Hiyd, a startup founded by former Apple manufacturing design engineer Salah Batroukh, is trying to make health tracking invisible. Its first device is a slim disc that attaches to the back of an existing watch using microsuction, letting wearers keep their timepiece while gaining biometric monitoring. Batroukh told TechCrunch that the company's ethos is to avoid forcing users to change how they look.
The sensor is 2.7 mm thick and weighs 7 grams. It collects heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep staging, movement, calories burned, and VO2 max estimates, then syncs to iOS and Android. Batroukh says microsuction—a textured silicone with tiny vacuum pockets—holds the disc in place without interfering with watch mechanics or leaving residue.
Hiyd is one of 20 companies at TechCrunch Disrupt's Startup Battlefield. It plans a Kickstarter in November, and more than 16,000 people have already made deposits. Batroukh is joined by CTO Omar Shakir and head of software Mahamad Charawi, who previously co-led Y Combinator-backed Laudspeaker.
The company is training AI on labeled activity data to improve sensor accuracy and plans to add nutrition tracking that offers personalized insights about how eating habits affect sleep and performance—without calorie counting.