This week’s Smart Health roundup features a smart chair that corrects your posture, HealthKit getting more personal than ever, and a smart jewelry activity monitor designed especially for women.

Smart chair corrects posture, gets you moving

Sitting has been dubbed the ‘new cancer’ and innovators are out to fight it. Dr. Stephen Wong of Melbourne’s Monash University has designed what he calls the ultimate ‘smart chair.’ The project is backed by Tony Goldschlager of Monash Medical Centre and the Austin Hospital, and Monash University director of allied health Professor Jenny Keating.

Embedded with 78 e-skin sensors on the backrest and seat, the so-called smart chair is able to identify the person’s ‘butt signature,’ track movement, and analyze posture so it can send notifications to a user’s smartphone or computer. Notifications include messages that tells the user to stand up if they’ve been sitting too long, and notifications to correct posture so as to prevent back problems.

This is not the first time innovators have looked into turning everyday objects into a device that helps people get fitter. The Stir Kinectic Desk also aims to get people to regularly change positions to avoid chronic back trouble.

Apple’s HealthKit now tracks periods, sex life

Apple introduced HealthKit at last year’s Worldwide Developers Conference to help people track their fitness goals as well as streamline data from other health tracker apps. At this year’s conference, the Cupertino giant unveiled iOS 9 which comes with new features and enhancements such as the addition of reproductive health into HealthKit.

This will help women track their period to help them predict when their next cycle will be, record intensity and duration of menstrual flow, track body temperature, record consistency of cervical mucus and input results of commercial ovulation test. The reproductive health section also has an option for Sexual Activity tracking to help you keep track of how often or seldom you are engaging in this activity.

Period tracking apps are quite useful as they can help women plan trips and events, while monitoring their health. As for the sexual activity tracker, I’m pretty curious as to whether women will actually use it or be honest in using it.

Bellabeat’s Leaf

Women looking for the ultimate health and activity tracker need not look further, as Bellabeat, Inc.’s Leaf is now available for pre-order. Leaf is a jewelry piece that takes the form of a leaf and serves as a health and activity tracker. It can be worn as a pendant for a necklace, a bracelet or simply clipped on to a shirt or sports bra.

Leaf monitors activity, tells the wearer when it’s time to get up and move, analyzes sleep quality, stress levels and even supports menstrual cycle monitoring. The Leaf app provides users with breathing exercises to help them focus and relax, see how many hours of sleep they had, understand their monthly menstrual cycle such as when they are ovulating and how their health is affected by your period, with the additional perk alerts to remind you to take the pill.

You can pre-order Leaf for $119.

Image via Bellabeat