The road to a balanced diet is paved with good intentions and bad habits. Keeping a detailed food diary is one of the most frustrating activities there is, so much so that most people give up after a few days. Now a new wearable calorie counter promises to completely automate this tedious process: it's called Drop and uses a camera and artificial intelligence to track everything we eat. Basically Big Brother peeking into our food.
How the calorie counter of the future works
Drop vaguely resembles a small metal nose, but it is actually more like a pair of eyes that are always attentive to what we eat. The device uses a smart 4K camera that takes intermittent photos, analyzing them through systems computer vision e artificial intelligence.
The images are quickly processed and then deleted (safely?) to protect the user's privacy. When the calorie counter detects the presence of food or drinks in its field of view, it increases the frequency of shots to better assess the user's interaction with the food.
“By introducing Drop, we aim to create a new category of wearables (nutrition trackers) similar to fitness trackers and smartwatches,” explains the co-founder Rangel Milushev. “Our vision is to empower users to take control of their nutrition and health effortlessly.”
A nutritional assistant always with you
The device weighs just 27,6 grams and can be worn around the neck or attached to clothing via a magnetic clip. Once it has identified the ingredients in its database, Drop cross-references the data to provide an accurate analysis of Calories, protein, carbohydrates e fats.
Like all technologies based on the machine learning algorithm , Drop's “brain” will continue to evolve as it collects new data, becoming more precise and personalized over time. According to its developers, has already achieved 92% accuracy.
The battery life is 16 hours, enough to cover a full day of use. It remains to be seen how it will cope with elaborate dishes or with modern meat substitutes, increasingly indistinguishable from the originals.
Beyond the simple calorie counter
Drop doesn't just count calories, it aims to become a true nutritional coach. The companion app (a must-have. Only my mother-in-law's dog doesn't have its own companion app to manage it anymore), which doesn't require subscriptions like most calorie counter apps, offers personalized recipes, meal plans, and workout suggestions.
“We are actively working on the Rex Premium app, with the design phase completed and the AI component fully developed,” the team explains in their Kickstarter campaign. “The AI assistant goes beyond simple calorie counting, offering personalized meal plans and suggestions to improve your diet.”
The device is already in beta testing and the app will be available for Android and iOS starting from July 2025. The team is also planning to integrate other features like exercise tracking, to create a complete wellness ecosystem. But now you're expanding.
The future of nutritional monitoring
For those tired of scanning barcodes or manually entering recipe ingredients, the Drop could be a big step forward. The technology is finally automating one of the most tedious aspects of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The device will have a “launch” price of around 200 euros: the package also includes a leather band, a USB-C charging cable, a magnetic pin, and a lifetime subscription to the Rex app. Would I use it? At the moment, honestly, no. I mean, I have a little AI assistant in meetings (NotePin, I talked about it here), but the food one is not on my mind yet.
For those who want it, Drop promises to be the kind of innovation that makes you say “finally!”. Like those moments when technology solves a problem that has plagued us for a long time in an elegant and almost magical way. And frankly, as a user of traditional calorie counter apps, I can't wait for AI to “steal” this job too: but perhaps, how can I say, I find it a bit premature. You?
