In March I blogged about how by crunching through specific fitness metrics collected by our Valencell’s sensor technology, we can calculate important fitness assessments. Namely, because our technology is located at one location – the ear – we can measure many different biometrics and activity states.  This is because the ear is an ideal place for measuring biometrics, including heart rate, tympanic temperature, respiration rate, blood oxygen, and blood pressure.  Moreover, because earbuds stay in the same body location from person-to-person, we’re able to accurately assess people’s activity state – such as running, resting, standing, working around the house, and so forth. So when we collect time-correlated data relating biometrics in context of your physical activity, we’re able to generate important health and fitness assessments.

For example, by processing your biometrics in context of activity, we’ll be able to tell you your personalized heart rate zones, ventilatory threshold, or your recovery time. In the near future, we believe we’ll even be able to tell you if your blood pressure is high due to hypertension or just due to temporary apprehension, or if your lifestyle choices are making you more or less healthy. Perhaps even more importantly, we can then send you a personalized, targeted message that can help you with your specific health and fitness needs. Because we can do this with an earbud you already wear during exercise, we can provide you this service without you even having to think about collecting the data.  You just pop in an earbud, listen to music, go about your life, and we do the rest.

Of course, this is a great idea, but it hinges on the ability to measure all the important biometric stuff at one spot on the body – the ear.  Otherwise, you’d have to wear a chest strap, a shoe clip, an armband, a headband, and who knows what else just to generate accurate data to make these assessments. 

Valencell’s founders realized this critical point back in 2006, and we filed several foundational patents in the space.  I’m proud to say we finally got word that on April 17th, we were formally awarded our first foundational patent, physiological and environmental monitoring systems and methods.  

It’s been a long road from invention, to prototyping, to validation, and now finally seeing our patents get issued! More importantly for you, our first commercial products will leverage these innovations towards powerful and compelling mobile fitness use cases.