Sharp just entered the wearables market, and the company picked an unusual way to stand out. The Karada Mate Watch tracks something most fitness trackers ignore completely: it uses bioelectrical impedance sensing to measure changes in your body’s water and sugar levels, then turns that data into real-time estimates of how many calories you’re taking in from food and drinks.
No other major smartwatch brand has tried this approach yet. Most wearables focus on calories burned through movement and heart rate. Sharp flipped that model by tracking what goes into your body instead.
How the Sharp Karada Mate Watch Calorie Tracking Works
Sharp didn’t build this calorie tracking feature alone. The company teamed up with HEALBE Corporation, a biometric data firm based in California, and tapped into HEALBE’s patented FLOW Technology to make the calorie estimates work.
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Here’s how it actually functions: the watch reads changes in fluid levels and blood sugar in your body, then uses that data to estimate roughly how many calories you’ve eaten. It takes that number and compares it to the calories you’ve burned, giving you a live running total of your calorie balance throughout the day.
The watch also keeps tabs on your hydration. If your water intake drops too low, it won’t just sit there quietly. You’ll get an alert through sound and a vibration on your wrist, nudging you to grab a glass of water before dehydration becomes a real problem.
Sharp built a feature called Circuit View that changes what’s on your screen depending on the time of day. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll see how long you slept, what the weather looks like, and what’s on your schedule.
Once the day gets going, the display switches over to step count, heart rate, and calories burned, the stuff you actually want to check while you’re moving around. At night, before you head to bed, it flips again to show you tomorrow’s forecast and whatever plans you’ve got coming up.
The rest of the hardware holds its own, too. You get a 1.32-inch OLED screen running at 466 x 466 resolution, with always-on display support so you’re not constantly tapping to check the time.
Sharp covered it with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for scratch protection, and packed in a skin temperature sensor along with SpO2 monitoring for blood oxygen readings. It connects over Bluetooth 5.4.
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On durability, the watch carries a 5 ATM water resistance rating and IP6X dust protection, so sweat, rain, and dust shouldn’t give it trouble. As for compatibility, you’ll need a phone running Android 14 or newer, or iOS 17 or newer, to pair it up.
Sharp Karada Mate Watch Pricing and Availability
Japan gets first access to the Karada Mate Watch on July 9, with a price tag of 59,400 yen, which works out to roughly $370. Buyers can pick between gold and silver finishes. Sharp hasn’t said anything yet about whether the watch will launch outside Japan, so if you’re hoping to grab one elsewhere, you’ll have to wait and see.
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Sharp isn’t stopping at the hardware. The company is also rolling out a companion app called Karada Mate, and it comes with an optional subscription for 600 yen a month, around $4.
When you pay for that, you get guidance from actual dietitians covering your diet, sleep, exercise routine, and general physical condition.
The bigger picture here matters too. Wearables that can track calorie intake without you logging every meal have been missing from this market for a long time.
Sharp’s method gives the Karada Mate Watch a real shot at filling that gap. That said, the technology still has to prove itself once it’s in people’s hands every day. How accurate it turns out to be in actual use will likely decide whether this becomes a feature people trust or one they write off as a gimmick.
