CES 2016: Longevity wearables

Mio Global is at CES this week showing what looks at first glance to be yet another connected fitness band. But this one claims to do something no other device can: to extend the wearer’s life by around 10 years.

The novelty of fitness trackers is wearing thin, but a claim as bold as this one could still get consumers’ attention. Mio gets to the 10-year figure through a new proprietary metric it calls Personal Activity Intelligence or PAI, which it says is far superior to counting steps.

“Steps aren’t very conclusive on an individual level without taking intensity into consideration,” says Liz Dickinson, CEO of Mio Global. “My steps around the trade show floor are nowhere near the same as someone’s steps hiking up a mountain, for example, and it also varies by individual.” If Mio users are able to reach and maintain a PAI of 100, they will be “maximally protected against lifestyle disease and cardiovascular illness,” Dickinson says.

She’s able to make such a bold claim because the metric is based on longitudinal health data—specifically, a 20-year study of 120,000 people by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology that measured diet, exercise, activity, heart rate, blood samples and other biological data.

“In that study, they were able to see the relationship between activity and mortality,” Dickinson says. “So they were able to say you have to do a certain amount of activity, any activity, for a certain intensity and duration, based on your own personal response to exercise, and if you do that you will live a certain length of life.”

So-called lifestyle diseases are a growing concern to consumers in developed countries, and Dickinson says the PAI gives brands an opportunity to address them. “A brand can add it in their app and make it available, so that the brand can start to respond in a more meaningful way based on human data to their consumers and help them extend their lives,” she said.

Check back throughout the week for more consumer insights from CES 2016.