Thanks to our friends over on Pinterest, we came across one of the coolest upcoming fitness products we have seen, and a new entry into the 24-hour fitness-tracking arena, the Basis heart monitor. Basis is able to record calories burned and sleep habits by using a 3D accelerometer, a heart rate monitor, and both temperature and galvanic skin response (yeah, I totally had to look that one up) sensors. These sensors, along with the heart rate monitor in the band, remove the need for a chest strap and increase the accuracy of calories burned.
Notice the multiple different sensors on the back of watch.
Like most of the devices in this genre, Basis plans to offer plenty of ways to connect with outside sources including Facebook, Twitter, and their site mentions the future capability of being able to synchronize with other applications (Lose It!, anybody?). Last but not least, Basis has made it very customizable, by making the wrist bands interchangeable, offering people many different options. I know in my case, it would be great to have a watch that would match my suit at work, go along with jeans and a sweater for casual wear, or fit comfortably during workouts. The Basis will cost $199.00, which if you break it down, is an extremely reasonable price considering it combines the capabilities of both the Fitbit Ultra and the Polar FT4 HRM (which both run a $100 price tag). As for the release date, Basis has yet to hand out that information, but as soon as I have the data to share, I’ll make sure to update this post.
Steve is an Executive Recruiter at Robert Half Executive Search in Madison, WI with a business degree in Information Systems and E-Commerce from the University of Toledo. Steve loves spending his time away from work; running, gaming, watching movies, checking out new social networking tools/sites/start-ups and blogging.