More than you can chew? Japanese firm unveils earphones that track your bites

A Japanese firm has invented a gadget to help you count your bites. A small-scale study last year suggested a connection between chomping and cognitive function, and the belief in a link between chewing and health is widely held in Japan. Now the Tokyo-based gum-maker has created earphones to record the number of times you move your jaw, along with the speed and strength of each bite. Lotte’s “Rhythmi-Kamu” - a pun on the English word “rhythmical” and “kamu” (“to chew” in Japanese) - uses sensors mounted inside ear pieces to carefully measure each bite.

Chewing, unless you make a conscious effort, can be seen as a bit of a pain. As a gum maker, this is a great concern.

Katsumi Kawai, chief marketing officer of Japanese gum-making firm Lotte

It sends the data to a smartphone app, which can be used to track exactly how much chewing a user has done in any given period. The technology can also be used to switch on or off music on your phone by chewing in a certain pattern. Hiroshima City University engineer Kazuhiro Taniguchi, whose ear-switch technology was used in the device, said he was pleased with how it had turned out, adding that the gadget had “satisfying functions”. Lotte has no plans to commercialise the Rhythmi-Kamu, but would like to persuade research institutions to use it to advance studies on human chewing.

Technology chewing gum