This wristband won't measure your body -- it doesn't gauge your temperature, read your pulse or count your footsteps. But it can literally change your mood, using physical vibrations. "It's a new breed of wearable technology -- it releases a pulse in a specific rhythm which acts just like music," says Jack Hooper, cofounder of London startup Team Turquoise, which makes the Doppel wristband. "Upping the pulse tempo will get you alert, while slowing it down will make you relaxed. And you can use it in places where music may be distracting, or inappropriate, like in an important meeting or while presenting." Launched on Kickstarter today, the £70 Doppel -- which comes in black and white, with leather or stainless steel straps -- is aiming to raise £100,000 and the team is currently working with Disney to test out the product.
The four London-based cofounders met on the joint Innovation Design Engineering course at Imperial College and the Royal College of Art; between them, they have expertise in quantum physics, mechanical engineering, material science and industrial design. "We were interested in how the body reacts to stimuli, and how we could intervene in a useful way," cofounder Nell Bennett, who is responsible for design, tells WIRED. That's when they began to research "entrainment", a process by which people innately respond to external rhythms by auto-adjusting their heart rate to synchronise with the beat; faster beats would speed up your heart and stimulate you, while slower beats helped you calm down. They decided to use these rhythms to help people focus and relax. "We tested prototypes on at least 250 people, and found that the inside of the wrist was the most effective place to apply a pulse, so that's when we had the idea of a wristband," Hooper says. In February, they commissioned the Laboratory of Action and Body at Royal Holloway to objectively test the effects of the Doppel on stimulation. "They found that a Doppel user had significant increases in focus, compared to the control group," Hooper says.
The data also showed that if the setting of the pulse was personalised to each user (rather than a one-size-fits-all approach), it could double the alertness effects felt by the Doppel wearer. "So in the final device, we have a companion app that initially measures your resting heart rate through your smartphones camera and gives you two settings -- one that stimulates you and one that calms you down," Hooper explains. While this rhythm is customised automatically, you can adjust it according to your own preferences too -- and you don't need an app or even a button to do it. A stroke of the wristband face will slow down the tempo, a press-down will speed it up, and a rotation of the dial (just like a volume knob) will turn the intensity of the pulse up or down. "We didn't want it to be a piece of complex technology with screens and numbers, we tried to use natural interactions that help you bond with it," says Bennett.
From their own studies, Team Turquoise found that the alertness pulse was most useful to people who needed a boost during a long afternoon meeting or while exercising. It also helped users stay calm during stressful activities like presenting, and in falling asleep quickly. Bennett says she likes to use it when she's running. "It feels like you're on a running machine even when you're outdoors, because you automatically keep to the rhythm and run at a constant rate which is really useful," she says.
The startup, which has received £60,000 in grants from places like Deutsche Bank and the UK government-funded Innovate UK, aims to ship its wristbands in April 2016. WIRED will definitely be getting one to stay calm at work...
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
