14 DAY TRIAL // If you drop by Indiegogo right now, you might stumble upon a crowd-funding campaign for a fitness tracker than comes as close to qualifying as a smartwatch as anything can when it's not made by one of the big phone brands.
And before anyone allows skepticism to swallow them whole, let us just say that the Healbe Gobe raised $30,000 / €21,600 of the necessary $100,000 / €72,000 in just the first two days of its 40-day campaign.
Clearly, everyone who read through the description page and/or watched the introductory video has come to believe that the Healbe GoBe could become truly great.
It's kind of surprising really, because the watch, or fitness tracker, isn't really all that revolutionary, beyond the ability to measure calorie intake automatically.
Users normally need to have information logged on a daily basis in order to keep track of calories, which really isn't that difficult.
Still, simplicity of use is the ballgame of the world as it is today, so Healbe GoBe did what it could to be the first to the pie.
It can measure cell glucose level through your skin, and lets you focus on other things, like living instead of measuring how well you're living.
That said, the Healbe GoBe can also measure how many calories you burn, your heart rate, your stress levels, and even your sleep status. Hydration levels are measured as well, and so is body movement and activity.
To enable all this, the wristband boasts a pressure sensor (bloodflow and heart rate), an accelerometer (body movement), and an impedance sensor (measures fluid levels in tissue). The last one is the one tracking calorie intake, in case you were wondering. All this without you having to log any data at all.
You can still connect the thing to your phone though, and have to in order to view most of the information it records. Bluetooth 4.0 technology establishes the wireless connection, while a companion app syncs with the watch, copying the relevant information.
An early bid of $125 / €90 will net you a watch assuming the project takes off (which it's already pretty clear it will). Keep in mind that in a year or so, or half a year, the item will be up for order via retail, and the price will be a fair bit higher then, of $299 / €215.
Depending on how far the funding goal is exceeded, the Halbe might add some goodies or refinements to the product, not that it needs any.