Besides eating and watching hour of Netflix, football is probably America’s greatest pastime. There is just something uniquely American about the sound of the hike, the roar of the crowd and the taste of the stadium hot dogs. This mania has spread to high schools, colleges and anywhere else we can squeeze in a field as well. The only downside? Football involves a whole lot of banging around and banging around is not always the best thing to do for the health of our craniums. So, the race is on to see if anyone can create some wearable tech that puts the kibosh on football-related brain injuries. We may just have one right now.
Riddell, who you may know from making helmets for just about every team that has ever existed, is getting into the wearable technology game. Introducing Riddell’s InSite system, which seeks to cut down on the aforementioned brain injuries. How does it work? The helmet, and related system, keeps a constant eye on the state of your cranium. It sends this information to your smartphone or related device, where you, your coach and team doctor can keep updated on the stats. Everyone loves stats. The company says it has been collecting relevant data from players since 2003 and has built up quite the reservoir of information to compare incoming data to.
As far as pricing and availability, these units are priced to be of use for entire football teams and the like. The centralized Alert Monitor covers up to 150 players and costs $150. Each individual helmet will set you back $200. That’s pretty pricey for a high school or college team but should prove to be no problem for the bigwigs.
