This week’s Quantified Self roundup features a gadget for people who engage in extreme sports, a gadget to keep your back straight as a board, and a gadget to quickly assess your overall wellness.

Trace: tracking for X-treme sports

Most fitness trackers aren’t suitable for extreme sports such as skateboarding, surfing, skiing and snowboarding because the movements involved in these activities are different from those involved in walking, running, jogging, or doing other land-based activities.  Thanks to crowdfunding, surfers, skaters and boarders now have a device designed specifically for their kind of action.

Dubbed Trace, this project received more than $160,000 in its recently concluded Kickstarter initiative.  The device itself has a diameter of about the size of one Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and is about an inch thick.  It is designed to adhere to a skateboard, snowboard, surfboard or skis to track different activities.  For example, it can track how many kickflips a skater landed, how many tre flips were done, or how high their ollies were while also tracking speed, mapping lines, and offering an idea of how well tricks are landed.

Trace is durable, shockproof, waterproof and adheres to any surface.  It can be connected to a smartphone app via Bluetooth, and has a rechargeable battery that lasts up to 7 hours. Its accompanying iOS or Android app shows stats, and users can even send  “#SESSIONSHEET” reports to friends, demonstrating skill and improvement over time.

Perfect posture with LUMOback

Have you ever experienced back pain after a long day at work, wondering what could have caused such discomfort when you haven’t been lifting anything heavy?  You might be sitting or standing improperly.  For those who are prone to slouching, excessive weight is put on the lower back, forcing the spine into an unnatural curve. It is easy to slouch unknowingly, especially when sitting in front of a computer and engrossed with work for hours at  time.  Fortunately there’s now a gadget that helps to keep the back in its natural position.

LUMOback is worn strapped around the waist with the gadget placed at the lower back.  Sensors track posture, whether slouching, leaning back, leaning forward, or shifting weight when sitting, and the device vibrates when the wearer is not sitting up straight.  These vibrations send out real-time feedback so the wearer can quickly correct his or her posture and in time, learn to avoid back ache-inducing activities.  It also tracks how long the wearer sits, frequency of getting up, and the distance covered when walking.  LUMOback connects with a smartphone app to allow for progress monitoring at the end of the day.

The LUMOback gadget is available for $149.95, while the app can be downloaded for free on iTunes.

“Tinké” overall wellness

With a small gadget that fits in the palm of your hand, consumers can now quickly get a sense of their fitness and wellness level.  Tinké is a gadget developed by Zensorium that collects vital information such as heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen level, and heart rate variability (the change in the rate of a heart beat).

By collecting these data points, Tinké determines a person’s Vita Index, which is based on the heart rate, oxygen saturation, and respiratory rate to assess fitness level; and the Zen Index, based on the heart rate variability, to determine a person’s wellness level or how stressed they are.

Tinké is simple to use — just plug it into your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, and place your thumb on the sensors found on the front of the device. Tinké doesn’t have a screen, so it utilizes the iPhone’s screen to deliver information.  It doesn’t need to be charged because it uses the iPhone to operate, and users can easily share their results with the Tinké community or other social platforms.  It allows users to monitor their progress via its History function either on a daily or monthly basis to track any major changes in well being.

Tinké is available in two versions; a 30-pin connector version for $119, and a Lightning connector version coming in October for the same price.  Both versions are available in blue, pink, grey and white colors, and the Tinké app is free on iTunes.

Checkout our Smart Devices & Gadgets notebook on Springpad: