A new patent just surfaced from the Google-owned fitness tracker OEM Fitbit. The company filed this back in 2020, but it finally surfaced just today. While there aren’t any images that come along with the patent, we know what the watch will do.
How will this Fitbit tracker reduce stress?
If you’re hoping for a device that will magically reduce your stress with the press of a button, you might want to wait a little bit longer on that. This Fitbit tracker will use its onboard sensors to actually detect if you’re experiencing high stress. When it detects that, it will then notify you. Not only that, but it will give you some suggestions to help you reduce your stress. Sometimes, it’s easy to lose track of ourselves and stress ourselves out. For all we know, a reminder every now and then could help us keep track of what stresses us out and when we get stressed out.
How will the watch detect stress?
Stress causes several biological functions to happen at once. So, while the tracker won’t be able to directly detect when you’re stressed, it uses its sensors to analyze different bodily functions going on at the same time that could hint at stress. For starters, it will use the electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor. This measures the conductivity of your skin, and it will detect if you’re sweating. It will take that data and combine it with your heart rate in order to see if you’re stressing out. If you work out, then you might see the problem with this method. You work up a sweat and raise your heart rate while you’re working out, so the company will need to work on not telling people they’re stressed while they’re working out. Since this is just a patent, we don’t know if we’ll see this watch in the future.
