We’re getting close to full body saturation of wearable tech now, and the Prana breathing and posture monitor now adds lungs to the list of connected organs.
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The wearable tracker – presumably named after Pranayama, a traditional breathing control method – is designed to keep tabs on the way we puff and blow, working out the depth of our breath and where we breathe from.
Studies have shown that breathing from the abdomen can positively affect our health, and posture can have a huge effect on the quality of your breath. With that in mind, the Prana tracker uses an accelerometer and a host of clever algorithms to monitor 10 aspects of your breath and posture.
The benefits are said to be reduced stress, increased energy and sleep improvement.
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“It’s been known for thousands of years that good posture facilitates good breathing, so it made sense to us to track both,” said Prana’s chief science officer Dr. Paul Abramson, M.D. “We breathe differently in slumped versus upright postures, with significant improvements in forced expiratory volume while upright.”
Refreshingly, the Prana isn’t just a passive tracker and offers breathing exercises and tips on your posture, which the company claims is based on ancient yoga exercises. Unrefreshingly, there’s an aspect of gamification about the exercises, which are designed to increase the engagement with the app.
“Our software offers an extensive library of breathing exercises/techniques from traditions from all around the world, including Yoga Pranayama, Tai Chi, and Buteyko. By introducing a gaming element, we encourage longer term engagement compared to most passive trackers,” said Alex Ahlund, VP of Prana.
Posture is especially important, especially for us desk bound workers and effective breathing is a cornerstone of improved health and wellbeing. As Prana’s makers say, “You spend nearly 100% of your life breathing, isn’t it time to pay attention to it?”
Prana is going on sale in January 2015 at a price of $150, and we orders open soon. We’ll be getting our hands on it as soon as possible.
Source: VentureBeat
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.