What most wearables do for heart rate or steps, the Atlas 1.0 is hoping to do with brain activity. The new $499 wearable, created by a startup called Atlas, collects data with a compact EEG designed to adhere behind your ear and processes it in a smartphone app that can offer insights into how users think and feel throughout the day.
The Atlas 1.0 is a small, rechargeable, circular black or white puck that rests on an adhesive pad. Besides tracking brain activity as an electroencephalogram (EEG), Atlas says the device also monitors electrodermal activity, head movement, and “speaking activity” (voice patterns rather than the content of your speech) to build its understanding of your internal state. The company says its wearable, unlike traditional EEG machines that require you to be still to take an accurate reading, is uniquely designed to accommodate movement, creating “a longitudinal record of how your brain responds to real life, which is much more meaningful than a single test or isolated brain scan.”
Using that information, Atlas builds three live metrics that you can track in its app throughout the day: Presence, Stress, and Energy Burn. Presence is supposed to be a representation of whether your attention is directed inward or outward (if you were actually engaged in the conversation you had with a friend, for example); Stress represents your current level of psychological stress; and Energy Burn represents how your “mental resources” are being spent. Atlas can alert you when shifts in those metrics happen, but the app also requires user input for a more accurate picture, like sharing your calendar events and workouts or labeling periods of the day where the metrics changed. With all that information combined, Atlas claims it can offer knowledge of the habits and conditions where you think and feel the best. Naturally, these software features and refills of Atlas’ adhesive pads will also require a $30-per-month membership.
How accurately the company will be able to offer these insights remains to be seen. Atlas stresses that the $499 Atlas 1.0 Pioneer Edition is a “limited first batch” that’s “built for those ready to understand what drives their mind at the source.” At least the wearable is approaching what it’s tracking in a unique way. Some wearables claim to offer insights into stress using heart-rate monitoring sensors, but they can really only offer an educated guess, and one that primarily captures physical stress. Atlas 1.0 is similarly limited by focusing on brain activity, but it might offer a clearer picture of how you actually feel.
