Prototype device aims to warn wearers of triggers that cause emotional overeating. Don’t search for it for your next Victoria’s Secret catalogue, however.

Reports indicate Microsoft could unveil a smartwatch sometime next year, but meanwhile, here’s some unusual evidence of the company’s interest in wearable technology: a smartbra designed to attenuate emotional eating.

According to a newly published study, the bra is provided with sensors that monitor the wearer’s mood and trigger a smartphone app to alert the user when it detects an oncoming binge. These alerts are shaped by user feedback, enabling the bra to enhance its ability to read a particular person’s feelings.

Microsoft researchers conducted the study with collaborators from the University of Rochester in Ny and University of Southampton within the UK. The project sought to associate emotions with poor eating habits, and to decide if wearable devices can help you.

[Despite rumors on the contrary, Microsoft Isn’t Killing Windows RT.]

But don’t expect a Surface-branded brassiere to be on store shelves next Christmas. The researchers chose the bra form factor primarily since it allows sensors to be placed near the guts. The study noted that follow-up research is popping toward more gender-neutral devices, corresponding to bracelets.

Before creating the bra, the researchers first needed to establish relationships between a person’s emotional state and the possibility that she or he will overeat. To achieve that, they asked participants to log both their emotions and eating patterns using a smartphone app. Not surprisingly, people who felt stressed, upset, or bored were probably to eat outside of standard meals. 

The smartphone app, called EmoTree, allowed participants to visualise which combinations of moods were more likely to trigger snacking. The app also included a breathing exercise to assist users curb cravings. Consistent with the study, EmoTree caused the majority of participants to become more acquainted with their feelings. But only 37.5% said they’d changed their behavior because of logging their emotions. The breathing exercise’s efficacy, meanwhile, was “not as strong” as researchers had hoped for.

Researchers concluded it was valuable for users to watch their emotions but that “one size fits all” intervention techniques similar to the breathing exercise were too impersonal. Participant data suggested the ways that emotional eating may be triggered or avoided vary from individual to individual. Only around 1 / 4 of participants expressed enthusiasm for the technique; others suggested alternatives that ranged from being told a joke to completing a snappy meditation routine.

The researchers realized most of the less-promising results can be improved by an updated smartphone app which may be customized to encourage quite a few intervention functions. As a matter of fact, the study noted that simply reading through a menu of intervention activities may be enough to “break the food focus” for some users.

The researchers built on these early tests with the bra, which was equipped with an EKG sensor, skin conductance sensor, gyroscopes, and a microprocessor powered by a three.7-volt battery. The smart undergarment communicated with the smartphone app via Bluetooth. Data was then backed up remotely into the Microsoft Azure Cloud.

Participants continued to log moods and eating into EmoTree while the bra monitored their vital signs. In response to the study, this enabled machine learning that enabled the bra to become better familiar with its wearer’s unique triggers.

Though the smart bra was designed to detect a user’s stress, it ironically could have added a few of its own. The study concedes that the bra was “very tedious for participants,” who needed to “finagle with their wardrobe inside the day” since the bra’s boards needed to be recharged every three to four hours.

The study claims the smart bra was capable of classify emotional fluctuations nearly three-quarters of the time. The researchers said this success rate demonstrates that “building a wearable, physiological system is possible.”

Has Microsoft struck a big blow against emotional eating? It’s hard to claim. The study included just a dozen participants, only four of whom ended up within the final trial with the smart bra prototypes. With any such small sample, it’s difficult to grasp how results may vary.

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