Hiyd has collected deposits from more than 16,000 people for a 7-gram health sensor the company says attaches to watches already on the wrist. The disc measures 2.7 mm thick in total. Founder Salah Batroukh disclosed the deposit count before the firm joined the top 20 companies in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday. A Kickstarter campaign follows in November, according to a TechCrunch report.

What does the sensor actually measure?

The device tracks biometrics familiar from larger wearables. These include heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep staging, movement, calories burned, and VO2 max estimations, Batroukh said. Readings sync to a companion iOS or Android application. The company is also working on nutrition features that correlate eating habits with sleep and workout recovery. "What we will do is say like, 'Hey, on days where you work out at 10 pm instead of 10 am, your sleep quality is actually worse,'" Batroukh told TechCrunch. The company has not published validation data against medical-grade reference devices, a notable gap for any sensor entering the crowded consumer wearable market. Sleep staging, which requires continuous wear through the night, makes battery life a critical number that remains undisclosed.

How does the device stay attached?

Hiyd mounts the sensor with a sheet of microsuction silicone rather than magnets or adhesive. The material embeds hundreds of tiny pockets per square inch that form a vacuum against the watch case. "It is also incredibly thin at just 0.3 mm with our manufacturing processes," Batroukh told TechCrunch. The microsuction sheet accounts for 0.3 mm of the device's total 2.7 mm thickness. The pad lifts off by prying and leaves no residue, the company claims. Independent verification of that claim, together with durability under sweat, heat, and repeated attachment-removal cycles over months of normal wear, has not been disclosed by the company or by third-party testers.

What is Hiyd not yet saying?

The startup has not announced pricing, regulatory status, or a list of compatible watch models. Sensor placement on the underside of the wrist differs from the top-of-wrist position common in consumer wearables, a choice that introduces measurement uncertainty the firm has not quantified in any public materials. Any FDA filing, CE marking, or equivalent pathway remains absent from the disclosures reviewed. The plan to train AI on self-filmed activity data, as described by Batroukh, leaves unclear how body-type, skin-tone, and age variation across a wider installed base will be handled once shipments begin.

Who is building it?

Batroukh worked about seven years as a manufacturing design engineer at Apple before founding Hiyd. He cited a desire to design for the customer rather than for the brand. Two co-founders round out the team. Omar Shakir serves as chief technology officer with a background in mechanical engineering. Mahamad Charawi leads software development, and previously co-led the Y Combinator-backed startup Laudspeaker through its sale, according to the company. Investors, funding totals, and manufacturing partners also remain undisclosed, leaving the production scale behind the 16,000 deposits an open question.

What happens next?

The TechCrunch Disrupt appearance on Wednesday serves as Hiyd's largest public platform to date, with a top-20 Startup Battlefield slot at stake. The November Kickstarter will be the first confirmed retail channel and the first concrete test of conversion from deposit to paid order among those 16,000 prospective buyers. Batroukh's stated ambition, a product "ecosystem of invisible health tracking," reads as a vision rather than a roadmap with named products or partner brands attached. Execution against that promise will be measured when the first units ship and third parties can finally test the 0.3 mm microsuction claim under real wrists.