JINS smartglasses swap fitness advice for meditation guidance

In a bid to get you focusing at work, Japan-based JINS has announced a trio of companion apps for its Meme smartglasses. The focus isn't on posture or workouts this time, but literally focus -- by monitoring your eyes. These are the same glasses we've been using at the gym, but this time the apps tap into the high-tech sensors found on the nose bridge. Specifically, three-point electrooculography (EOG) sensors that can pick up minute electromagnetic changes from your eyes, detecting when you blink without any cameras involved. The company cites scientific research that shows that frequency and intensity of our blinks represent whether we're concentrating or not, and JINS has built three different apps that track that. Oh, and your posture, too. No slouching.

The first app, Office, lets you monitor your concentration levels real-time. (Yes, you have to be wearing the Meme glasses.) Your metrics are divided into "mental," "heart" and "body" scores, with the app offering continuous advice on your condition. The blue light of the PC might be tiring your eyes, for example. To use the app, choose a time period, and it'll monitor you for that length of time, even sharing how long it thinks you were seriously concentrating (say, three out of five minutes). After some brief testing, it seemed to do the trick: It's like a high-functioning wearable pomodora timer.

From there, you can move on to the other apps to improve your score. The core app for improving your posture, called Zen, does double duty, helping you recover if you're burnt out from all that concentrating. Zen is aimed at getting you familiar with the process of zen meditation, and while you'll need the phone (and some headphones), it's set up so that you can do it pretty much anywhere: from your office desk to the train during your commute. You pick a time, and choose an attention-focusing exercise or a creativity-boosting one. (We're sure mileage will vary here, so we'll be testing these further.)

Then, there's Walk. This is a gentler reimagining of the company's Run app, but slower. It monitors your walking gait as well as your fatigue levels. I'm not sure if you need an app to tell you to clear your head with a walk outside, but the app will at least ensure you're walking properly and not dragging your feet, like your imaginary British nanny told you to. I'm currently wearing the smartglasses, simultaneously/pointlessly trying to both meditate and focus -- stay tuned for a more complete take.