People eager to tackle obesity or just maintain a healthy lifestyle may soon have another tool to help them achieve their goals.
MetaLogics Corp, a Minnesota company, is building a calorie monitor that it claims is the “only wearable device that directly measures the calories your body burns without relying on guesses or estimates.”
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In late December the company raised $70,000 of the $200,000 it is seeking.
“The money is going toward the development of field trials,” said John Dykstra, president and CEO of the company, adding that another $40,000 has been raised since the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The MetaLogics Personal Calorie Monitor is worn on the upper arm. It uses a patented technology used in metabolics research to measure the four kinds of heat generated by the body – radiant, conductive, evaporative and convective.
The arm band can wirelessly transmit caloric information to a readout. Users can establish goals and the unit is able to provide alerts and current status of calories burned. The data can also be downloaded to a computer to monitor progress and the information can be accessed from any computer.
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Dykstra said that MetaLogics’ product is different from the “sea of gadgets” which only approximate calories burned.
“People don’t realize that calories can be measured just like a heart beat,” he said. “We have a physiological measurement of calories burned.”
Dykstra said that the Class II exempt device will undergo some trials in beta testing in the first quarter of the year and he expects the product to launch in the second half of the year. More money will have to be raised for the commercial launch, but Dykstra couldn’t say exactly how much.
Interestingly, MetaLogics’ tag line “Learn what you burn” is very similar to a tag line of another Minnesota company. That company has created a device called Gruve which uses Mayo Clinic’s technology to manage obesity. The product is a high-tech pedometer which uses an omnidirectional accelerometer to track a person’s activity. By measuring both duration and intensity, the tool can approximate the number of calories burned. Gruve’s tagline is “Learning what you burn.”
But Dykstra said that MetaLogics’ tag line is trademarked. Besides, based on how Dykstra describes the product, it appears that the similarities between Gruve and MetaLogics end with the tag line.
“Physicians are not going to prescribe Gruve or other gadgets because tacking obesity requires an accurate, science-based approach,” he contended. “We can say how many calories are being burned when a person is sleeping, sitting or exercising. Other devices are just guessing.”
