Wearable tech is the new tech. The more ways we can wear our gadgets, the easier we can become connected. As far as fitness and health trackers go, it’s vital for us to enjoy what we’re wearing, and what better way to influence healthy behavior by having a “connected” piece of clothing that looks and feels just like an ordinary workout shirt? Biometric workout gear startup, OMsignal from Montreal, just started taking online orders for its product line. It tracks your health, fitness, performance, and stress all by wearing your favorite style of workout top. OMsignal comes in four different varieties, all of which contain embedded sensors that accompany an iOS app. The app is made to translate your “bio-signal”, a system made to be in touch your heart rate, breathing, and calories burned.

Stephane Marceau, OMSignal co-founder says his shirts can “help motivate us to better ourselves every day. You would never drive a car without a speedometer, RPM, or a fuel gauge, right?”. It’s sure hard to argue with that. But let’s be honest, an article of clothing that can tell us all we need to know about our fuel, speed, and motor cannot possibly be affordable. (This is usually the part where I say something like, “Well surprise, surprise! These shirts cost less than a DVD!”. Sorry, but no.) These are rather expensive, running at $199 for one shirt that connects to an app. Each additional shirt is $100.

But if you contemplate the biggest benefit of this smart shirt, maybe you’d be willing to drop the $199. Some of the biggest issues with wearables today involve their need to be synced up and charged, the areas they need to be worn are limited, and the likelihood to forget it on your desk. OMsignal’s approach is to make wearable tech as unobtrusive as possible; something “that compliments life, without getting in the way of life”.

No, we may not be to the point of having sensors and microprocessors built into our smart shirts, but OMsignal gets us close enough. With the same style and comfort of a form-fitting sports shirt, these actually have a band around the chest that is woven with conductive silver-based thread. This thread works by transferring electrical signals to a small piece of hardware that snaps onto the shirt, which the company actually calls the “little black box”. The box connects via Bluetooth to your iOS app, and can track movements with an accelerometer, gyrometer, and magnetometer. The band measures heart rate in a way that no other wearable can. It can capture additional statistics such as stress, by monitoring chest expansion, and breathing regularity. Other good news involves the app’s knack to translate gathered data into “potentially meaningful, actionable information”. Your results are given in real-time, and displayed via screens and charts, making it super painless to act as a guide during your training session. Four initial shirts are currently available: an undershirt, a casual T, a sleeveless, and a long-sleeved, in 6 colors to choose from. Don’t worry ladies; a female assortment should be available soon.