As you read this I am probably hanging out with a 4 month old for most of the day. Definitely a pretty awesome job!
Wes and I had to take a quick trip to Harrisburg, PA yesterday last minute so I spent 95% of my day in the car. Not so fun. It was nice I guess to spend a little extra quality time together before he starts his Emergency Medicine rotation for the last two months of medical school.
I have something really special for you all today. I recently was introduced to a relatively new product on the market, Tinke.
What is Tinke?
Tinke is a new revolutionary way to check your fitness and wellness levels. It is all done at just the touch of your fingertip. At the touch of your thumb Tinke will measure:
- heart rate
- respiratory rate
- blood oxygen level
- heart variability rate
Heart Rate
As many of you probably know, your fitness is supposed to be able to be told by how low your resting heart rate is. Tinke will measure your resting heart rate in a matter of seconds.
Respiratory Rate
Your respiratory rate also has a direct correlation to your fitness level. Just like with your heart rate, the lower the better. Tinke is able to measure the number of breaths you take per minute.
Blood Oxygen Level
It is said that a blood oxygen level above 95% is optimal for daily performance. Tinke helps to measure the amount of oxygen carried by your red blood cells quickly and easily. The fitter you are the higher your blood oxygen level should be.
Heart Rate Variability
Our heart does not beat at a constant rate and the changes in which are heart beats is what is known as heart rate variability. This helps determine the level of relaxation your body is at.
How does it work?
I will let Tinke’s website describe this one to you:
“Our heart and blood flow varies between individuals. With a dual LED set-up, Tinké captures the reflected light and analyzes the waveform (i.e. photoplethysmography) it creates to determine your heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen saturation and heart rate variability.”
How do you use it?
Tinke is simple and easy to you. There is a version for both the iPhone and the Andriod.
The first step is to download the Tinke app from the app store on your phone.
Once you have downloaded the app all you have to do is set up your account with some basic information:
- Age
- Location
- Gender
- Username
You can track it as a “guest” but the benefit of setting up an account is you are able to track changes over time. Once you have it set up you select whether you want it to measure your Vita Index or Zen Index.
Vita Index
Your Vita Index is your personalized fitness score created by piecing together information from your heart rate, blood oxygen level and respiratory rate. It is a quick and easy way to find out your fitness level at a glance.
Here is a comparison of my Vita Score and my husband’s Vita Score:
Zen Index
Like the name sounds, your Zen Index uses your heart rate variability in order to determine your level of relaxation after 60 seconds of controlled breathing.
Here is a comparison of my Zen Score and my husband’s Zen Score:
I expected his Vita Index score to be higher than mine because he is in better shape. I wasn’t surprised that our Zen Index was pretty similar.
A Few Other Fun Features:
- No battery required
- No extra screen
- Small and compact
- Stores your results for easy monitoring
- Share your results via social media outlets
- Comes with a small compact case to protect your Tinke.
You are able to monitor and track not only your Zen and Vita Index scores but also each measurement individually if you are focused on one in particular.
Overall Impression
Tinke is a really fun, compact and easy to use tool. I enjoy being able to track my fitness levels each day and see improvement as I go along. The only thing many of us often track is our weight, but Tinke allows you to focus on other aspects of fitness and allows you to see progress and motivate yoruself on the way!
Want to try Tinke?
Zensorium has offered to giveaway a Tinke unit to one of my readers. Simply enter via the rafflecopter application below. The giveaway will end in one week at 11:59 PM EST Friday, April 11th.
Good luck!
This sounds like a really cool product. Thanks for sharing the details.
Sounds really cool! It’s nice to see that people are starting to develop ways to check other indicators of health rather than just weight, which tells us next to nothing about health status!
This is so true Stephanie! A big reason why I loved Tinke!
Sounds cool! I’d love to win one of these
Tinke sounds really cool! I would definitely use it to track my fitness levels. I know many people are focused on tracking their weight, but these other aspects of fitness measurement are so important. Your weight doesn’t really tell you how fit you are.
Sounds pretty neat – I track my steps using a fitbit, but I’d love to have a better sense of other fitness levels!
to keep track of fitness!
This sounds really cool. I co-sign what Stephanie and Whitney said.
TO monitor my fitness and recovery from running.
I would use this to monitor both mine and my husband’s fitness. We’re both so active, this would be perfect
I learn something new every time I’m here. Pretty neat giveaway!
Wow, so cool! It would be interesting to check your vitals after a tough workout!
I always love the idea of having a way to track my running times and overall health but am way to lazy to do any research on the gadgets. Thanks for the post!
I’m really interested in my blood oxygen level!
I would use this to see if my view of my fitness is accurate
I would use it to increase my stamina
Interesting product! I’m curious to know my resting HR
I would love to use this to track my fitness level!!
I love the idea of my Zen level- feel like I focus so much on numbers, and this is a nice change!
I’d use it to track HRV as well as pulse ox. I can track HR & bp other ways, and do already – though it would be handy to have all in once place. Might get DH to use it too.
Looks like a very interesting product. I am always interested in seeing how much my fitness has progressed.
I am SUCH a data nerd that I love stuff like this. I have so many logs of various data points that I’ve collected, and it would be nice to have one device that measures so many things! I heard about Tinke on the Ben Greenfield podcast and have been dying to try that since then!
This sounds so cool! I’d love a simple way to track my fitness.
What a cool product! I’d love to have a better idea of my overall fitness
I love the added “zen” feature and would be interested in the blood-oxygen level to REALLY see how fitness pays off.
Looks like a very interesting product, thanks for sharing
I’d lvoe to see how the zen works for me, I like these other options that are hard to find with other products out now!
This is a cool product. Interestingly with my Moms open heart surgery last week the doctors were recommending her to get something like this.