“Design questions aside, the true mystery about Apple’s long-rumored iWatch lies in exactly what types of health-related sensors the wearable might include. A recent report claims the iWatch will sport an astonishing 10 different sensors, including one for sweat,” Buster Hein reports for Cult of Mac. “While pedometers, accelerometers, thermometers and every other o-meter Jony Ive can get his hands on might all make sense for a smartwatch, we’re wondering what Apple could do with a sweat sensor? Other than verify that, yes, your sweat glands are pouring out more fluid per minute than Niagara Falls during your jog?”
“It turns out that adding sweat sensors would do more than differentiate the iWatch from smartwatches by LG, Motorola and Samsung right out of the gate. It could make the iWatch the most ‘personal’ device you’ve ever shackled yourself to, with surprising applications that go far beyond fitness and health,” Hein reports. “EDR [electrodermal response] sensors determine your sweat rate by measuring a small flow of electricity on your skin, only they track micro-sweat changes on the skin (electrodermal activity) that you don’t even notice. Information contained in this stream of sweat data comes from a mixture of your body’s responses to fear, ambient temperature and detoxification (excretion and sweating off bacteria and dirt).”
Hein reports, “The potential data to be mined and analyzed from ERD sensors could prove powerful, but the iWatch would require extra sensors — lots of them — to add valuable context. However, if Apple’s dream team of bio experts have done their homework, the iWatch’s sweaty data could be used to change not just fitness, but gaming, social networks and recommendation engines, as well as adding an extraordinary marketing weapon to Apple’s arsenal that Google and Amazon can’t match.”
Tons more in the full article – recommended – here.