast they run, but how many calories they burn, primarily how well they run," said Heapslyon co-founder Davide Vagano. "We think there is an opportunity to prevent injuries, to tell people you're heal striking"

If they get the funding they need, they figure the anklet, a pair of socks and the smartphone app will be sold as a bundle for $149. Early investors with Indiegogo will get $50 off and the first set of devices and socks coming off the assembly line.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Redmond-company-developing-computerized-socks--211632551.html?tab=video&c=y