GigaOM » Basis

More than an activity monitor, Basis watch wants to change your life

Ryan Kim — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:00:03 +0000

Exercise nuts and data fiends are getting plenty of new mobile gadgets to track their movements and motivate them to better health. But the most sensor-packed competitor is now ready to hit the market.

Basis, an activity and health tracking watch, is finally launching for $199, offering four different types of sensors to monitor a user’s activity and vital signs. In addition to a three-axis accelerometer, Basis offers an optical heart rate monitor, a galvanic skin response sensor that measures a user’s sweat and a temperature sensor, which gauges both ambient and body temperature.

It’s going up against a number of devices, from the Jawbone Up and FitBit Zip and One trackers, to the Nike Fuel Band, the Striiv gamified pedometer and Motorola’s MotoActv watch. Most of those devices, however, rely primarily on accelerometers to measure footsteps, activity and calories burned. Basis can do that but it can also provide a sense of how a person is doing physiologically. It’s not just to rack up more data. Basis can tell which activities are actually causing a user to break a sweat or raise their temperature. And it can see how well a person’s heart rate is handling different types of exercise.

While the sensors are important for gathering data, Basis believes its software is how it will actually change people’s lives. The company postponed the planned early 2012 launch of Basis to refine the software experience, so it can be used to actually change long-term behavior.

Now, users can pick certain habits they want to adopt such as hitting a certain number of daily steps or getting a certain amount of sleep and Basis’ dashboard helps them move toward their goal. The system will give points when a user hits their goal in a week and then will raise the targets for the next week. If a user falls behind, Basis’ dashboard knows to lower the goals, to get users back on the wagon.

“This is about taking small steps and trying to make something a habit,” said Basis CEO Jef Holove. “We can work with and then tune toward their goals based on how they’re living their lives.”

Users who want to deep dive into more personal data can also see plenty of charts and graphs that can show hour-by-hour activity. Or they can back out and see larger trends from a week-long perspective.

The software and coaching is included in the price of the Basis Watch. Mobile apps are coming in the new year for iOS and Android, which will allow users to check on the progress while out and about. The watch will use Bluetooth 2.1 to send data to a mobile device. It will be available for sale on the Basis website.

Holove said future monetization plans include potentially charging for additional accessories like wristbands or upselling users on more advanced cloud services that could offer better analytics or more data storage. We’ll be testing out the device to see if it really lives up to its promise. I’ll be interested to see how well it performs in the real world and whether the extra sensors actually deliver good data. But if it works, it’s a great package getting all that into an easy-to-wear watch. Some of the problem with many of these monitors is just ensuring that you have it with you at all times.

Basis raised $9 million last year from Norwest Venture Partners and DCM.

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Connected world: the consumer technology revolution

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 08:01:08 +0000

Connectivity changes everything. That’s the credo driving just about every corner of our day-to-day lives. As human beings, we are now connected to one another through not just our social networks but also our cars, the books we read, the albums we download and even our own health and wellness habits (to name just a few areas). With that in mind, GigaOM Pro has singled out certain areas in the technology industry where we see this shift to constant connectivity taking place most drastically.

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Basis Building the Ultimate Watch Fitness Monitor

Ryan Kim — Thu, 26 May 2011 04:00:00 +0000

One of the cool things we’re seeing with mobile devices like Fitbit (see disclosure below) and Nike+ and smartphone apps like Runkeeper is the ability for them to act as powerful sensors that can provide feedback on our health and well-being. But one of the most promising ventures in this field is an upcoming product from Pulse Tracer called Basis, a watch monitor that packs in a bunch of sensors that monitor not just movement but heart rates, temperature and skin response.

The company, which is preparing to release its wrist band monitor soon, is fresh off raising $9 million in funding from Norwest Venture Partners and DCM. And Thursday, it’s announcing it has brought on a new CEO: Jef Holove, a former VP and general manager at Logitech who was lured away from Eye-Fi, where he was CEO. It’s another good sign for what could be a very ground-breaking device with the potential for bringing online behavioral tracking to a much wider audience.

As we’ve noted, there are already some popular options for people on the market like FitBit and Runkeeper. But they’re primarily measuring motion and distance using accelerometers or GPS. Basis, which is expected to sell for $199, is outfitted with not just an accelerometer, but also an optical blood flow sensor to measure heart rate, a sensor to measure body heat and also a galvanic skin response sensor. Put it all together, and you have a lot more data to measure not just how active someone is, but how their heart rate is doing, how their temperature is faring and how much stress someone is experiencing, which can be measured by changes in the skin and sweat.

“We’re providing a lot of data that enriches the picture of your health,” said Holove. “We can correlate different things. We can compare heart rate to low movement and find out if this is a stressful moment or something else is going on.”

Holove said Basis’ form factor is also critical because it doesn’t require strapping on an unfamiliar device like some heart monitors. It can be worn all throughout the day, which ensures a lot of data is gathered.

Basis isn’t just designed to gather information. It works with online tools to help people analyze the information and what the implications are for people. And there are game mechanics built in to motivate users to keep up their activity level. Those parts sound like other solutions on the market, but, provided Basis actually works as advertised, you’re getting a river of data that should reveal a lot about how people are living. If people can keep using the sensor because of its watch design, it will help ensure the feedback loop continues. We’ll know more when the device goes on sale. Holove wouldn’t commit to a launch this year, though the company is taking pre-orders.

There’s a big opportunity here to improve our health through mobile devices as they take on more functionality at a more affordable price. People also want to take more control over their health these days, but it sometimes takes helpful tools to get them going. At $199, Basis still isn’t cheap, but it has a good shot at winning over people if it can do what it says it will: not just gather data, but provide good analysis and encouragement behind it. If this can work, it will also put us further down the road toward the idea of the quantified self, a concept of helping people understand themselves better through self-tracking.

Disclosure: Fitbit is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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