OMsignal's smart shirt monitors your emotional well-being

A host of fitness tracking tech is currently on the market allowing users to measure and monitor their daily activities, heart rate, exercise intensity and even how much they sweat.

But what about your emotional state? Montreal-based smart apparel company OMsignal has developed a T-shirt and a bra that not only tracks your daily steps, calorie burn and heart rate, but it also measures your breathing and emotional well-being using your heart rate variability, or HRV, reported VentureBeat.

OMsignal's clothing contains a 3-axis accelerometer, the basic tool found in other fitness devices, which measures motion, steps and calories. It also detects and measures two other signals: your ECG—the electrical signature of your heart—and respiration rhythms.

Sensors woven into the polyester/lycra fabric act as a 3-lead EKG, producing a readout of cardiac activity when the user is at rest or doing something active, according to the company. A breathing sensor in the shirt measures ribcage extension and contraction, providing information on respiratory rate and the depth of each breath.

The shirt's 3-axis accelerator is housed in a tiny unit along with a transmitter and memory card that records the wearer's movements throughout the day, according to the company's blog.

The clothing also contains GPS capability, a feature that can help you understand how your body reacts to certain activities and environments. You might, for example, learn your stress levels are much higher than expected while working from home.

The wearer can connect to the unit via Bluetooth and view graphic charting of their biological data on the OMsignal app. The app displays their emotive state, relaxation levels and stress patterns throughout the day. The data is stored for seven days and unit in the clothing has a battery lifespan of 16 hours and is chargeable over a regular USB connection.

The company is still developing the product, which is not yet available for purchase. And it's opening up the product to developers in an effort to improve it. The company is giving away 100 free shirts to external developers who submit the best, most innovative proposal to improve the product.

OMsignal employees have been wearing the shirt on a daily basis and the data that has been collected will be shared with the winners.

Photo: OMsignal/Marlon-Kuhnreich

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com