Startups

BioBeats evolves from stress app to measurer of well-being

BioBeats makes apps that apply artificial intelligence in the cloud, looking for what CEO David Plans called "instances of well-being."

evolution

British digital health startup BioBeats is evolving, in part because of technological advances and in part because of a hardware supply problem.

The hardware issue comes courtesy of Microsoft, which seems to be withdrawing from the wearables market by phasing out the Microsoft Band fitness tracker. BioBeats had issued the Microsoft Band 2 to 560 UK employees of French bank BNP Paribas for a pilot on workplace stress and wellness.

That study wrapped up in August. BioBeats said earlier this month that the startup collected more than 60 gigabytes of data and ran that information through the BioBeats artificial intelligence engine. Neither BioBeats nor the academic researcher who ran the study has released any tangible results yet, but the company said in a press release that “scientific findings include perceived/actual stress, links between stress and ruminators, and the outcome of breathing as an intervention.”

With the Microsoft Band not likely to be around much longer, BioBeats has begun a collaboration with Google, CEO David Plans said. The London-based startup is in the initial stage of hardware and software selection on that front.

Plans indicated that he believes the partnership will allow BioBeats to scale.

In the meantime, the company has gotten involved in some studies with larger populations and with wider scopes of work. One is tracking 41,000 people “in the wild,” not in controlled settings, Plans said. That will help BioBeats continue to refine its AI. “We focus on predictive analytics and the intelligence behind it,” Plans explained.

BioBeats makes apps that apply artificial intelligence in the cloud, looking for what Plans called “instances of well-being.”

Initially, the technology has looked for problems in the central nervous system. For example, users in the BNP Paribas group were asked to breathe in certain patterns to introduce stress.

By looking at stress first, BioBeats has been able to understand how to capture markers of cardiovascular health and other conditions, according to Plans. “It’s branching out,” he said. Among the next challenges is to attempt to detect signs of neuropathy.

“It’s turning into an overall well-being platform,” Plans said of his company’s technology. “As our machine learning gets more sophisticated, it becomes of more use to large employers that have a lot of [private medical insurance] claims.”

The app raises red flags about potential health issues, but it does not have regulatory clearance to make diagnoses. “We don’t know where [the health problem] is because we are not diagnostic,” Plans said. But BioBeats passes readings on to healthcare professionals who can, for example, order a test.

A new version of the app, likely out in November, will not need a separate wearable device to track patient health, though a wearable will allow for continuous, passive monitoring. “It’s never a good time to stop and take cardiovascular data [manually],” Plans noted.

New wearables will be out early next year. Plans expects to see plenty of product introductions at International CES in January. Those products typically hit the market a few weeks after CES.

The consumer app, called Hear and Now, is for Apple iOS only right now. BioBeats previously had an Android version, but does not currently offer one. That will change soon, since BioBeats is collaborating with Google. Expect an Android app in the first quarter of 2017, Plans said.

Also expect new wearables to pair with the app after International CES in January, he added.

BioBeats will be attempting to enter the U.S. market next year as well. “We are looking at deployments in the U.S.,” Plans said.

Photo: xrisca30 via Getty Images

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