The demonstration, organised by the Barça Innovation Hub as part of the Sports Tomorrow Congress, showed how Onalabs biosensors and Garmin devices can be combined to redefine sports performance monitoring.
Onalabs took part alongside Garmin in a live demonstration of ONASPORT at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2026, during an event organised by the Barça Innovation Hub as part of the Sports Tomorrow Congress, held on 2 and 3 March in Barcelona.
On stage, Onalabs demonstrated how ONASPORT captures key biomarkers — sweat-inferred lactate, sodium loss, sweat rate and heart rate — in real time and non-invasively, while an athlete performed a live physical exercise.
The demonstration was accompanied by a discussion moderated by Dr Claus W. Biermann, CMO of Onalabs, with Elisabet del Valle, CEO and co-founder of Onalabs, and Benedikt Kurz, EMEA Team Lead at Garmin Health.
During the discussion, Elisabet del Valle explained that sweat biomarkers provide real-time insights into what is happening inside the body during exercise — including fatigue, hydration and metabolism — based on thousands of proteins, metabolites and biochemical signals. Although multiple devices are currently capable of measuring external variables such as speed, power and heart rate, continuously observing what is happening at a biochemical level inside an athlete’s body remains challenging. Sweat analysis provides access to this information continuously, non-invasively and in real time. The future of sports science lies in combining reliable measurements with platforms capable of integrating data and generating predictive models, including systems based on artificial intelligence.
Benedikt Kurz of Garmin Health agreed that the future of these tools lies in building open ecosystems where different technologies can be integrated to provide a more comprehensive view of health and performance, as the challenges facing the sector cannot be addressed through a single source of data. Both speakers agreed that integrating physiological, biometric and performance data will enable a more holistic approach to training and health monitoring.
“Integration makes it possible to turn information into actionable strategic insights, driving a new way of optimising training and decision-making.”
— Johanna Blanco, B2B Manager at Garmin Iberia.“Other teams will wait until the technology is ready to buy it. We prefer to be involved in building it.”
— Albert Mundet, General Manager of the Barça Innovation Hub.
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