Researcher creates necklace that counts calories by listening to chews

A computer scientist from the University at Buffalo, New York, has come up with a unique way of keeping track of consumed calories.

Instead of writing down every single meal you’ve eaten, you just put on a choker-style necklace that can determine your calorie intake based on the sounds you make when you chew, reports the Oddity Central.

The wearable tech device, known as AutoDietary, works on the simple idea that different foods make different sounds when chewed. So Wenyao Xu – the brains behind the innovative gadget – is currently creating a library that catalogs the biting, grinding, and swallowing sounds of different types of food. This library will be included in the app that supports the necklace Xu is developing in collaboration with researchers at China’s Northeastern University.

“There is no shortage of wearable devices that tell us how many calories we burn, but creating a device that reliably measures caloric intake isn’t so easy,” Xu explained. “People either forget or they tend to forget or they want to forget what they eat.”

“You can set up a threshold,” he added. “For example, I want to eat 2,000 calories a day. Once you have reached that, the threshold will send you a reminder.