“Clear!” You never want to hear a doctor declare that word from within a hospital room. But if you’re on the receiving end of a defibrillator you won’t hear it anyway.
Oh, and it gets worse — at that point you might already be on your way to entering the big blockchain in the sky. The cost of neglecting your heart is, well, death. And, c’mon, who needs that in their life?
Now, don’t let the grim opener scare you off. I promise it gets cheerier.
But sometimes, we need to lean into and learn from facts instead of pretending they don’t exist.
One of your most important assets, the heart that’s ticking away in your chest as you read this, deserves your love and attention.
Hungarian blockchain startup HeartBit aims to provide the means for monitoring and improving the health of hearts all over the planet.
How does the team plan to make that happen? Keep scrolling and you’ll find out. But it’s not a race so don’t wear your finger out, okay?
And before we get into it, let’s keep the same rhythm:
Disclaimer: This is not investment or financial advice. I’m not a financial expert by any stretch of the imagination. Most information within this article is speculative and merely my own personal opinion. Always conduct your own research before contributing to any startup projects.
Always remember that what you do with your funds is your decision to make. And if that decision proves too difficult for you alone, seek guidance from a financial professional.
I may or may not receive a small allocation of tokens for creating this content. That said, I will do my best to remain unbiased and fair. I try to avoid all FOMO and FUD and never wish to impart those emotions on my fellow crypto-heads.
Now we can warm up a little before picking up the pace:
Your AI-equipped, blockchain-boosted, medical data-monitoring, reward-giving training partner
Boom, Boom, Boom
The human heart — constantly drumming under the spell of your unconscious mind — is often taken for granted.
Since we can’t see it, we may forget about it altogether. And if you’re the type who makes it a point to take as few steps as possible in any given walking situation, you may not even feel your heart anymore.
The heart’s invisibility betrays its dire significance.
Unlike some of the other organs in our bodies, the heart is one we can actively strengthen. Cardiovascular health is the basis of your body’s energy.
The stronger your heart, the more oxygen-carrying blood flows through your veins. And the more oxygen that’s in your blood, the more energy you’ll have.
Point is, for your short- and long-term health, take care of that heart of yours.
Now, there are a few unique, heartfelt additions the HeartBit project is bringing to the DIY healthcare industry. The platform has lots of advantages over today’s wrist-based solutions.
Let’s dig a little deeper. First, we’ll take a look at what’s available now. Then we’ll explore a new, upcoming technology. …
How fit is your bit?
Current Offerings
The FitBits and Garmins of today are fantastic pieces of tech.
Sensors embedded beneath the watch’s face monitor your heart rate and can Bluetooth-transmit your data to ancillary devices like an iPhone.
And on that device is an app — like Under Armour’s MapMyRun — that tracks your heartbeat and processes results.
Is it just me or are you absolutely blown away when you stop and think about what humans can accomplish by sending data through thin air?
But I digress.
And smartwatches aren’t the only game around. There are multiple methods of monitoring your body’s clock…
You can strap heart-rate monitors around your chest. But these are prone to slippage and tough to reposition while in motion.
You can slide your finger into a pulse oximeter. These measure the rate of oxygen saturation within your blood and can also take your pulse. But only in short bursts and not while you’re exercising.
You can stick heart-rate monitors in your ear. Want to learn a big word? A photoplethysmogram (PPG) is when a tiny light is shone against your skin to measure blood flow based on light reflecting off of blood vessels.
Some runners use them but this method, unsurprisingly, isn’t on the popular side of the market spectrum. Earbuds are meant for a different type of beat.
All these product types cater to individual tastes. But no matter how they track, all these devices are simply keeping tabs on your basic heart-rate.
Which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong, but today’s tech can do so much better than that.
If you’re old enough to remember the time-consuming hassle of rewinding and fast-forwarding cassette tapes and then making the leap to CDs, you’ll appreciate the quantum leap HeartBit’s hardware device makes for the fitness and medical industries.
Turning Yourself into a Blockchain Oracle
I heard you, a few sections back, thinking to yourself, “How much farther before we get to the blockchain tech already, jeez?” Okay, okay, we’re finally ready for a taste.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept of blockchain oracles, let me explain. Blockchains can’t access data outside of their network. And without that data, smart contracts have nothing to do but lay dormant.
When external conditions are met — a completed payment, a price fluctuation, or the latest football match’s winner, for example — an oracle sends the results to a blockchain which then triggers the execution of smart contracts.
So how do you become a physical oracle? By wearing HeartBit’s fitness device.
And how exactly do you use this gadget? Great question…
The Heart of the HeartBit Project
Remember when I told you how HeartBit is pressing FFWD on the heart-care industry? The team is accelerating technological innovation by combining hardware with software.
HeartBit is your heart’s personal, mobile electrocardiography system which records results on the blockchain.
Are you beginning to see the possibilities here? Rather than going to a hospital to remove your shirt so the nurse can affix a bunch of white discs tube-connected to a machine, you can just do it yourself.
And you can even keep your shirt on, too, if you’d like.
Futuristic multi-purpose gadgetry
Hardware
Electrocardiogram — ECG or EKG — tests are effective diagnostic tools that measure the electrical efficiency of your ticker.
Visualization is the main upgrade over simple heart-rate monitoring.
Healthy hearts keep a specific rhythm as they beat. An EKG will display the patterns your heart makes while beating. Trained eyes can then detect rhythmic irregularities.
If your heart skips a beat, you can actually see it.
EKG tests can also help diagnose changes in the thickness of a heart’s walls. They’ll also spot damage to heart muscle or tissue.
And now we can perform these tests with the HeartBit device. The gadget works as a standalone for sedentary use, or you can clip it to one of the project’s training tops to analyze on the go.
Having this technology available on a daily basis — whether as a preventative measure or part of a treatment program— is not only convenient but extremely cost-effective.
Software
The Yin to the HeartBit hardware’s Yang is the project’s mobile app, for future release on iOS and Android platforms.
An athlete’s good friend
Track your runs, customize your regimen, and share with your workout partners, all while comprehensively analyzing your heart, in real time.
And if your chest-thumper is under the care of a physician, you can send the doc a cardiac report with a single click.
Blockchain Steroids
HeartBit’s potent cocktail of hardware and blockchain-backed software, when fully developed, will be the world’s most sophisticated activity tracker.
You’ll be able to adjust your workouts based upon how you want your heart to react. But there’s much more to it than that.
Here are a few more ways HeartBit can boost your exercise program’s efficiency:
Supremely Accurate Readings
Ordinary, old-school heart monitors measure only 2 data points per second. HeartBit can measure 6K data points per second.
Now, in case you don’t feel like doing the math, it’s already done for you: HeartBit measures a mind-boggling 3,000 times the data of similar devices.
AI Learns from You
Train with the HeartBit system long enough and it’ll know exactly how you and your heart respond to different physical and environmental conditions.
Courtesy of a strategic partnership with IBM Watson, HeartBit’s custom algorithms will be able to tell you the time, the place, and the ideal weather that’ll help you perform at your best.
Environmental Knowledge
An integrated environmental sensor can detect and alert you to high levels of dangerous gases. Some harmful pollutants are tasteless and odorless. You may be running around in them, inhaling deeply, and not even know it.
If your run routes through the streets of heavily polluted cities like Beijing or Los Angeles, HeartBit can tell you when it’d be best to take your workout indoors.
Tokenized Reward System
The HeartBit project’s native utility token, HBIT, is still a few months away from hitting the pavement. But certain details are available now:
As of writing, the pre-sale date is TBD
HBIT tokens have a number of uses within the HeartBit ecosystem. For starters, they’ll be a payment method for premium subscriptions within the app.
The team plans to continue burning tokens collected from premium members until the overall supply is cut in half. When that day arrives only 100M tokens will be able to circulate.
Multifaceted, fully transparent — you know, blockchain-powered — rewards and donations pools are also in the works.
Platform users will be incentivized to reach their fitness goals by claiming HBIT tokens for reaching milestones.
So, if you already exercise on the regular, now you can claim crypto for just doing your thing. And, if you choose to share your anonymized health data with medical research companies, you can score even more tokens.
And, compassionately, HBIT reward pool recipients will include doctors who share their expertise with citizens living in areas that lack proper healthcare infrastructure.
Final thoughts…
The wearables market is projected to reach $25B by next year, and shows no signs of slowing down. And we all know how fast the blockchain space is growing.
By combining both industries, the HeartBit team has put themselves in a good position to claim the first-mover advantage. And their upcoming tech is light years beyond what anyone can offer now.
The project is also addressing a number of different needs in the real world, both medically and recreationally.
Imagine the managers and coaches of professional and Olympic sporting teams. Equipped with HeartBit tech, they can monitor the on-field heart beats of their entire squad.
By utilizing AI and machine learning, sporting programs can customize workouts for athletes on an individual basis.
And think of all the patients and medical professionals who’ll be empowered to communicate remotely. And they’ll have mobile, hospital-grade equipment to gather data for them.
If you take a look at the project’s team and advisors you’ll see more than a handful of doctors and professors. There are some sharp minds in the mix.
One standout, in the blockchain space at least, is Mate Tokay, COO over at Bitcoin.com. It doesn’t get much more crypto than that. Personally, I always like to see a blockchain expert as a core teammate.
What’s truly appealing about this project is its mission of encouraging people to nurture their hearts. It’s a sad fact that so many people leave us early because of heart problems.
Although heart health is serious business — physically and economically — it, like blockchain tech, doesn’t get enough mainstream exposure.
Athletic organizations can be tight-knit groups of communities that are sometimes massive. It’ll only take the likes of the NFL or MLS to bring the widespread adoption the team strives for.
By providing the means to continuously monitor and analyze your heart, you may be able to catch a problem early enough to leave it in the dust before it even gets close to catching up to you.
And, maybe, if you can prove to your insurance company that your heart is healthy, they’ll be willing to reduce your premiums.
But I don’t know any insurance companies who enjoy slashing rates — this point may require the team to forge partnerships within the healthcare industry.
Potential insurance reductions aside, if you’re already in the practice of monitoring your heartbeat, keep a close watch on what HeartBit accomplishes over the coming months.
The project’s tech may be just what you need to make your heart better, stronger, slower.
DYOR
Since I’m a big fan of my heart as well as blockchain tech, I can’t help but appreciate what the HeartBit team wants to accomplish.
But that’s just me. It’s always a good idea to conduct your own analysis. Reach out to the team if any questions pop up. Solid blockchain startups have a quick turnaround time for curious queries.
Conveniently, here are some resources for you to get more familiar with the project and socialize with the team:
Being Social
By the way…
If you like what you see here and need help getting your crypto message to the masses, I’d love to hear about your project.
Feel free to reach out to me here: blockchainauthor at Gmail
BountyOx username = blockchainauthor