US$750 brain-zapping headset said to help athletes improve performance is tested by Hong Kong gym-goers
Doubling as headphones, the Halo Sport features rubber spikes that deliver a small electrical current through the scalp and into the brain, helping users retain newly learned skills
One of these products, the Halo Sport, is a US$750 (HK$5,886) piece of non-invasive headwear designed to train the brain, with inventors claiming it can improve any kind of performance that involves physical movement.
It was recently tried out in Hong Kong gym chain Pure Fitness for one month as part of the company’s Innovation Lab, which puts fitness-related technology through its paces before deciding whether to roll it out at all its gyms in the city.
The Halo Sport looks like a chunky pair of headphones that feature three sections of “primers”: rubber spikes on the inside of the headband, designed to deliver a small electrical current through the scalp and into the brain.
“It uses transcranial electrical stimulation,” says Brett Wingeier, chief technology officer at Halo Neuroscience and a biomedical engineer. Before starting the company, he and co-founder Daniel Chao worked at a firm developing devices to control seizures in epileptic patients. Now, the pair are focused on taking brain-based technology to the masses with Halo Sport, which they launched in 2016 after three years of development.
