New mental health smart ring lands from Tinder founder Sean Rad
The smart ring age has truly arrived, and the new Happy Ring, backed by Tinder founder Sean Rad, is delivering a new take on the segment.
The Happy Ring is aimed at mental health – and adds a host of new sensors to try and offer insights into your emotional wellbeing.
It’s being launched by Sean Rad and a host of other execs under a new company called Happy Health – which has just raised $50m of Series A funding.
One of those execs is Dr. Jim Hudziak, one of the creators of the DSM-IV – official manual of the American Psychiatric Association.
At its core, the Happy Ring features an EDA sensor, which keeps tabs on perspiration on the skin. It can be linked to stress responses and activity of the sympathetic nervous system.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same type of sensor as the Fitbit Sense and Charge 5. However, it’s not leveraged as part of Fitbit’s stress tracking, and works by covering the screen with your palm to take spot readings, which aren’t altogether that useful.
The new Fitbit Sense 2 also takes things further with continuous EDA sensing (cEDA) to constantly keep tabs on stressful feelings.
The Happy Ring takes advantage of its position on the hand to also offer continuous EDA readings, and promises real time analysis of stress and mood.
The EDA sensor also boasts two temperature sensors – although it’s not clear to what extent these are used.
Happy Health claims that the Ring uses “biometric sensors and AI to capture brain signals from peripheral nervous system.” And that it will also try and make sense of daily habits.
Sleep tracking is also a central element of the Happy Ring – and the company promises “best in class” monitoring.
All that is underpinned by heart rate tracking, with guided breathing elements and built-in journaling.
It’s a totally different take on the smart ring – and leverages the unique position on the hand to do something completely different.
We’ve seen wearables try and tackle mental health before. Fitbit’s stress tracking is an obvious example, as is the Mindfulness app on the Apple Watch. And we’ve seen niche devices such as the Moodbeam One.
The challenge is not only identifying psychological symptoms from physiological data – but also making it actionable. How can the Happy Ring do more than identify mood, stress and poor sleep? Can it affect change?
And it will need to offer something tangible. Like the Whoop 4.0, the Happy Ring will be made available free of charge, which contract plans starting at $20pm.
It will launch in the US first – and you can join the waiting list at www.happyring.com.
