Automatic Calorie Tracking

August 25, 2017
Naman Kumar

Every once in a while something comes along that completely changes how we think about the world. For the last five years we’ve been working on exactly that.

Airo started as an answer to the question, "what do we need to live a healthy life?"

Before I dive into it, allow me to express our thanks for supporting us. We are building this for you. 

After the campaign in 2013, we went back to the drawing board. We gave ourselves 12 months to figure out automatic calorie tracking. After scouring scientific literature in food processing, gastroenterology, machine learning, and circuit design, we finally figured out that if you can track the blood-flow to the gut, you can make this technology come alive.

So we built it.

For 4 months, we ate the same thing day in and day out but with different portions — this experiment would go on to show how macronutrient ratios effect the blood-flow measurements. Breakfast was muesli, lunch was guacamole sandwich, and dinner was vegetarian chilli.

It worked. We were successfully able to track caloric intake.

The technology is now being validated at the University of Guelph, where Airo’s readings are being compared against medical grade equipment. Testing on 12 out of 20 subjects is finished, with average R2 scores of 0.9. This is a huge milestone!

But a long road remains ahead of us.

Right now, Airo will track your calories if you calibrate it to your body, which means tracking calories manually for some time.

We are working to reduce the calibration period. Our team, with expertise in machine learning, human physiology, and sensor design, works closely with Waterloo and Guelph universities.

We’ll keep testing calorie tracking. In the meantime, Airo will automatically track your nervous system to calculate your stress. It’ll figure out your stress triggers, work with you to relieve them, and make you stronger. Side effects may include higher mental performance and better sleep!

Visit us at airohealth.com.

Hope life is good!

Naman