For six years, NOWATCH has been the watch that doesn't fight for your attention. Today, we're becoming Polsen Health.
We’re the same team with the same mission, we now just have a name that finally says what we're actually building.
Back in 2020, we never set out to build a ‘smartwatch’, we built the first Awareable. That was step one. Our plan looked beyond just one device, we always wanted to build a company that puts humans first. With our new name comes a shift in focus: from something you wear to the people who wear it.
Why Polsen Health
If you didn’t know, we are a Dutch company, and our new name is a little nod to our Amsterdam heritage. In Dutch, Polsen has two meanings:
1- Wrists
2- To check in with someone
Checking in has always been at the core of what we do. Our sensors catch a stress response before you'd even feel it yourself. They watch over your health silently, only speaking up when there's actually something worth looking at. There's enough screens fighting for your attention, we didn’t want to give you another one.
What we do track though (very well), is your stress response. Over time, especially when you don’t allow your body to recover properly, this builds up to something scientists call ‘allostatic load’. This is the wear and tear that stress puts on your body over time. Not how stressed you feel, but how often your body spikes, how long it stays elevated, and how fast it recovers. In 2022, researchers combined 17 studies and found that people with high allostatic load had a 31% higher risk of dying from heart disease and a 22% higher risk of dying from any cause. Those are scary numbers, but that's exactly why we track this, instead of encouraging you to chase your biological age or handing out gold stars for step counts.
As a tech company, we wanted to do things a little different. Because here’s a truth: most of this industry profits by keeping you hooked on a subscription while it learns everything about you. We do neither: no subscription, nothing designed to keep you scrolling. Your data stays yours: never ever sold and never quietly handed off to anyone else. For us, that's not a policy, it’s just what we think is right.
Where we’re heading
Comfort, everyday.
+5 days battery life+Reactivity Monitor™
The value we place on checking in will become even more central to what we want to do. With Polsen Together (formerly NOWATCH Together), we've built a platform that helps you support the people you care about through data. And there's more ahead, bigger ideas for how that information can help you connect and check in on each other. At the same time, we'll keep developing technology that helps you spot early warning signs and prevent health issues, while encouraging you to stay focused on the world and the people around you.
Where we began
We’d love to take this moment to take you back to where it all started. Back in 2020, friends and our two co-founders Hylke Muntinga and Timothée Manschot had an idea. It was sparked from ongoing conversations about what it actually means to be present and live in the moment. How can we get the most out of a day, instead of assuming there'll always be another one? What if we could make a watch that tells the time that really matters: the NOW. What if that watch could help people spend time in healthy and meaningful way?
After years of development, that idea became NOWATCH: a wearable built not to demand your attention, but to quietly help you notice changes in your own body before you'd notice yourself. Most health trackers usually come with a flurry of notifications: scoring your day and sleep or telling you to stand up and drink water. The idea behind NOWATCH was to help people become more in tune to what’s going on beneath the skin and improve their health, without giving them another screen that pulls you away from the present moment.
Back then, the first model really lived up to its name: no watch face at all, just a gemstone on your wrist. We worked with a family-owned workshop in Jaipur, a city in India that's been cutting and trading gemstones for centuries, to hand-select and cut every stone that went into that first device. Since then, the product has evolved considerably, from sleek watch faces like our NOWATCH B to stone-encrusted gold discs like our Artisanal collection.
Everything since: the sensors, the no-subscription model, the way we handle your data comes from that same initial idea of having not only a healthy relationship with technology, but a meaningful relationship with life.
So, what's really changed?
Not much for now. This change is more about where we are headed. Your app logo will get a glow up, and so will our website. If you already own a NOWATCH, none of your data will be affected. If you’re new here, welcome!
Some questions you still might have
Will my current NOWATCH still work? Yes. Nothing changes about the hardware or the app apart from the name changing and the logo in the app store. Your app, your data, your account: all still there and everything safely works. The only different thing is what's printed on the box next time.
Will I still be able to purchase accessories or replacement items for my current NOWATCH model? Yes, all NOWATCH X and NOWATCH B accessories are available and won't be discontinued in the short and mid-term. You can still purchase them via our webshop or flagship store in Amsterdam.
Why do the watches still say NOWATCH? For now, these products still go by the name NOWATCH. It’s just our company that has evolved to a new title.
What about my order, warranty, return window or support ticket? All of it carries over, same team, same policies, just a new name on the emails from here on.
How can I reach the Customer Care team now? Is anything changing? Nothing changes in terms of how to reach us. For bugs, app-related issues, or feedback, report them by shaking your phone in the app. For any other issues, questions, or requests, please reach out via our Help Center webform.
