For $299, you can buy a device that attaches to your forehead and can change your mood.
At least that's what the maker of the wearable device, Thync, has been claiming since it revealed what it was working on late last year.
Plenty of companies that make wearables have received an influx of funding in the past few years (think Fitbit and Jawbone, which have both released products that aim to collect health data). But Thync's device aims to tap into the brain and shift your state of mind — causing a person to become more calm, focused or energized, without taking drugs or drinking or downing a Red Bull.
The company, founded by engineering and neuroscience experts from Stanford, Harvard and MIT, has spent $15 million on research and development. The investor group includes Khosla Ventures of Menlo Park, Calif. Thync, which has two Apple vets on its engineering team, has about 10 members of its team based out of Boston's Prudential Tower and focused on neuroscience.
I had the opportunity to try on Thync's first product, a day before it officially launched on Tuesday. The device, using adhesive, sticks to a person's forehead and uses electrical currents to stimulate parts of the brain associated with arousal, according to Jamie Tyler, a former Harvard postdoctoral fellow who is the company's co-founder and chief scientific officer.
Using an iPhone app, the user can tweak the settings in the device to either give them a sensation of drinking a shot of espresso or a glass of wine.
A Thync employee selected "rest" mode on the app — a perfect way to relax before going to bed, I was told — and the electrical impulses coursed through the device via Bluetooth and ended up in my head. I was told I would feel an itchiness sensation and even some pain at first. I felt a little like Frankenstein, except I was already alive.
The immediate effects of the "vibe" — as Thync calls the electrical stimulation — can last from 30 minutes to an hour, with the carry-over impacts lasting several hours. You can adjust the level of stimulation within the app.
"Turn it higher until you feel pain and then turn it down," the Thync employee told me, before leaving me in the room.
I felt the itchiness, like a pressure building in my temple and then some sort of zing — a result of the zapping going on between my nerves and the device. I felt a little tired, but I also didn't sleep well the night before so I couldn't tell if the device was working. I started zoning out, focusing on the skyline outside the office's window.
And a few minutes later, Tyler came in to check on me.
"I can tell you're relaxed because you're laughing more than when you came in here," he said. Maybe, I thought.
The device has been tested on 3,700 people and has been studied both in the lab and in the real world, said Tyler.
Tyler said the device is exempt from the Food and Drug Administration because it is intended for lifestyle use, not intended to treat a disease.
As I left, Tyler said I would feel noticeably different. And maybe I did. I couldn't tell, but I did know that Thync may be on to something so futuristic that it may not replace the morning ritual of a coffee or an occasional massage. It might be too ahead of its time.
Or maybe I'm completely wrong and this is a new category of device that will trigger some people in the near future to say, "I just need to step outside and stimulate my brain."
"We think of this as a new category of wearables that operates in synergy with your body," said Tyler. "Instead of reading what you're doing, we're acting in synergy ... it primes your body to be in a more relaxed state."
