Goji Play: Gamify Your Halloween Calories Off!

Into the Dead zombie game (above) is another spooky game Goji Play has partnered with in time for Halloween.

I first wrote about Goji Play last December, and since then they have more than tripled the number of games linked to the platform. The device and fitness wearable attaches to any cardio machine to track workout metrics. The data relays back to a tablet or phone, which can be sync’d to any one of Goji’s games. The faster you move, the better you play in the game.

For those of you indulging in a couple pieces of Halloween chocolate, note how many calories these fun sizes can add up to! Here are the number of games (and minutes of cardio) it takes to burn off some of the top Halloween candies:

Goji Play comes with wireless controllers and a clip on activity sensor. Compatible games are available on any iOS device. At less than $100, Goji Play transforms any piece of cardio equipment into a gaming machine. Available at bluegoji.com or Amazon.com today.

Pavlok: Change Habits and Train Behavior Through Electric Shock

Pavlok is a resolutions focused wristband that aims to change habits and train behavior through electric shock. Yes, the wristband sends a shock every time you miss a deadline, goal, or habit. The shock is noticeable – like a static shock on a cold, dry, winter day – but not enough to hurt you. The device can deliver around 200 shocks a day, which the company claims for a typical user will last 4 days on a full charge. 50 shocks a day! The founding team researched that it takes between 30-60 days to break most bad habits and create better ones – so after a couple months of continuous wear, you should be well along your way to a more accountable you.

For those who prefer not to be shocked so often (I would certainly be the one yelling ‘ouch!’ on the bus), beeping, vibrating, monetary penalties, and posting on your social network are other conditioning motivators. Pavlok is great for aspirational habits like waking up on time, going to the gym regularly, quitting smoking, and conquering time wasting distractions. The app monitors your goals and gives you real-time progress reports.

The Indiegogo campaign is halfway through, so if willing yourself to hit the gym via calendar reminders isn’t working, Pavlok might help.

Best in Healthcare For 2013

2013 was a great year for consumer healthcare technology. This year, 95 million Americans have used mobile phones as health tools or as search devices to find healthcare information, paving the way for a more connected and health conscious 2014.

To continue with my annual Year in Review, I present some of my favorite companies and posts in 2013.

A big thank you to my readers for your support, ideas and input.

-Alexis

Best New Entrants into Wearables:

• Misfit Wearables — Self-tracking wearable, incredibly elegant and striking
• Withings Pulse — Self-tracking wearable, Withings’ first entry into the physical activity tracker space
• Goji Play — Self-tracking indoor cardio wearable, transforms any cardio machine into an interactive gaming workout
• OnTheGo Platforms — Smart glass app development platform that focuses on exercise apps and more
• Updated versions of the Jawbone UP, Fitbit Force and Nike+ FuelBand SE

Best Smart Fabric Concepts:

• Athos — Athletic apparel made with smart fabric and sensors to measure every muscle exertion, heartbeat, and breath
• OMsignal  — Embedded sensors in the apparel monitor your heart rate, breathing, and activity

 Best Fitness Apps:

• RunKeeper — GPS app to track outdoor fitness activities
• Moves — GPS app to track daily activity continuously, shown on a timeline
• Charity Miles — GPS app that tracks and lets you earn money for charity when you walk, run, or bike

 Best Personalized Coaching:

• Sessions — Simple, individual, and thoughtful fitness program to help you get healthy
• Wello — Online workouts with a Certified Personal Trainer in real-time on your mobile device over live video

A New Twist to Common Items:

• HAPIfork — An electronic fork that monitors eating habits and alerts you when you eat too fast
• Beam Technologies — A smart toothbrush that monitors oral hygiene and reports habits to a smart app
• Withings Blood Pressure Monitor — Measures, calculates and tracks changes in blood pressure on graphs

Best Up and Coming:

• PUSH — Tracks and analyzes performance at the gym; measures power, force and balance
• Emotiv Insight — Multi-channel, wireless headset that monitors brain activity to optimize brain fitness and measures cognitive health and well-being
• Scanadu Scout — Medical tricorder to measure, analyze and track vitals
• MC10 — Stretchable electronics that conform to the shape of the body to measure and track vitals

Best for Healthcare Providers:

• Pristine — Develops Glass apps to help hospitals deliver safer, more coordinated, more cost effective care
• Informedika — Marketplace for electronic test ordering and results exchange between healthcare providers
• IntelligentM — Data-driven hand hygiene compliance solutions for hospitals to dramatically reduce healthcare-acquired infections

Goji Play Launches: Tops the List of Must Have Fun Fitness Tech

I met with Kai Huang, co-founder and CEO of Blue Goji, and Zach Fountain, COO in a SOMA gym to test out Goji Play, a fusion of hardware and software that turns any cardio fitness machine into an interactive and engaging workout experience. How engaging? After the interview I tried Goji Play at home for thirty minutes and it really did feel like I had only been working out for five – it was totally and utterly immersive. Kai and his team are pros at making games active and social – he co-founded and invented Guitar Hero almost a decade ago.

The device setup is simple. I downloaded the Goji Play App as well as some games while giving the wearable activity sensor a quick charge. I clipped the sensor onto my shirt, but it also fit comfortably in my pocket or on my shoe. Setting up the wireless game controllers meant hitting all the buttons to sync them to the iPad app, which took several seconds.

The controllers are intuitive to use and designed for comfort. They can be fitted on any cardio machine or fixed onto hand batons (great for treadmill workouts). After a few minutes of using the buttons and commands they became second nature and I could focus my attention on exerting more energy into my cardio activity. I downloaded several games including a boxing game, a fast moving game (reminiscent of Mario Cart), and a block matching game similar to Tetris. Twenty minutes on one game felt like two minutes – I was so immersed that time passed quickly and before I knew it I had drummed up a sweat.

From Guitar Hero, Kai witnessed how fun games can inspire people – friends and families – to be more active and social.

How did you make the leap from pure gaming (Guitar Hero) to health and fitness?

KH: “We wanted to take the immersive experience of gaming and use it to inspire people to get active. The power of games is that they get people to engage in an activity in such a way that you often don’t realize how much time has passed because you’ve been so involved. While you are doing this, we are tracking your fitness goals, steps, distance, etc. and truly making this a fitness product.”

How has Guitar Hero influenced the design and hardware of Goji Play, if at all?

KH: “We’ve designed the Goji Play for comfort – we want you to use it on any wireless device and any cardio device in the gym. The hardware is designed to be simple and easy to use – something that everyone feels comfortable using.”

ZF: “On the software side, we area focused on making games that are deep, engaging, immersive experiences. Additional games and apps are in development and will be released on a regular basis.”

Who is your target market?

KH: “Anyone who uses an exercise machine. We have a broad audience from people who have invested in exercise equipment at home to anyone with access to a gym. “

What is the broader vision and mission of Blue Goji?

KH: “We want people to lead healthier lives and we want to get people motivated. If we can take an activity and make it fun while helping you get healthy in the process then we’ve done well.”

ZF: “We want this to have an impact on the entire family and each member can create their own profile. There might be a primary purchaser but because we support multiple profiles and have a wide variety of games we envision the entire household getting value and having some collective fun in getting in shape and using the system together. Also, given that the New Year is around the corner, we think Goji Play can keep people on track with any fitness resolutions.”

KH: “We want people to remember that Goji Play is all about fun and letting you have fun. In the background it’s about pushing you to achieve your fitness goals – but if you have fun using Goji Play, then we’ve succeeded.”

Available online starting today for $99, Goji Play is compatible with the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, and can be used with most cardio equipment including treadmills, stationary and recumbent bicycles, and elliptical machines.

OnTheGo Platforms: Using Glass with the Ghost of Running Past

I always run faster in races. When I’m doing a training run, my thoughts tend to wander – I think about my to do list or run various scenarios through my mind. During a race, I spend most of my time thinking about how I should maneuver through a crowded group or how to most quickly pass the person in front of me. I also generally run faster during the second half of a running event, pushing for a negative split as some runners start to tire. But during training runs, I grow complacent, focus less on running, and my mind set is not on competition – it’s on finishing.

I could find a running partner – one who runs at my pace, doesn’t want to have a conversation while we run, and who can make him or herself available based on my schedule – or I can (soon) get a virtual running partner. OnTheGo Platforms is creating apps for smart glasses like Google Glass. Their showcase application, Ghost Runner, shows a ‘ghost’ (when you fall behind) that appears running in pace with your old time. Now you can ‘race’ with the old you – and with each progression, you push yourself to steadily run faster. This is a great start to glasses optimized running / fitness applications and a good proof of concept for Glass. I look forward to seeing more great ideas and apps from OnTheGo.

Ghost Runner Leader board from OnTheGo Platforms on Vimeo.

Nike+ Accelerator: 10 Companies Bringing Health and Fitness to a New Level

NIKE announced this week that they’ve chosen 10 companies to participate in its Nike+ Accelerator program, co-facilitated with startup accelerator, TechStars. Nike filtered through hundreds of applications to create the following list:

• FitDeck: Digital decks of exercise playing cards that deliver ever-changing workouts for fitness and sports.
• GoRecess: Helps users find, book and review fitness activities.
• Chroma.io: An indie game studio that creates virtual worlds tied to real-world activity.
• CoachBase: Provides a digital sports coaching platform.
• FitCause: Leverages fitness data as a means of raising money for charities.
• HighFive: Ad network for health and fitness apps that helps people achieve their goals by rewarding them along their journey.
• Sprout At Work: Provider of corporate wellness solutions leveraging social and gamification tools to inspire employees and empower employers.
• GeoPalz: An interactive gaming and rewards platform for kids and families.
• Incomparable Things: Creates activity-driven fantasy sports leagues.
• RecBob: Offers a platform that makes recreational sports easy by organizing play.

These companies will present their businesses at two investor Demo Days in June (one at the Nike World Headquarters and one in Silicon Valley) and I look forward to seeing their progress these next three months.

Interview: Brent Poole, Mindbloom Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Brent Poole is engaging on the phone – no wonder his company, Mindbloom, founded with co-founder Chris Hewett, has taken health engagement to a new level.

Before Mindbloom, Brent and Chris realized that they took the stresses and pressures created at work back home, leading to a decrease in quality of health and lifestyle. With Chris’s knowledge of behavioral sciences from his work with video games and Brent’s focus on finance and operations, the two created Mindbloom, which couples behavioral psychology with social gaming. In Brent’s words, “To really innovate in the healthcare space you need to take a perspective outside of healthcare. When you are talking customer engagement, you should look at gaming.” Last year the company partnered with Aetna to optimize the Mindbloom Life Game experience and released the program to all Aetna members.

Adding a level of personalization (users’ music and media), the Bloom* app helps people think more deeply and become more engaged in their health through focused motivation. “This isn’t about creating another experience for the Quantified Selfers – it’s about getting people who aren’t focused on their health outcomes to become more active by showing them that small decisions can create a healthier lifestyle,” explained Brent. The Bloom* app sends self-directed and preset inspirational reminders and notifications to your mobile device throughout the day, anything from a reminder to drink more water to a reminder to go for a walk. The app currently has 320k downloads.

 

Mindbloom also recently partnered with Vivacity, a workforce wellness company, to give their users access to various Mindbloom applications. The first of which is Juice, an app that tasks users to track their energy levels during the day based on levels such as sleep and exercise. The app creates awareness on how your behaviors change the way you feel. Launched November 20th, traction has been fantastic with 31k downloads to date with more than a third of users engaging with the app at least 7 days in a row.

What can we look forward to in 2013? The company is working on making all its existing applications cross-platform, not just on iOS. Also, Mindbloom has several apps in the ideation stage and two in production. We should see the first 2013 release in early spring, and another shortly thereafter. Brent wouldn’t release further details, but did say that they aligned with Bloom* and Juice, both linking positive psychology, personal efficacy, and behavioral health. We are certainly excited for what’s to come!

BitGym: Making Stationary Workouts More Interactive

I use the stationary bike in my living room three times a week while watching Homeland and Nashville, biking at a moderate pace. After using BitGym’s Fit Freeway for 10 minutes, in a retro-arcade-style land dodging cars and sharp turns, I’m totally in the zone. I don’t even notice that I’m pedaling like crazy until I’m off the saddle to catch my breath.

The concept of using head-tracking games to influence a more intense workout is an interesting concept. Perhaps the company will roll-out an iPad plug in – like a simple handheld one button detonator so I can shoot at dinosaurs or zombies while biking as fast as I can away from them.

For those who want a more calming application, Virtual Active takes you through beautiful locations throughout the world including Italy, the Grand Canyon, and US cities on a 10-60 minute tour while you are on your bike, elliptical or treadmill.