The Happy Ring wants to differentiate itself as a “mood” ring to help track your mental health. | Image: Happy Health
Startup Happy Health is looking to give the mood ring a “smart” makeover. Instead of dubious color-changing stones, it has created the Happy Ring, which aims to alert users about their mental health using biometric sensors and artificial intelligence.
The Happy Ring, which just received $60 million in funding, features a custom electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor that monitors changing stress levels in real time. Essentially, the device works by detecting when your sympathetic nervous system — the thing that regulates your fight or flight response — starts raring up.
“As we start to have difficult thoughts or experience strong emotion, our brain responds to help us respond to that stimuli,” says Dustin Freckleton, a medical doctor and…