Real question: Do you need a smart bra? Because you have a smart phone and probably an increasingly smart home, but a smart bra?
Maybe.
I am an avid (read: probably excessive) exerciser, and I recently came across the VITALI Smart Bra and GEM. I was intrigued — Anything I can use to get a sweeter pump, bro!
According to their website, the VITALI Smart Bra is the world’s first bra with fabric sensors that monitor breathing and heart rate variability… all intended to “train the nervous system to be more resilient.”
Whaaaa? This doesn’t sound like a calorie counter, but it was still interesting.
The explanation went on. Apparently, the fabric-based sensors collect a wearer’s vitals constantly. So, not just during periods of exercise or exertion. This means you are wearing this sports bra all day:
Eeh. I mean, if this is not about periods of dedicated exercise, this is a pretty robust undergarment — you know, for like, the office or something.
The VITALI “wellness coach” — they mean the bra there — keeps track of you via a removable tracking device called a GEM. The GEM specifically tracks your breathing and heart rate variability (HRV), which VITALI claims are key physiological indicators of the balance between stress and wellbeing. It also cues you to sync your breath with your heart’s rhythm, a(n allegedly) clinically proven method to “improve one’s natural nervous response to be more resilient.”
So, this bra basically keeps track of changes in your exertion levels and can presumably tell when the exertion is due to stress versus exertion from exercise — both of which might cause your heart rate to shoot up, but are generally very dissimilar experiences.
The VITALI Smart Bra first came out via Kickstarter in 2017, with a design that definitely resembled an old skool industrial level sports bra. Their website also claims they offer a new design that look a bit more sleek and demi bra-like. This seems better in terms of all day wear.
But do you need this?
The main difference I can see between this bra and, say, my Nike fitness tracker app is that the VITALI is not about monitoring your miles so much as it’s a tracker version of mindfulness. So, think about all that stuff you hear in yoga:
“Remember to breathe.”
“Sit up straight.”
“Ground yourself.”
That’s what this bra is going for, which does make it a bit different. Interestingly, that’s exactly what’s been reported — that VITALI is not trying to be a tool for fitness folk.
“Stress is a bigger problem than fitness,” VITALI’s founder Cindy Gu told Wareable.com last year. “For our product it’s about understanding the triggers. Breathing, posture and HRV are all indicators of stress but HRV is the one that has the clinical back up and is about metrics. We are mapping posture and breathing to HRV to understand what breathing and posture is bad. I think that’s really useful. It’s really the mind, body and physiological connection that’s important here.”
Interestingly (read: sadly), VITALI’s Insta has not been updated since October, 2017 and their Twitter not since November. Their blog, same thing.
This gives me pause in even writing about this product, but the idea of a more mindfulness-centered fitness tracker is still compelling. If the VITALI isn’t it, maybe there’s another gadget that does the same thing?
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Erika is a sex positive people watcher (and writer). Email her at erika@ynotcam.com.
Image via VITALI (screenshot).
