Hexoskin — a biometric smart shirt that provides users insights about their physical training, sleep and daily activities — is now available in the U.S. Hailing from Canada, this smart shirt is designed for athletes and exercise enthusiasts.
It can record more than 3,000 data points per minute and provide accurate scientific-grade body metrics. Essentially a wearable precision lab, Hexoskin presents its users with the power of tracking lab-quality metrics.
Hexoskin, with the help of NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, has created sensors that are made of textile, leaving close to no hardware in the shirt. There is a small Bluetooth device that is connected to the fabric sensors and placed in the shirt’s built-in side pocket during activity and sleep. This construction makes the shirt extremely light and comfortable.
The Hexoskin not only measures heart rate, step count, sleep duration and calories burned, it also measures heart rate recovery, heart rate variability, breathing rate, breathing volume, activity level, acceleration, cadence and more. These metrics are designed to give users the information they need to have a clear picture of what works for their training. By reviewing the data before, during and after workout sessions, users can push themselves to their maximum training level, while still avoiding fatigue, overtraining and injuries.
With the Hexoskin, users can not only track the duration of their sleep and movement like most fitness trackers, but it elevates the data collected during sleep to include sleeping positions, cardiac and respiratory activity in order to give users a more precise idea of their overall sleep efficiency.
Using Bluetooth technology, the Hexoskin device can conveniently connect with a user’s smartphone in order to track metrics in real-time during a workout. The metrics can be viewed directly on the Hexoskin smartphone application for iOS and Android, as well as its online dashboard, which is perfect for a remote coach or trainer to monitor the users’ workout or training session in real-time. The metrics can also be accessed via the dashboard after workouts in order to compare them to other athletes in the Hexoskin network or their own previous training sessions to measure improvement.
Users can opt to download their data to their own analysis software or share their training session data with friends, family, personal trainers, coaches or their social media account. Hexoskin also features an open API, freely available to researchers and third-party software and hardware developers.
The water-resistant Hexoskin is made with breathable Italian fabric. Pricing starts at US$169. It’optimized for regulation of moisture and heat, and is equipped with smooth seams to prevent chafing. The shirt is machine washable once the Bluetooth device is removed.