Winnipeg father-son duo take new wearable fitness device to Las Vegas tech show

For the last six months, Elvis Goren and his father Larry have been working feverishly on their newest device — a fitness and heart monitor compression sleeve.

Now they are taking it on the road, to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, one of the biggest consumer and electronics shows in the world.

Goren has been involved in sports almost his entire life and started using wearable fitness devices when they first appeared on the market.

Frustration with the devices' lack of accuracy and comfort led to the development of the Komodo AIO Smart Sleeve.

"Compression clothing is something that is ubiquitous and in any kind of physical activity, and it just made sense to us to fuse the two technologies together to create the optimal wearable," said Goren.

The stylish sleeve has a small sensor that attaches near the wrist and combined with the sleeve, the device can track heart rate, electrical activity of the heart with an EKG sensor, intensity of activity (MET, or metabolic equivalent of task), blood oxygen saturation levels and sleep.

The pair finished a pre-order campaign in the fall that sold hundreds of the sleeves, which retail starting at $129. They are ready to start producing larger quantities of the sleeve but want to build a better, more intuitive proprietary app before going on to large-scale production, they said.

"We're not in a hurry to sell a million devices. We want to polish the product to perfection," said Larry Goren.

Komodo Technologies is one of three Manitoba companies that are heading to Las Vegas this weekend as part of a larger delegation from Western Canada.

Manitoba-based Librestream Technologies, which is also going, has developed a software system that is installed on more than 10 million devices. It allows experts in specific fields to connect virtually to inspect, diagnose or resolve issues remotely.

6P Marketing is also going to Las Vegas.

The 26 different companies from B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are going to CES with the support of ICT West, which provides guidance and support at the convention. ICT West has a booth on the convention floor that the businesses can use as a home base during the show, which is expected to attract more than 200,000 people this weekend.

Clara Buelow of ICT West said their services will let the entrepreneurs focus on what they're at the show for.

"Instead of thinking of how do I pick up my badge, how do I do all of this and this, you can think of 'Who do I want to meet? How am I going to meet them and why do they want to meet me?' " said Buelow.

Elvis Goren hopes his weekend at CES might help his company get more recognition.   

"It's important for startups to be able to play in the same arena as lot of these other companies. Of course, everybody is there to see Apple and Samsung, but at the same time, the presence of startups has really been picking up at CES, and we felt like this year was a good year for us, our debut."