Imagine if your mouse was also your stress ball. Okay, not exactly, but while a stress ball helps you calm your nerves after a rather cortisol-filled day, the CalmiX mouse helps you keep track of your stress levels by packing a heart rate monitor right inside the mouse. Designed with sensors along the mouse’s ergonomic body, this part-peripheral-part-health-device keeps track of your heart rate, displaying it on a tiny screen on the side.
Would such a device be even remotely useful? Well, designer Julius Münzenmaier notes that 41% of employees worldwide feel some sort of stress. Even in the EU, with their worker-friendly office setups, around 27% of people say they feel some sort of stress while working. That’s where something like the CalmiX comes in. Designed as an entry for the RIMOWA Design Prize, Calmix is an ergonomic mouse that also doubles as a fitness wearable. I use the term wearable extremely loosely here, because you don’t really wear a mouse, but your hands rest on it for such long sessions it might as well just be as good as one.
Designer: Julius Münzenmaier
The CalmiX’s design looks a lot like Logitech’s MX Master 3s, complete with the form factor, buttons on the side, and the scroll wheel just above the thumb-rest. The two notable differences are that this one lacks a main scroll wheel, replacing it with a haptic scroll surface on the top, and packs a tiny display on the side, right beside the lateral wheel. Equipped with high-precision sensors and a low-energy processor crunching data from said sensors, the CalmiX tries to be a productivity device that also keeps you in the loop regarding your stress levels at work.
The mouse lets you know your heart rate in real-time, allowing you to sense spikes in tension or stress while work. While the mouse won’t do anything to calm you down, it does let you know when to step back and maybe take a break from work. Stress is a silent killer and there’s really no shortage of it at work, what with AI taking over and layoffs just being the new norm. If you’re going to spend 10 hours in front of a screen, CalmiX makes sure that most of those hours aren’t spent in pangs of anxiety.
It wouldn’t really be a smart device without an app to go with it. There’s a CalmiX app envisioned to work alongside the mouse, capturing historical data on your heart rate throughout the day, presenting it on a dashboard for you to look at how your body reacts to stress. You can use the dashboard to “Track real-time stress, spot daily patterns, get personalized micro-breaks and breathing exercises, receive smart pause reminders, and view summary reports to optimize your workflow,” Julius mentions.
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