Health Tracker Watch That Works With What You Already Own
If you love wearing a fine timepiece, swapping it for a bulky fitness band can feel like a downgrade. The health tracker watch from Hiyd takes a different approach: it attaches to the back of the watch you already wear, so you never have to choose between fashion and function.
Hiyd founder Salah Batroukh built the company around that idea. “We don’t think that health tracking needs to be this overly conscious decision where you have to change something about the way you look,” Batroukh said. The goal, he explained, is an ecosystem of “invisible health tracking.”
A Slim Disc That Sits Under Your Watch
Hiyd’s first device is a small, slim disc that fastens to the back of a watch using microsuction. This material technology lets the sensor sit flush beneath your watch without magnets or adhesive, so it leaves no residue and won’t interfere with watches that keep time using magnets.
“Microsuction is essentially a textured silicone, with hundreds of tiny pockets per square inch molded into a pliable sheet,” Batroukh explained. “So when you press on it, it pushes air out of all those pockets, and you end up with a vacuum — just like traditional suction cups but scaled down incredibly.”
According to Batroukh, the material works well at stopping shear forces, yet a little prying lets it pop right off. It is also just 0.3 mm thin with Hiyd’s manufacturing processes.
What the Sensor Measures
The sensor measures 2.7 mm thick and weighs 7 grams. According to Batroukh, it collects biometrics similar to those of leading wearables, including:
Heart rate
Heart rate variability
Sleep staging
Movement
Calories burned
VO2 max estimations
The data then syncs to an iOS or Android app. To fine-tune the sensor, Hiyd’s team films itself doing various activities and labels those datasets to train its AI.
“We go for a walk and say, ‘This is somebody walking, this is somebody jogging, this is somebody running,'” Batroukh said. “The one thing that AI is really good at is data analysis, so we can basically fit a lot of heuristic analysis into our sets really quickly.”
Nutrition Insights, Not Calorie Counting
In its app, Hiyd is also working to incorporate nutrition tracking. The aim isn’t to count calories, but to help users understand how their eating habits affect sleep quality or workout performance.
“What we will do is say like, ‘Hey, on days where you work out at 10 p.m. instead of 10 a.m., your sleep quality is actually worse,’ and that’ll be specific to you,” Batroukh said. The app might also note that a slice of cake before bed led to less deep sleep because of the sugar.
Built by a Former Apple Engineer
Batroukh spent about seven years as a manufacturing design engineer at Apple, a company known for iconic hardware. He wanted to find out whether he could design something great without a global brand and a multitrillion-dollar market cap behind him.
“One of the reasons I left Apple was a lot of the products became a little bit more about being an Apple product, rather than being something for the customer,” he said. Hiyd, he added, “gives me the opportunity to do the exact opposite.”
He is joined by co-founders Omar Shakir, an experienced mechanical engineer who serves as CTO, and Mahamad Charawi, the head of software. Charawi previously co-led the Y Combinator-backed startup Laudspeaker through its sale.
Why This Health Tracker Watch Stands Out
Most wearables ask you to change what’s on your wrist. This health tracker watch concept flips that: it adds biometric tracking to a watch you already love, then pairs it with an app that aims for personalized insights rather than raw numbers alone. For watch enthusiasts who want both style and substance, that combination is the pitch.
Hiyd’s plan is to build out a full ecosystem of invisible health tracking rather than a single device. The company’s first sensor is the starting point, with nutrition features and AI-driven insights still in development. For now, the team is focused on refining accuracy through real-world activity data and preparing for its public launch.
With deposits already in from thousands of interested users, Hiyd is betting that plenty of people want health data without giving up the watch they love. If the Kickstarter lands as planned, the health tracker watch could become a quiet addition to a wrist near you.
