In today’s constantly-connected world, there is often a disconnect between raw data collection and sensor management. LifeQ has the answer.
According to LifeQ, who made its debut back at CES 2015, the future of wearables may not actually be wearables but instead the data that they collect. The South African startup is looking to tap into the human sensor by combining two technologies to give people the ability to optimize and improve the condition of the body and live intelligently. This pair of technologies, continuous physiological monitoring and bio-mathematical modeling, provide insights around personal and population-wide health, making it possible to significantly improve decision making for anyone’s well-being.
We had the chance to catch up with LifeQ executive founder Riaan Conradie along with lead engineer Nicol Carstens to explore the ways in which its Atmel | SMART SAM4L ARM Cortex-M4-based solution will enable wearable device companies, application developers, data scientists and other experts to better monitor, understand and manage physiology, behavior and health. It’s important to note: LifeQ is not a wearables company.
At the moment, computational systems biology is a relatively new field, with only a small group of scientists studying and publishing on the topic. LifeQ’s multi-disciplinary team is pioneering this effort and has a vision of enabling every human being to really understand their own bodies and health, and make decisions based on highly personalized health records and insights.
LifeQ’s technology focuses on highlighting and improving six major verticals in one technological device for users to optimize their health and well-being including: fitness, nutrition, sleep and stress, medical, health and data mining. Given that deep analysis of data isn’t just a one-company task, it will require extensive collaborations to provide meaningful insights. Currently, the startup is partnering with a wide-range of brands to enable them to tap into the LifeQ model specific to their industry.
In fact, DailyDot reports that LifeQ ended CES 2015 with four partners who will include the company’s technology in their devices in the near future, and another 10 to 15 slated to be onboard by year-end. Among the early partners for implementation is First Alert with its Onelink smartwatch, which will take advantage of LifeQ’s ability to add functionality as it gathers more consumer data in its research cloud.
“Mobile health is following a very similar evolution to weather forecasting, going from simply going outside, through barometers to sophisticated computational forecasting,” explained Conradie. “Just like in weather forecasting, the traditional meteorological recording equipment is still needed, but it’s more about analyzing and using that data.”
Undoubtedly, LifeQ’s data pool will continue to expand as more consumers buy its partners’ wearable gadgets. As companies include these sensors into their next products, information will be sent to the cloud, and the resulting streams will be made available to app developers and device makers. Interested in learning more? Head over to the company’s official page here.
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