By Karissa Bell
LAS VEGAS — With sports concussions becoming deadlier than ever, athletes, coaches and parents are looking for ways to prevent what can be devastating head injuries.
Now a startup is offering a wearable sensor that alerts players, coaches and parents to head injuries as soon as they happen — bringing to light serious impacts that may otherwise go undetected.
Monday at CES, BlackBox Biometrics is officially unveiling the Linx Impact Assessment System (IAS), an app-enabled wearable sensor that tracks head injuries and impacts in real time.
The Linx IAS, which is about the size of a piece of gum, is worn inside a headband that can be worn on its own or under a helmet. It’s equipped with an accelerometer and a gyroscope, and connects to a smartphone or tablet app via bluetooth.
The accompanying app enables parents, coaches and trainers to monitor head injuries in real time from the sidelines. When an impact occurs, the sensor sends an alert to the app — it has a range up to 300 feet — with a color-coded notification of the potential injury and severity of the impact.
Green indicates a minor hit, yellow moderate and red severe.
The app also tracks the buildup of all sustained impacts over time, and all its data can be shared with medical professionals after the game.
The company first developed its concussion detection technology for the military and law enforcement before creating the Linx IAS. What sets it apart from other concussion management products, BlackBox Biometrics CEO Rick Spotts told Mashable, is that the sensor sits on top of the skull, rather than embedded in a helmet. This allows the sensor to track the severity of the impact with better accuracy.
The sensor will go on sale in in March.
Headband sensor warns of sports injuries in real time | Mashable
