Thync – Calm or energy on demand | Hacker News Reader

Thync – Calm or energy on demand

thync.com

41 pointszemvpferreira30 comments

Please do not take the wild claims of these advertisers seriously. Mood and energy are barely defined, let alone able to be controlled reliably by a bit of transcranial stimulation.

This is a fabulously interesting field, but we should be spending millions on basic research, not Skymall level products trading on ignorance. (Yes, the two are not mutually exclusive, but the latter will hold back the former)

The safety study (http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/432410/documents/peerJ.pdf?t=1...) ran over a six-week period.

Has anyone seen studies that examine the longer-term effects or lack thereof? I'm not touching this stuff until someone has studied the long-term effects.

Seriously, meddling in the workings of a running engine that we barely understand? I'm all for other people early adopting this tech, but I probably won't try it on in the mall.

Historical evidence indicates that brain experimentation is generally pretty great when done on other people and pretty awful when done on you.

I tried this. The sensation on the skin was a step below pain but a step above annoying and uncomfortable. I noticed no other effects. I only tried it once. YMMV

Their website is impossibly vague. Have they ever disclosed the operating principle?

I too have tried this. One of the founders walked me through the controls (which you can set to as mild or as uncomfortable as you like).

Once on, you're supposed to try and forget about it. I think you'll notice that if you try to think too hard about your shirt collar, it will feel uncomfortable too.

So if you "try to feel something", you may not like it, but if you attach it and walk around mingling at a party, you will notice soon that you feel quite easy-going.

The thought that you could be wearing this at a party mingling, and not be ACTIVELY talking about it is pretty ridiculous. They'd have to be all but ubiquitous to not be the subject of every convo you have every second while you're wearing it.

They do have some scientific publications here

http://www.thync.com/resources/scientific-publications

But the only one that claims an effect on humans is a preprint, so it hasn't been peer-reviewed...

I found the video to be incredibly vague and aside from being flashily produced and making me hungry it really didn't enlighten me to what the product does (or claims to do).

Skeptical on this implementation, but it raises an interesting question. How close are we to having wireheads/current addicts walking around with drouds attached to their heads at all times? At what point does current addiction become consumer-grade? I guess the bonus with this implementation is that it doesn't involve dropping a wire into your brain.

I think this is a cool idea; however, after paying $299 you only get 5 calm and 5 energy strips that are guaranteed for one time use. After that they cost $19.99 for another 5. This would be a very expensive "habit".

Obviously worth it if it enables you to work - e.g., lots of people pay for lattes etc.

It's 10 and 10, I think.

So these guys tested it http://www.gizmag.com/thync-hands-on-2/37820/ and claim that it worked for them.

No mention of the testing protocol. Probably didn't even do a single blind.

Oh, yes, I should have told "reviewed it" or something similar.

But according to them the effect was clearly there so it was not like finding the best sounding speakers but finding the speakers that make a sound. I think that you can find this with less rigorous testing.

I disagree. Your mood is possibly the most subjective experience you can have and it is heavily affected by your own perceptions of what it should be. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for people suffering from all sorts of psychological maladies is significantly effective because we are so able to affect our own perception of reality.

Therefore, they really, really need to do a rigorous experiment before we can derive anything meaningful.

Study: http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/02/20/015032 (N=82)

I want to believe..

Me too, but I'm more than a little sceptical about the claims they make.

I'd be less wary if they had gone through FDA testing and could make proper, analytical statements. With $13M to spend, I'd expect them to be able to afford the process.

FDA process is way more than $13M generally for real medical devices. Regardless, if they're exempt they're exempt. FDA won't look at something that isn't regulated / has straightforward technology

But is it really a "drug" if it's not in a pill or food?

Maybe that's the issue?

In the US, FDA also regulates medical devices such as pacemakers etc

I'm vacillating wildly between "this is the future" and "we are all doomed".

Only accepting American customers; disappointing. They should make that clear on their landing page.

Not to disagree with you, but if you're just interested in buying from them anyway, there are always reshipping services [1] that those living outside of the USA have to use more often than they would like.

[1] google for 'reshipping service' https://www.google.ru/search?q=reshipping+service&ie=utf-8&o...; or try Shipito (I had success with it) https://www.shipito.com/

Another data point for Shipito - I've been using them for a few years to re-mail stuff to Japan from the US.

Woah, I misread this for theync (NSFW!!) and wondered what that's doing on HN...

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