Pip Stress Management Biosensor Review - Review 2022

With fitness trackers, y'all tin monitor steps, stairs climbed, and calories. Some, like the Pip Stress Management Biosensor ($179) can track your emotional state. This small Bluetooth-connected device pairs with mobile apps on your phone or tablet and uses electrical signals in your skin to measure and manage your stress levels. While an interesting idea, the design of the device is flawed, the lackluster apps offer little information, and the data provided isn't terribly useful.

Design and Features
The Pip is a small device made of smooth plastic, shaped similar a tear drop, which is fitting for a gadget that wants to assist you lot command your emotions. It comes in black or white, measures two.ane by i.three by 0.five inches (HWD), and it weighs 0.half dozen ounces. There are two circular gold-plated sensors on each side, virtually the rounded finish. Nigh the pointed end, you lot'll come across two small LEDs that indicate the Pip's charging and ability status.

Pip uses a lithium polymer battery that tin can exist recharged via a micro-USB port located on the back of the rounded end. A micro-USB cord comes with the device, but there'due south no outlet brick, and so you'll have to supply your own or plug it into a USB charging port on your PC. Information technology runs for upwards to 8 hours on a single charge.

Unlike the Spire ($264.99 at Amazon) , some other device that tracks your emotional well-being, at that place is no clip, which means you have to hold the Pip in your hand or proceed it in your pocket if you desire to examination your stress on the go. The Pip also lacks notifications, or any other features for that thing. It only measures your stress through its apps and sensors. The Spire, meanwhile, delivers button notifications through its app, and vibrates to alert yous if y'all've been idle as well long, or if it notices through your breathing design that y'all're feeling tense and demand to calm down. The Pip does non vibrate.

To use the Pip, you squeeze the device by holding your index finger and thumb on the gold-plated sensors. These sensors detect the electrical activity of the sweat glands on the surface of your skin, and the Pip uses these readings to measure how relaxed (or stressed) you are. According to the company, that information, visualized in a series of apps, will assist you "control your emotions for the better" and so y'all can improve your mental fitness. The information, though, is inscrutable bordering on useless.

Pairing

To brand full use of the Pip you need to download upwards to three apps: Pip Stress Tracker, Loom, and Relax & Race. Once you download the apps, y'all need to put the Pip into Pairing way by pressing and holding the two sensors until the LEDs plow greenish. So whichever of the 3 apps you have open will find your Pip. Later that, tap Connect and you lot should be paired. You only need to pair the Pip one time per app. Later that, the apps will automatically detect the device when it'south on. The Pip and accompanying apps work with devices running Android ii.3 or later, and the iPhone 4s or afterward. For testing, I connected the Pip to a Samsung Galaxy S6 ($114.94 at Amazon) in a few seconds with no issues.

Apps and Performance
As mentioned, there are 3 apps uniform with the Pip. Each 1 is horizontally oriented, so yous take to hold your device sideways the whole time.

Outset, permit's encompass the Pip Stress Tracker app. Afterwards a brief serial of introduction slides, yous're brought to the main screen where y'all'll see New Session, My Pip, Users, Statistics, and Help icons. New Session is where you lot'll spend virtually of your time. After tapping New Session, you choose a user, then the connected Pip, and your session duration (from 2 to 20 minutes). Tap Start Session, clasp the Pip between your index finger and thumb, and you can watch your Relaxed, Steady, and Stressed levels ascent and autumn in real-time equally light-green, cherry-red, and yellow lines. The Spire measures your breaths in a like manner. At the session'south end you'll receive a Pip Score, which is calculated by averaging the number of relaxed, stress, and steady events you experience, equally well equally the session length. The more than relaxed you are, the amend your score.

The Pip Stress Management Biosensor

Whereas the Spire accurately detects and alerts the user of anxiety, I plant the Pip's results to be random. I used it while walking, while on the subway, while at my desk, at home, and in the middle of conversation and found no correlation betwixt the Pip Score and how I felt. Sometimes I was completely relaxed and the stress increased. When I was amid a oversupply, a typically stressful surround, my Pip Score was 100, meaning I was patently the virtually relaxed one could possibly get. The score would've been cypher if I was tearing my hair out, going mad out from anxiety. In brusk, the score doesn't mean much, and the device itself does nothing to warning or help you reduce stress. And what exactly is the divergence between Relaxed and Steady moments? The app gives you no explanation and nothing to do with all the data you accrue.

You tin at least customize your device. Nether My Pip you can connect, rename, disconnect, power down, and view the bombardment life of your Pip. You lot can connect at least two Pips to the same mobile device at once. Tap Users and you can add together new Pip user profiles, select your gender, and rename your profile. Tap Statistics and you lot can view your stress tracking session breakup (Steady, Relaxed, or Stressed), your total number of sessions, and your concluding recording session, measured in hours.

The Pip Stress Management Biosensor

The other 2 Pip apps are non-starters. The Loom never worked in my testing; it crashed each fourth dimension I tried to open it. Potentially, information technology's supposed to assist you relax with music and images that shift depending your mood. The Relax & Race app attempts to gamify stress tracking with a dragon racing game where you and another Pip user tin can connect to the same device. The more relaxed you are, the faster your dragon flies. The whole endeavor—relaxing to race quicker—feels counterintuitive.

Conclusion

The Pip is meant to help yous manage your stress. It's $180. Instead of paying that much for something that tracks inexplicable stats, you're meliorate off making some chamomile tea and settling on the couch for an evening of Netflix to relax.

The idea behind the Pip doesn't sit well with me, either. I see nothing wrong with feeling the way yous practise at whatever given moment. We're not robots; nosotros're human. And there are meliorate methods to boost your mood than squeezing the Pip. I recommend running. If you lot want to measure your stats, the Fitbit Charge Hr ($85.11 at Amazon) is a comfortable wristband that tracks your calories, steps, distance, center rate, and more. And it delivers insightful information in a unmarried well-designed app.