2014 ushered in a whole wave of wearables we are happy to ride into 2015. Among the smartypants watches and the all-knowing bands, we saw the emergence of the “I can’t believe it’s not ugly” techsessory that (gasp!) kept fashionable female customers in mind. We also saw a back-to-basics approach emerging, with gadgets that promised to help you manage stress, sit up straighter and sleep better. See that pretty statement ring below? You could say it’s a little bit of both.
Moodmetric is what happens when your go-to activity tracker and the mood ring you won in a gumball machine many moons ago have a baby and it goes to college and becomes a Psych major. The ring measures emotions by reading signals from your nervous system. Its goal is to help you take that info and better understand your emotions, how you react to them so you can stress less and enjoy life way more. All while looking good enough to stack.
Instead of changing color when you’re sad, scared or happy as a clam, Moodmetric tracks your emotional levels and stores the info for whenever you’re ready to check in with it and yourself. A quick glance at the well-designed app’s charts and gathered data and you might just think that it’s reporting on any ol’ activity tracker. Look closer and you’ll see your current state of mind, your emotional well being over the month and even in-the-moment prompts to help you get to a relaxed state.
Opening Ceremony’s MICA bracelet and Ringly still win top honors on our wearable wearables wish list, but Moodmetric is attractive enough to rock regularly. The techy bling was created by big time jewelry designer, silversmith Vesa Nilsson in Finland and comes in black or gold.
Here’s the heartbreaker. Even with a big year for tech you can wear, ideas like Moodmetric still start off on the prototyping, Kickstarter-ing tracks. Makes sense, but just means that they’re generally a long ways away from prime real estate in your jewelry box. You can pre-order MoodMetric now through the month of January on CrowdedRocket, where a pledge of $179 will get you the black polycarbonate version. For the glitzy 14K gold version, you’ll have to shell out a lot more — $3,950.
Four grand might be a little much to drop on an on-demand emotion sensor, but Moodmetric’s success (still TBD, of course) could signal a bigger shift to tracking mental health over calories burned in this next brave new year of wearables. With your phone helping you digitally detox, turning to wearables for a similar service doesn’t sound half bad. When it comes to the question of whether our tech wants and our daily needs can all just get along, it looks like our sanity + our tech-session will sure try.
What do you think of Moodmetric? Would you rock it? Did you wade into the wearable world this year? Share more about it below if so!