Category: Fitness

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Connected Objects Fitness

Stealth core trainer makes your gut incognito

As annoying as it might be to hear, simply doing exercise isn’t enough. It’s also necessary to introduce variety into exercise routines, or else long-term physical change will be hard to achieve. Generally speaking, doing so is difficult but can be done. Effectively targeting the 29 different core muscles and keeping them on their toes, though, is a different challenge altogether. This is exactly what makes Stealth so appealing.

Stealth offers users a quick and effective core workout in under three minutes. They simply need to download the Stealth app on their smartphone, place it inside the Stealth, choose their workout, get into the plank position, and exercise their core. The game itself challenges users to follow and destroy different colored circles by bending, twisting and angling themselves in different directions — a ruse to distract them from the pain they’ll definitely be feeling.

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Connected Objects Fitness

The Peloton stationery bike lets you compete globally, costs more than airfare

These days, simply having a spinning machine at home isn’t enough unless whoever’s riding it has the type of motivation needed to really see results. For everyone else, group classes at the local spinning club is the way to go, but the time needed to get there and back can sometimes be hard to find.

With the Peloton Bike, riders don’t need to leave their own home. The compact, carbon steel-framed home bike features a full HD touchscreen that streams challenging live and on-demand spinning classes. Beginners and advanced users alike will find exactly the classes they need throughout the week using the class scheduling feature. And with built-in sensors to monitor everything from heart rate to cadence, reviewing past performance and setting future goals are easy to do.

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Fitness

The Specter brightens up your nighttime runs, one flailing arm at a time

With the rising popularity of nighttime exercises comes a higher rate of accidents. Despite this, many choose not to wear safety gear because they tend to be aesthetically offensive. Therefore, the team at Niports Inc. created the Specter.

The Specter is a lightweight aluminum band studded with LEDs that displays images and messages that can be selected or created using the companion Specter app, perfect for keeping active types visible at night. But the LEDs don’t just display the message themselves. Rather, when the band is moved, it creates a streak of light that forms the image or message using the eye’s penchant for stringing together images — similar to how it does with frames in a movie.

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Fitness Kids/Babies Smartwatches/Bands

Kids hooked on Owl fitness system get wise to healthier habits

Childhood obesity is a problem that continues to grow in the United States: over the past 30 years alone, the rate of obese children and adolescents has more than doubled, which means that almost one-third of them are obese. One of the best ways to combat obesity is a healthy lifestyle that includes physical exercise, something most don’t get as more spend longer playing mobile games. OWL LLC wants to gamify the development of positive exercise habits and make them easier to engage with its Owl Fitness Tracker.

The Owl iOS app essentially replicates the nostalgia-laden experiencing of caring for a Tamogatchi or a Pokémon Pikachu with the Owl fitness tracker acting as a pedometer. The more a user walks, the more points can be earned to grow the Owl,  buy food to keep it happy, and accessorize it for fun.

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Fitness Wearables

SenseON exercise monitor sticks by your side for better data

The glut of fitness trackers on the market and being peddled on various crowdfunding websites either wrap around the wrist or chest. Unfortunately, bands need to be very still to be effective; chest strap monitors are more accurate but they can chafe, retain odor, need battery replacements, and can be simply uncomfortable.

The team at CardioCycle is looking to fund its solution: the SenseON. The heart rate/breathing monitor attaches to the torso rather than the wrist or the chest for greater accuracy and claims of clinical accuracy. The .4 ounce SenseON is made of silicon and as such is flexible enough to flex with a body’s movements, important so that the three electrodes it has always maintain contact.

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Fitness Music Wearables

Turn your Motion to Music and break a real sweat

The reasons why games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Dance Dance Revolution were so popular was because of how they rewarded real-life movement and coordination in a satisfying way. Ultimately, it made for an incredibly addicting gameplay experience. Unfortunately, being talented in these games doesn’t mean anything in the real world, the most common criticism they receive. And while these games are incredibly fun, that criticism is kind of valid.

Judging by his product, it seems like Matteo Ercolano was once bitten and burned by his love for these type of rhythmic gaming experiences. Instead of moving on, though, he sought to combine that gameplay with a real benefit. Settling on exercise, he created Motion to Music. Its Bluetooth-equipped wrist/arm/ankle band works together with a mobile iOS/Android app to match body gestures to the on-screen prompts given. And like the aforementioned rhythm games, the better someone does, the higher their score and happier their fans; poor performances garner jeers and boos instead.

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Connected Objects Fitness

Get moving anywhere with the Move It connected exercise system

For most, one of the biggest roadblocks to developing a consistent exercise routine is simply finding a place to get sweaty. While a gym is an obvious answer, they can be crowded and/or expensive. Some choose to go at it at home instead, but that can quickly become limiting due to a lack of space.

The Move It portable, modular exercise system is designed to be a connected gym anywhere it is. It’s portable because it weighs a little under seven pounds and modular because its sturdy, sensor-equipped handles fit into each of the Move It’s four exercise tools: an ab wheel, a jump rope, push-up stand and resistance band. No matter the exercise, the product’s capacitive touch handles feature a six-axis gyroscope, an accelerometer and infrared elements for proper alignment along with pressure and tension sensors, all to accurately distinguish different exercises and coach users through their routine and ensure proper form.

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Connected Objects Fitness

LiftUp gives strength training a lift

Strength training is healthy, but it’s often time-consuming and typically requires people to join a gym, which can be costly and also inconvenient.

LiftUp is a smart home strength training product that uses connected resistance bands. It automatically tracks workouts and analyzes progress made on fitness goals. Users just select a workout and attach one or more resistance bands to work out. LiftUp comes with multiple, interchangeable band strengths. The resistance bands can be used to replicate any movement done with dumbbells, barbells and weight machines.

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Connected Objects Fitness

The FORM Lifting smart device ensures you grit for those gains

For those fanatical about weightlifting, it’s a good time to be alive. Choice abounds: programs like CrossFit give people the space to safely practice, compete and see results among peers while those looking to save cash can brush up on the fundamentals of lifting or learn more of its advanced points with a few searches on YouTube.

No matter which camp someone might find themselves, one difficulty when training is generating metrics that can help improve future performance. Scott Mahr’s FORM Lifting system looks to help in this regard.

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Fitness Imaging Wearables

R2D3 records your workout in data and video, but not at the same time

Sorry, Star Wars fans. The R2D3 combination fitness band and sports camera won’t bleep and bloop its way into a user’s heart, but it will edit the most intense moments of their workout routines or adventures into social media-ready chunks based on algorithmically-backed presets. In a crowded field of increasingly uninspiring smart bands, the R2D3 succeeds in at least offering something different.

This hybrid sports all the expected features of a useful fitness band: step, distance, and calories counters along with a heart rate monitor. These sensors join a 1080p HD camera that shoots 30fps and an 8MP camera sensor with 120° field of view to do its best GoPro impression. And like the GoPro, the R2D3 can be attached to many parts of the body or equipment like the wrist, ankle, a book bag, or even a drone. It boasts a 72-hour battery life, with just 1.5 of those hours capable of taking video.

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