Can Longevity Be Measured at Home?
The next phase of longevity might not come from another supplement, but instead from the data, sensors, and devices quietly entering our homes.
Hi, I’m Shan. I run Xandro Lab — a science-first longevity brand in Singapore focused on performance and recovery. Every Sunday, I write Out of Singapore to share what’s going on — the behind-the-scenes, the experiments, the questions I’m still figuring out.
This one started in Hong Kong. I spent two days walking through the Electronics Asia Show — one of those giant expos where every booth hums, blinks, and promises a smarter life. Most of it was the usual — speakers, cables, massage guns — but between the noise, a few things caught my eye.
Weighing scales. Wearables. Rings. Smart body-fat machines. Even electric toothbrushes.
I was curious about two in particular: a ring or band that could go beyond heart rate & sleep tracking, and a body-fat machine that could measure BMR and track progress in real time. Then there was this other booth — a startup building a sleep-tracking device you don’t even have to wear; it sits quietly in your room and tracks your sleep every night. Clever, but expensive. And another that made sweat sensors for athletes to monitor electrolyte loss mid-race. That one was fascinating — if it works, it could literally save athletes on the competition days.
Even the home air purifiers got me thinking. Not because of the filters, but because they now tell you about the air you breathe — data, again. And I kept asking myself: what else could we do with that data? Could it go beyond filtering to actually improving recovery or sleep quality?
By the end of it, I realised I wasn’t just looking at gadgets. I was looking at the next frontier of longevity — where supplements (or nutrition), sensors, and software begin to talk to each other.
The question now is: can we actually make them work together? And more importantly — can longevity really be measured at home?
Today’s reading –
From Ingredients to Insight
The Devices That Caught My Eye
The Noise Problem
From Tools to Solutions
Can Longevity Be Measured at All?
1. From Ingredients to Insight
Until recently, longevity has been mostly about these novel ingredients that promises to add extra years to you life. NMN, resveratrol, rapamycin, and metformin. People wanted to know what molecule could slow aging, what could add energy (for men - increases testosterone), what supplement could help them feel better (hormone management for menopause). That’s where most of us started too.
But the conversation has changed.
Today, it’s less about what we consume and more about what we can measure. Oura and Whoop have partnered with Quest Health in the US so users can connect their sleep and recovery data with blood test results. Mito Health, Superpower, and a few other startups are building platforms that take your biomarkers, run them through AI models, and tell you exactly which interventions to focus on next.
It’s an interesting space because it’s where medical science, artificial intelligence, and consumer wellness are starting to merge. The tools are getting better, the sensors are getting smaller, and the data is becoming more personal.
This shift makes sense. Supplements are inputs. Devices are feedback loops. But the future is in the bridge that connects the two. It’s the bridge that can turn data into guidance.
And that’s what everyone, including us, is trying to figure out right now.
2. The Devices That Caught My Eye
Most of the halls at the trade show looked the same. Bright lights, long tables, hundreds of booths selling slightly different versions of the same thing. But every now and then, I found something that made me stop and think.
The first was the wearable ring. Almost every company had one. Most of them could track sleep, steps, heart rate, and now even ECG. The technology looked impressive, but I still don’t know how accurate those readings are. What interested me more was how customizable they’ve become. Every manufacturer asked the same question: “What data do you want it to show?”
Then there was the body-fat machine. It measures BMR, muscle mass, water levels, and breaks it all down in a detailed report. These machines are common in gyms, but newer versions are smaller, portable, and designed for home use. You can now measure your progress every week without leaving your living room.
Another company showed me a sleep tracker that doesn’t need to be worn. It sits quietly in your room, tracks your sleep every night, and generates a detailed report in the morning. No charging, no straps, nothing to wear. The idea was brilliant. The only challenge, as always, was cost.
I also saw a sweat sensor that measures electrolyte loss. It looked like something athletes could really use during training or races to prevent cramps or fatigue. Complex tech, but it solves a real problem.
And finally, I stopped at a booth selling home air purifiers. Not because I wanted one, but Bryan Johnson walking out a podcast in Mumbai was a phenomenon. It told me that people do care and will care about air quality inside homes. The question is what else we can do with that data (or could we add sensors to deliver new data). Could it go beyond filtering, maybe into something that improves recovery or sleep quality?
By the end of it, I realised I wasn’t looking at random gadgets anymore. I was looking at pieces of the same puzzle. Each device is a small step toward the same goal — helping people understand their bodies better without leaving home.
3. The Noise Problem
Health today feels louder than ever. Every scroll is a new command.
Stop seed oils. Avoid butter. Eat meat. Don’t eat meat. Take cold showers. Skip breakfast.
Everyone’s an expert, and everyone’s right — at least for themselves. It’s too much. Even for someone like me, who spends every day building in this space, I often find it hard to separate what’s true from what’s trending. The advice keeps changing faster than the evidence can keep up.
That’s why I think this next phase of longevity is so important. It’s not just about collecting more data, it’s about collecting the right data — the kind that can actually help you make sense of your own body.
The base layer is what I call the lifestyle matrix: your sleep, HRV, body fat, inflammation, and recovery scores. These are easy to track and give you a sense of how your system is responding day to day.
But to really understand longevity, you need the internal matrix too — your blood markers, gut health, and urine results. Those tell a much deeper story. They reveal how your organs are functioning, how nutrients are being absorbed, how your metabolism and hormones are shifting over time.
Now imagine combining both: your sleep and recovery patterns from wearables, your gut health and blood work from diagnostics, your daily movement and stress markers from sensors.
All interpreted through a single lens — ideally with a clinician or a health specialist who knows how to translate that data into real guidance.
Because data alone isn’t wisdom. It’s just numbers. What we really need is meaning. And that comes from combining technology with human interpretation — science and software working together, not competing for your attention.
4. From Tools to Solutions
The more I looked around the trade show, the more I realised that building a device is the easy part. Everyone there had hardware. Sensors, displays, Bluetooth connectivity, mobile apps. All of it works, in theory.
But what most of them didn’t have was a solution.
Something that tells people what to do with the data once they have it.
That’s the real challenge.
Because what people want isn’t just to measure their body, they want to understand it. They want to know why their recovery dropped, what caused their HRV to dip, why their magnesium levels are low again.
That’s where I see the opportunity, but also the difficulty.
To make that bridge work, we would need a completely new kind of team. Engineers who understand hardware and sensors. Data scientists who can clean and interpret the signals. Clinicians who can bring real context to the numbers. Designers who can simplify it for everyday people.
None of that exists inside most supplement companies. And honestly, it doesn’t exist inside ours yet either. It’s a different world. The moment you move from capsules to circuits, the cost of mistakes goes up. The systems become more complex. You start dealing with calibration, servicing, software bugs, repairs, and customer support.
But I also know that this is where things are headed.
If we can connect what people take to what their data shows, we can finally make supplementation smarter, not just convenient.
That’s what excites me about this space.
Not the shiny hardware, but the potential to build something that helps people make better decisions, based on their own biology.
And that’s the part I keep thinking about now — how to move from tools that inform to systems that guide.
5. Can Longevity Be Measured at All?
By the time I left the trade show, my head was full of ideas and questions. Every booth claimed to have cracked something — better sensors, better accuracy, better AI. But the truth is, longevity still isn’t something you can measure in one number.
You can track your sleep, HRV, blood work, gut microbiome, even the air you breathe. You can build the most advanced dashboard in the world. But it still won’t tell you how well you’re living. Not fully.
Because longevity isn’t about a single metric. It’s about rhythm. The patterns that repeat quietly every day — how you move, how you eat, how you rest, how you think.
The devices can show us trends, and that’s a start. They can help us spot changes early, remind us where we’re slipping, and give us a sense of control. But they only cover one layer — the internal one.
Health markers can help us optimize our lives. They can guide how we sleep, eat, recover, and manage stress. They make us more aware. But real longevity isn’t only built in isolation. It’s built in society.
The people around us — family, friends, colleagues, the community we live in — shape more of our health than any sensor can. They influence our habits, our outlook, our stress, and even our biology. A calm, connected environment can lower inflammation better than any supplement. A good conversation can do more for recovery than another round of data analysis.
So while these numbers help us live better, how long and how well we live will still depend on the culture around us. Biomarkers are personal. They belong to you. But longevity is collective. It belongs to the world you build and the people you share it with.
Maybe that’s the real answer. We’ll measure health at home, but we’ll experience longevity together.
Closing Notes
This week felt different.
Maybe because I spent it looking at things I don’t fully understand yet. Hardware, sensors, data models, all of it feels like starting over. But I like that feeling. It reminds me that we’re still early.
At Xandro, most of our days go into the same loop — production, marketing, logistics, the thousand things that keep the engine running. Sometimes I forget that we’re also supposed to look ahead. To ask what’s next.
The truth is, this whole idea of “longevity at home” is still far away. It needs the right partners, the right people, and the right timing. But thinking about it gave me something I didn’t realise I was missing these past few weeks — curiosity.
Maybe that’s the real reason I go to these trade shows. Not to buy products, but to remind myself that there’s still a lot to learn, still a lot to build.
So yes, longevity might be measurable one day. But for now, I’ll settle for understanding it a little better each week — through people, through experiments, and through these Sunday notes.
See you next week,
Shan
PS. Diwali
It’s Diwali weekend.
I left home in 2011, first for studies and then for work. Since then, I’ve only been able to go back a few times a year. Sometimes that trip falls during Durga Puja, sometimes during Diwali. And every time it does, I realise how much these moments used to mean when growing up.
My earliest memory of Diwali is on the terrace of our house — standing with my sister and cousins, lighting small diyas one by one. The whole house would glow by evening. Diyas on every wall, every window. It was the most magnificent sight I’ve ever seen.
We used to burst crackers too, until one year one of my cousins had an accident. He was lucky, but it scared all of us. After that, the fireworks slowly faded from our celebrations. We grew older. Life moved on.
When I moved to Bangalore, I saw the opposite. Huge fireworks, loud and bright, almost overwhelming. I remember standing there one night, watching the sky light up and feeling both amazed and a little hollow. It’s strange — you can be surrounded by noise and still feel alone.
A friend from my hometown used to invite me for Diwali dinners. Her family would cook, laugh, and light diyas together. Those evenings helped, but they also reminded me of everything I missed.
Today, sitting far from home again, I realise this is the trade-off of the life we chose — to build, to move, to chase something bigger. You lose the comfort of being there. You miss the people who made ordinary days feel like festivals.
And maybe that’s what growing up really is. Learning to hold both the ambition and the ache at the same time.
So if you’re reading this away from home, I hope you find a quiet way to celebrate too. Light a small diya for yourself. Think of the people who made you who you are.
Happy Diwali! 🪔