About BasisScience
BasisScience.com is a small, independent editorial site about wearable health: trackers, sleep tech, biometric sensors, recovery, and the parts of the industry that don't make the launch-day press release.
What this site is
We rebuilt the basisscience.com domain in 2024 as an editorial property. The original Basis Science Inc. was the San Francisco startup that built the Basis B1 and Basis Peak before being acquired by Intel in 2014. The company is gone, the products were recalled, and the cloud was shut down at the end of 2016. We are not Basis Science Inc., we have no relationship with Intel, and we don't claim any continuity with the original entity — we just think the story is worth keeping in one place, and the niche it was in is worth covering well.
What we cover
- The Basis Peak archive — a factual record of the device, the recall, and the corporate decisions around it.
- Modern wearable buying guides — Fitbit, Garmin, Oura, Whoop, Withings, Apple, Samsung. Annual best-of guides, individual reviews, and head-to-head comparisons.
- Plain-language explainers — HRV, sleep stages, SpO2, ECG, sensor accuracy, data privacy.
- Things the manufacturers don't put on the box — subscription dependency, cloud lock-in, sensor failure modes.
Who writes
The site is run by an editorial team that has worn the major wearables on the major brands' wrists, fingers, and chests. We do not claim medical credentials and we don't pretend that wrist optical heart-rate is an EKG. Where we cite physiology, we cite peer-reviewed sources. Where we don't have first-hand experience with a product, we say so before we recommend it.
How we make money
Affiliate commissions. When you buy a product through a link on our site, we sometimes earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. The largest single program is Amazon Associates (tracking ID basisscience-20), and we run smaller direct programs with a handful of wearable companies. We've never been paid by a manufacturer to write a piece, and we don't accept "review units with strings attached." If a brand sends us hardware, we'll disclose it on the page. Read the full affiliate disclosure for specifics.
How we work
Every buying guide carries a visible "last updated" date and a public changelog. We re-test our top picks at least once a year and after any major firmware update. We will correct a piece in public if we get something wrong — see the corrections policy. Our full process is documented in how we choose products and the editorial policy.
How to reach us
Tips, corrections, and disagreement are welcome. Email editor@basisscience.com, or use the contact form. PR pitches that ignore our editorial policy will not get a response.