Everyone's favorite controversial wearable is back at it again. Healbe today announced that it was bringing a suite of new updates to its GoBe 2 wearable, which it claims can automatically count your calories through your skin.
The big new update announced at CES 2018 is a health and wellness platform that will let you share your personal data with your trusted nutritionist or wellness coach. This includes metrics like calorie intake, calories burned, energy balance, water balance, stress level, emotional state, heart rate, sleep quality and distance traveled.
Read this: The best calorie counter apps and wearables
Other improvements include a new marketplace where you can buy accessories for your GoBe 2, like bands and chargers, and new services which will include the ability to add your medical records, nutritionist recommendations and customized food delivery.
The smallest, yet potentially biggest, update is a new algorithm for calculating calorie intake. The biggest claim of the GoBe 2, as well as its predecessor, is that it can track your calories through your skin. This sounded too good to be true, and medical professionals came out against the device saying it wasn't possible to do so.
However, Healbe has also softened the language on its claims since then. The company now says that the GoBe 2 is the "most effective wearable for automatically tracking caloric intake." Hopefully these updates to the GoBe 2 can - at the very least - allow the device to count calories as effective as manually inputting calories.
That would make the device worth it for calorie counters who are sick and tired of the hassle of actually logging in calories throughout their days, weeks, months and years.
Most of these new changes will come into effect in the first quarter of 2018. The GoBe 2 is available for $199, while the extra bands are $19, charging docks are $25 and charging cables are $5.
How we test
By Husain Sumra
Husain joined Wareable in 2017 as a member of our San Fransisco based team. Husain is a movies expert, and runs his own blog, and contributes to MacRumors.
He has spent hours in the world of virtual reality, getting eyes on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Samsung Gear VR.
At Wareable, Husain's role is to investigate, report and write features and news about the wearable industry – from smartwatches and fitness trackers to health devices, virtual reality, augmented reality and more.
He writes buyers guides, how-to content, hardware reviews and more.