Anti-stress wearables turning heads at CES

A wearable that differentiates between positive stress and harmful stress by deconstructing the human mood into four zones got people talking at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), being held in Las Vegas this week.

It's called Being and it tracks your heart rate continuously, making it capable of fitness tracking, and it offers all the functions of an activity tracker, although stress is its specialty.

Just like advanced fitness trackers, it measures heart rate variability, but it uses those quantification to analyse stress levels and is said to to be capable of sensing changes in blood pressure.

When it detects an influx of stress, it proposes deep breathing exercises known to be stress-reducing.

It also tracks sleep and can detect the difference between REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and NREM (Non-Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, according to inventors, in order to track both the quantity and quality of your shut-eye.

According to Endgaget, what's being shown is a non-working prototype and the actual product is still in the works and won't be available until April.

It can, however, be pre-ordered for a discounted price of $169.15, 15 percent less than projected retail price of $199, http://www.zensorium.com/being.

Another item that's gotten significant attention is called melomind, which resembles protective headgear normally used for sports, although its goal is to protect the mind from stress-causing demons.

It employs Electroencephalography (EEG) technology that measures brain waves -- once just a thing of hospitals and laboratories until the wearables industry brought it on board for personal use.

Melomind is available for pre-order at a price of $299, www.mybraintech.com.

It's not the first such product to offer do-it-yourself EEG readings; other products that do so include the Muse Headband, which is available now for $299 while Emotiv offers several similar products including the Insight ($299), EPOC ($399) and EPOC+ ($499).