Smartwatches are great if you want to receive notifications on your wrist, track your biometrics, and more. However it is more than a tool of convenience and novelty, it can also be potentially used as a medical device which is what Tyler Skluzacek has done when he and his team created the MyBivy smartwatch app.
Skluzacek was inspired to create the app when his father, a military veteran who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, came home and was affected by PTSD and night terrors. According to the Skluzacek’s description, “To help veterans sleep better at night, my team and I have developed myBivy, an application for smartphone and smartwatch that tracks a veteran’s heartbeat and movements in order to track night terrors and actually prevent them over time.”
How it works is that the alarm/vibration on the smartwatch is meant to disrupt the wearer’s dreams/night terrors, thus reducing its impact and allowing the person to have a better night’s sleep. It seems to work or at least has a huge potential, so much so that when the app was conceived at HackDC, the judges awarded it the “Best Application for Clinicians” along with $1,500 in funds which was then used to help further fund the project.
MyBivy has since been launched on Kickstarter where those who are interested in helping take it to the next level can do so. Note that the Kickstarter isn’t so much about you buying the app or paying for it, but rather you will be help fund the building process, testing, and distribution, so if you’d like to help a startup out, hit up its Kickstarter page for the details, or check out the video above if you want to learn more.
Filed in . Read more about Apps, Smartwatch and Wearable Tech.