Hydration once seemed straightforward. You鈥檙e thirsty, you drink.
But in the last several years, hydration has become about as complicated as immigration reform. There has been news that drinking can hurt us; that dehydration may ; that it ; that drinking insufficient amounts of water puts people in a ; that ; that a lack of water gives folks . Of course, in all seriousness, dehydration does kill people.
Next year, a startup from Austin, Texas,聽鈥攚ith a new聽wearable that tells you how much to drink and when. There is at least one solid reason鈥攐ther than saving lives鈥攚hy we should anticipate its arrival (or consider heeding its Kickstarter campaign, which launched earlier this month): to聽empower us聽to solve our own hydration riddles.
鈥淗ydration monitoring the way we think it should be done doesn鈥檛 yet exist,鈥 says Dustin Freckleton, the 33-year-old CEO and founder of BSX Technologies, the 15-person, sensor-focused outfit that鈥檚 developing the new device, which will be called LVL.
Inside the company鈥檚 fifteenth-story, downtown Austin office building聽is a 150-square foot, fluorescent-lit space called the Sweat Room.聽Among other things, the enclosed area houses items like a stationary trainer for bicycles, a humidifier, and four space heaters.聽鈥淭he landlord reworked the HVAC system for us,鈥 Freckleton told me not long ago from inside the Sweat Room. Right next to Freckleton was a wired-up, fast-pedaling human lab rat鈥攐ne of hundreds of local athletes that BSX has brought in to vigorously exercise and sweat in 104-degree conditions. Meanwhile,聽rubber-gloved research scientists fussed over the cyclist鈥檚 physiological data.
鈥淐linical dehydration is maybe three聽percent,鈥 said Freckleton. 鈥淲e鈥檙e getting people in here to seven or eight聽percent.鈥
Freckleton has both an MD and an MBA, and he takes the business of hydration personally. Almost a decade ago, Freckleton suffered from a stroke that left him re-learning to walk, and grateful to be alive. (He鈥檚 now fully recovered.)聽He blamed that disabling setback on serious dehydration.
鈥淎lmost ever since, I鈥檝e been asking myself, are we really measuring what matters?鈥 he says.
LVL, BSX claims, will familiarize you with however much water you personally want and perhaps need. It will work akin to your car鈥檚 gas gauge, indicating when you鈥檙e full up, creeping toward a half-tank, or working with far less. It will precisely tie your hydration levels to exertion rates as well as sleep performance. It will do all of this courtesy of what the company claims is a proprietary, superior sensor technology.
Most of today鈥檚 available wearables feature LED sensors that shine a green light into one鈥檚 veins. But for a variety of reasons, the widely used technology has often remained frustratingly inaccurate.聽Alternately, the BSX sensors shine light in the red and 鈥渘ear infrared鈥 (frequently referred to as 鈥淣IRS鈥) range. The technology, which produces longer wavelengths that reach commendably far into the layers of human tissue for information, has long been used in medical devices (monitoring the likes of heart rate, and oxygen saturation values of blood).
Freckleton claims that his company鈥檚 crowning achievements include both fitting the sensor technology into a minimalist wearable, and evolving its capabilities to perform the unprecedented task of monitoring hydration. The sensors essentially derive their information from our plasma osmolality鈥攐ur blood鈥檚 level of concentration. BSX claims that the LVL has shown to be accurate within +/- 0.5 percent of one鈥檚 water weight鈥攁nd weight and dehydration can be correlated.
Perhaps the best indication that the LVL might realize its promise and precision is the company鈥檚 first product, the (from聽$300 to聽$420). That device, which was introduced in 2014, is a red-LED wearable that bloodlessly measures lactate threshold. In testing, The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research ultimately .
One potential caveat? The BSXinsight鈥檚 sensors are virtually uncompromised by the kind of ambient light that can dilute their performance鈥攂ecause the Insight is worn in the pocket of a sleeve that goes around an athlete鈥檚 calf. The LVL, meanwhile, is worn around the wrist, where all sorts of light can creep in.
BSX says that it鈥檚 past such hurdles.聽鈥淢easuring from the wrist is more difficult,鈥 Freckleton wrote me in a follow-up email. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why it took us two years to get here.鈥
Perhaps the hard work has already paid off. BSX claims that its sensor innovation and intellectual property is the envy of its competition鈥攕ome of them publicly traded giants in the wearables industry. The startup, Freckleton told me, already owns eight patents on its technologies, and LVL beta units will ultimately be tested by the University of Connecticut鈥檚 Korey Stringer Institute, which specializes in hydration research.
BSX believes that the LVL will debut by summer 2017. The wearable could be a no-brainer purchase for the elderly (who are notably susceptible to dehydration), as well as soldiers and workers who have no choice but to endure hot weather. But in part, the LVL鈥檚 success will also depend on how badly athletes want to tie their performance precisely to their levels of hydration (and pay $199). Every other jock will, at least relatively speaking, apparently have to guess at how much water to drink鈥攁nd rely on some very old sensor technology: the tongue.