Borough man develops ‘smart bra’ to analyze biometrics

STONINGTON — “Smart” wristbands that track biometrics are old news for tech-savvy entrepreneur Kevin Logan. His borough-based company, Body Biolytics, has moved on to “smart bras” that track the wearer’s body signals much more accurately and precisely.

“Someone might not want to wear a wristband that they’re not used to, but everyone wears clothes and especially undergarments,” he said. “Integrated sensors in clothing is where the future of biometrics-tracking technology is headed.”

The idea for the smart bra came about when Logan ran into his high school buddy Bruce Prescott, the owner of Zoe Co. Professional Bra Fitters in Westerly and Concord, N.H. They started chatting about the idea of a bra with integrated sensors, and after their conversation, Prescott invited him to attend a lingerie show with him in New York City.

At the show, Logan met the heads of numerous lingerie companies and ended up partnering with Pakching Ng, founder of Freemi.io, a Vancouver, British Columbia, smart-garment technology firm in the global lingerie industry.

Since the two started working together last year, they’ve come up with a stress-monitoring bra they believe will be marketable to the everyday woman.

As a Samsung developer, Body Biolytics started doing research and development trials last year using Samsung wristbands embedded with optical and galvanic skin-response sensors to develop its own biometrics for heart rate, respiration rate and hydration. These and other sensors can now be integrated in smart fabrics, opening the door for tracking a woman’s stress level through a bra platform. The bra pairs up with a smartphone application where users will initially indicate their feelings or stress levels. The app uses machine learning to correlate physiological patterns from the sensors with user-supplied stress levels to determine a unique baseline stress model for each woman. Once the model is learned, user input is eliminated and real-time stress levels are provided by the app to the wearer. The woman can then do something to reduce her stress, such as breathing exercises, going for a run or taking a yoga session.

During the initial experimental trials, Body Biolytics engaged a small group of women to place sensors on four areas of their chest. The women also wore a microphone that recorded their breathing for a comparison of how accurate the optical sensors were in estimating respiration rate on the skin.

“Compared to the acoustic data from the microphone, our software was less than a half a breath off. We’re really excited about the high accuracy.” Logan said. “We also spoke with the group of women who all said they would use our smart bra if it looked good, was comfy and was useful. We aren’t targeting the athletic women, though they could certainly wear one. We’re trying to target the everyday woman who wants to learn more about her body, be more in-tune with it, and wants to be proactive about her health in new ways that our technology can provide.”

At the moment, the smart bra prototype is being manufactured by Freemi.io and once Logan does more trials to see how it works, Prescott said Freemi.io will be able to introduce it through the lingerie industry’s primary sales channels, the annual lingerie shows in New York City and Las Vegas.

“We are excited to partner with Body Biolytics and utilize their prize-winning technology to create our wearable-tech stress-management platform,” Ng said in a report. “Our goal is to become a major player in the global $12 billion lingerie industry. Our products will join a rapidly growing smart clothing category that includes industry giants like Google, Nike, Under Armour, and Adidas, as well as smart-bra companies like the Canadian firm OMSignal, Victoria’s Secret, Sensilk, Sensoria, and a host of others.”

Aside from the smart bra, Body Biolytics is also researching what sorts of wearable smart clothing would be useful for tracking the biometrics of first-responders such as firefighters, EMTs and police, as well as tracking the location and vital signs of elderly with dementia or Alzheimer’s or for nonverbal children with autism.

“Along with everything we can already track with wearable tech, such as heart rate, respiratory rate and motion patterns, we’re developing software that also tracks a person’s hydration levels. This could be a real game changer in biometric technology for the military and athletes, as well as for elderly and children,” Logan said. “This idea for wearable biometric technology is so much bigger than just the bras. This is only the beginning.”

bwhite@thewesterlysun.com

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