Innovation

Hitachi invents “happiness meter” which monitors your every move

Japanese technology company Hitachi has come up with a “happiness meter.” It’s a device that you wear around your neck, letting it pick up little signals that measure exactly how happy or unhappy you are. Best of all, it’s designed for use in companies, so that your boss will know exactly how happy you are all the time. However hilarious or dystopian as it may sound, though, the happiness meter does have some amount of science backing it up. It’s based on research showing that the happier employees are, the better results their employers get out of them. However, up until now, the only way businesses have been able to determine how happy their employees are is by doing it the old-fashioned way: either asking them directly, or using some sort of third party/questionnaire, both of which can have biased results. But now, thanks to Hitachi’s happiness meter, there’s no more need for doubt. Employees simply hang a nametag-sized device from their neck and let it send 50 signals per second to a database keeping track of little things they do: who they talk to, when, how long, whether or not they’re facing each other, if they’re standing still or moving, where they sit in the office or during meetings, and more.

Hitachi promises that it’s impossible to access information for individuals, only information for all employees as a whole.