There is a new piece of wearable technology developed at the University of Buffalo. It's not your typical smart watch or smart band but a "smart necklace". It can track your food intake by the sound you make.
The device called AutoDietary is developed by the University of Buffalo's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Tech Times described the device to have "a sensor about the size of a zipper pull and is connected to a band that wraps around the user's neck like a choker." This device practically listens to the sound people make when they chew and swallow.
Food tracking apps and trackers tend to be too much work for today's fast-phased life that's why manufacturers are interested in this wearable food tracking device. The necklace is Bluetooth enabled. Once the sensors detect swallowing activity, it will send the data to the wearer's smartphone.
Assistant Professor at the University of Buffalo's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Wenyao Xu explained that "Each food, as it's chewed, has its own voice,"
According to the University of Buffalo, this device aims to help fight obesity, diabetes, bowel disorder and other health issues. They said "AutoDietary is like Fitbit and other wearable devices. Only instead of tracking burned calories, it monitors caloric intake - in other words, what we eat - at the neck.".
Xu is confident that this wearable device is reliable compared to other calorie tracking devices and that it could yield good results with regard to health concerns.
The wearable food tracking necklace was tested with 12 individuals who were given water and 6 types of food including apples, carrots, potato chips, cookies, peanut and walnuts. "AutoDietary was able to accurately identify the correct food and drink 85 percent of the time."
Some auditory samples of chewing food can be heard on the University's official web page.
