Monday, June 17, 2013

Heart rate variability, ANS aging - a new device from "Phyode" - therapeutic agent or scam??

I want to put in this post a comment by reader "Andre" on my June 11 post ("Changes as an autonomic nervous system ages 11 years - The "Wild Divine" is a bit less wild.", along with my response.
Last week I backed a Kickstarter project from Phyode called the W/Me (http://goo.gl/en1Ea), a smartwatch that uses HRV and "ANS Age" as its primary markers for assessing the user's "mental state". I couldn't find a research precedent for using ANS aging for this purpose until your post came up in a Google search. Do you think Phyode's methodology is valid?
My response on looking at the website:
This is a very slick presentation, and looks like a potentially interesting product...If it were not for the fact that its development appears to be limited to Android products (i.e. no iPhone App)[NOTE! 10/22/13 - comment below says I'm wrong, it is for iPhone, not Android, my bad..] I would probably try it out when it is sold (There are, by the way several iPhone apps that do heart rate, HRV, etc.).....BUT, there are no pointers to basic scientific references on heart rate variability, ANS age, how it can be therapeutically altered in a beneficial way, or how his device would be used to do that. The FAQ section at the end of the web page with what look like links to such items as "What is HRV?" don't link to anything!! The Phyode "Full bio and links" doesn't yield anything significant! I would be interested in seeing something a bit more substantial from the people in the flashy video presentations (all appear to be 20-somethings, by the way). I don't want to play the complete nasty guy here, because a lot of effort went into the slick videos and description, and they look plausible, but what assures us that the fund raising "Back this project" (minimum donation $1.00) is not a scam? Does the Kickstarter cloud funding site that hosts this webpage have any quality controls or review criteria?? The "report this site to Kickstarter" link takes you to a page that requires you to join or be member of Kickstarter, and I'm not inclined to take that much time on this....

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:18 PM

    also:
    http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/10/from-fitness-to-wellness-omsignals-smart-shirts-measure-your-motion-and-emotion/

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  2. I am doing research on the heart rate variability test for a paper that I am writing, that is how I came across your post. This was very interesting, thanks for sharing.

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  3. Anonymous11:23 PM

    I think you got it backwards - all information about this product indicates that development is not "limited to Android products" - in fact Android products are not currently supported. Development is currently limited to iOS products and requires use of an iOS app.

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  4. Thanks, I'll check it out and change the post text when I get time.

    ReplyDelete